Urging change of gender to be criminalised - The Times article

[ShrillSiren]

I've just seen this article in The Times come up on Twitter.

Does anyone have a share token as this looks like huge news.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/urging-change-gender-criminalised-trans-rights-lgbtq-0vw7trcj2

I'm especially concerned about the numbers of those surveyed who describe trauma.

We’ve just got to hope that many experts in the field of “wait and watch” fill in the consultation!

I'm increasingly worried about this. From Sex Matters

The government code of practice on consultations says they should normally last for at least 12 weeks, with consideration given to longer timescaleswhere feasible and sensible. Under normal circumstances, consultations should last for a minimum of 12 weeks.

“Rushing this through after a six-week consultation is another attempt by these organisations to run rings around democracy. They must not be allowed to do this at the expense of the welfare of children.”

This looks suspicious to me - do they want to minimise GC responses. The TRAs will already be well informed about this and so prepared. And it's just before Xmas.

I'm going to need a lot of support to get the response right.

Wow, I'm so intrigued to see how this pans out. It seems like very welcome news indeed if we are able to protect children and young people from aggressive confirmation they are in the wrong body. Let's hope the incidence of unnecessary and damaging medical treatment is vastly reduced, and children can grow up accepting themselves as they are.

It's bad news to be talking about gender as if it's a thing when it's actually a social construct.

First they'll have to define gender and catagorise all 700 of them.

This is a non-starter I reckon.

I need guidance on the appropriate wording of my response to the consultation.

I'm so accustomed to writing on this issue within MN rules that I don't want to seem to support an ideology from which I actually dissent.

I can't see how this can possibly work. Conversion therapy for homosexuality / bisexuality can be defined because homosexuality can be defined.

However, afaik it isn't conversion therapy to try and stop a vegan being a vegan, or a Catholic a Catholic. I don't think conversion therapy applies to beliefs (?)

Obviously children being transed by homophobic parents will be impacted by this, but I don't see how (or even if it should) impact children who identify as trans.

Medical transition should be prevented by strict guidelines (which I'd hope already exist) on giving physically healthy children unproven and experimental treatments with known extremely adverse side effects.

Social transition should be stopped by schools and social workers as it is very unlikely to be in the best interests of the children in the long run.

Mermaids et al should be stopped because they are pushing both medical and social transition, for the reasons above.

In most cases I'm not sure that conversion therapy is actually relevant? The problem is that everyone (Inc the government) is treating gender identity as if it is a tangible thing that can be positively identified as opposed to a nebulous internally inconsistent belief system.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

I need guidance on the appropriate wording of my response to the consultation.

I'm so accustomed to writing on this issue within MN rules that I don't want to seem to support an ideology from which I actually dissent.

Dito

One of the dangers here is that the phrase 'Conversion Therapy' is associated with some extreme, sometimes physical and often religious approaches to homosexuality which attempted to convert gay people and make them straight. It is undeniable that these are unacceptable.

The trans narrative is that this is anything other than affirmation and being placed on the trans-hormone pathway, amounts to Conversion Therapy.

(which is not what one might assume, that putting someone on a pathway to lifelong hormones and surgery is in fact converting them from one sex to another... )

Previous discussions on here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4241685-Public-consultation-on-conversion-therapy

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4245312-Jancie-Turner-on-Banning-Conversion-Therapy

Has the Baroness chimed in yet?

I'm going to need a lot of support to get the response right.

Me too.

@Fifthtimelucky

The consultation document is now live on gov.uk. Sorry. I don't know how to do links from my phone, so I can't include a link, but it includes this, in the introduction

'Our proposals are universal and protect everyone, whatever their sexual orientation and whether they are transgender or not. An attempt to change a person from being attracted to the same-sex to being attracted to the opposite-sex will be treated in the same way as the reverse scenario. This is also the case should a person try to change another from being transgender or to being transgender. It is important that a person experiencing gender dysphoria is able to openly explore what works for them without feeling pressured into any particular outcome. The government is determined to ensure that no person is put on a clinical pathway that is not right for them, and that young people are supported in exploring their identity without being encouraged towards one particular path. Forcing or coercing a person into this position would be considered conversion therapy.'

Yes, this is how I understood the Times report.

Government wants to make activist material illegal. This goes from "Is your child transgender?" material from groups and charities through to any affirming behaviour on reddit.

However, it has to apply the opposite way for the law to adhere to equalities. So it also covers material that seeks to influence people to think they are not transgender.

Only the medical profession will be able to with with these issues, and they won't be able to do it for minors.

So these proposals would outlaw the gingerbread man, for example.

Only the medical profession will be able to with with these issues, and they won't be able to do it for minors.

