Nancy writes for The Guardian

[Theeyeballsinthefuckingsky]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/07/cancelling-lgbt-conference-government-conversion-practices-trans-people

It seems stonewall are responsible for the “conversation therapy = ECT” doing the rounds atm. I did wonder how all of a sudden that started being quoted everywhere. I assume sone kind of briefing had gone out

I would actually say that the church hasn’t been stonewalled. But (thankfully) it is increasingly less homophobic in many parts of the church - just the extreme end left. I am on the governing body of the c of e. The issue is trying to get that distinction out there re conversion therapy for trans being not conversion therapy but not yielding to immediate yes you must be the opposite gender without seeming homophobic. Because obv gay conversion therapy is horrific. I am doing my best to influence the right people and the stonewall agenda itself is resisted. It’s just that those who are not homophobic just don’t quite ‘get it’ re trans stuff yet unfortunately hence that awful letter. I will see what I can do re that.

How can the head of an organisation disseminate misinformation and disinformation in this way.

It's either that or she genuinely has no idea at all about what's involved and hasn't troubled herself to read up about it. I can't think that she's even attempting to conflate the US and UK on this point (as so often happens).

Is there no point at all at which Stonewall's Advisory Board (they have one) will start phoning/emailing her and asking for a near time conversation? They must ask for this embarrassment of an article to be withdrawn.

This is horrible untrue messaging for many reasons not least the demonisation of ECT which is an excellent treatment for life threatening severe depression.

When given for depression the patient is anaesthetised and doesn't know they are having a shock or a seizure. They do not experience anything unpleasant beyond having an anaesthetic.
ECT is 80% effective for severe psychotic depression which nothing else is. Arguably it's a lot less cruel than the drugs that would be the alternative or being left to suffer to the point of suicide.
People I have known who were treated with ECT often ask for it again in subsequent episodes as it is so effective and with modern methods side effects are few.
Most people who have it consent very willingly to have it. In the very few cases where someone does not they would be catatonic or psychotic and unable to give valid consent, it would be done to save life and an independent second opinion would be required by law. There are massive safeguards in the MHA law to protect against misuse of ECT already.

The 'electric shock' aversion therapy the TAs are taking about has nothing at all to do with ECT and is not a recognised treatment that would ever ever be used by any licensed practitioner in the U.K.
There is obviously no need for a law against it as it is not legal now anyway.

Bringing ECT into this is abhorrent as it will put patients and their families off a life saving intervention

We’re often told on on this board that we need to get out and meet some trans people cause we’d find they aren’t that scary. I honestly think NK needs to get out and meet some gender critical people cause I think she’d find we’re