My difficulty with this is that it feels like the affirmation model. If a young person adopts an ideology and tells you this is a reality for them, it's unclear to me that an HCP will be supported to explore the totality of the young person's life and what underlies this. There is, of course, no ban on friends who coach young people on what to say to obtain a preferred model of treatment. tbh, there is no reasonable way around to resolve 'friends' even where these are adults or people overstepping boundaries as non-credentialled counsellors or TAs.

But the medical profession uses therapists to help work with under 18s referred to GIDs?

https://twitter.com/mermaids_gender/status/1454039026663624704?s=21

From mermaids

"For anyone worrying about a certain article from today - we have had reassurance from government officials that government policy is not designed to specifically target our work, nor any organisation that supports trans people"

And a response below their thread:

"Thank goodness! I have used your advice line as a teacher supporting trans students and you sent further resources by email.
An extremely important and valuable organisation. There was nowhere else I could have got this professional support.
Thank you."

"For anyone worrying about a certain article from today - we have had reassurance from government officials that government policy is not designed to specifically target our work, nor any organisation that supports trans people"

Is this more lobbying that has been conducted out of public sight or do we not place much confidence in such claims?

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

"For anyone worrying about a certain article from today - we have had reassurance from government officials that government policy is not designed to specifically target our work, nor any organisation that supports trans people"

Is this more lobbying that has been conducted out of public sight or do we not place much confidence in such claims?

I'm sure some "government officials" will have said that to Mermaids - especially given the capture of the civil service by this ideology. But I also suspect that briefings will also be happening with organisations concerned about the intrusion of Mermaids, Stonewall etc into schools with their complete lack of qualifications to advise on child psychology / development.

This is a mess that the government have walked into with their lack of due diligence in recommending these organisations as self identified experts to schools. They are now having to back away as the catastrophic impact on children's lives is being evidenced on a daily basis but without admitting their initial culpability.

I agree with the Sex Matters recommendations:

Sex Matters calls on the government to withdraw the flawed consultation and proposal, and to wait for the outcome of the Cass review of gender identity services for children and young people.

Parents, teachers, therapists, lesbian, gay and bisexual people, transsexuals, detransitioners and others with relevant experience and expertise should respond to the consultation and tell the government to “press pause”.

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/conversion-therapy/

@WarriorN

[[https://twitter.com/mermaids_gender/status/1454039026663624704?s=21]]

From mermaids

"For anyone worrying about a certain article from today - we have had reassurance from government officials that government policy is not designed to specifically target our work, nor any organisation that supports trans people"

And a response below their thread:

"Thank goodness! I have used your advice line as a teacher supporting trans students and you sent further resources by email.
An extremely important and valuable organisation. There was nowhere else I could have got this professional support.
Thank you."

There you have it: Mermaids want to stop child psychologists etc who prefer to explore why a 12 year old child suddenly hates their body. They want to soak a child’s head in gender woo woo and rush to affirm and medicalise.

It’s frightening.

I really feel for parents out there who’ve realised the cock n bull theories this charity has been dumping on children.

If you want a laugh, go listen to their creepy podcast aimed at school kids ‘she said they said’.
It’s like the Stepford Wives for children. Binders are brilliant, so are completely reversible (sic) puberty blockers, natural puberty is so frightening we must stop it etc etc.
Truth is, it’s Mermaids who carry out conversion therapy. It’s Mermaids who should be stopped

It’s Mermaids who should be stopped

Also, any society or charity that has colluded in forced teaming. NAS and Barnardos (today's Fabric of Life ) come to mind.

I see no evidence that the government institutions are backing away from tran ideology. Despite the department of education stating that only evidence based information be used in schools and no one should suggest people are born in the wrong bodies, schools continue to move ahead with teaching transgender ideology in schools.

@GCAcademic

Trans rights groups said that the proposals risked having a “chilling effect” on free speech.

Oh, the irony . . .

I think you have misread the Times article.

It is the gender-critical Stephanie Davies-Arai, director of Transgender Trend, not trans rights groups, who has said that the proposals risked having a “chilling effect” on free speech.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

I need guidance on the appropriate wording of my response to the consultation.

I'm so accustomed to writing on this issue within MN rules that I don't want to seem to support an ideology from which I actually dissent.

Yup! Me too!

I am fully aware that my SOP in this is wholly shaped by MNHQs T+Cs.

I need to rethink and reword myself, to say what I actually mean to say, rather than the acceptably anodyne version allowed here.

This just strikes me yet again how dangerous the conflation of LGB and T issues/rights is.

I think you have misread the Times article. Which isn't hard to do given how garbled it is!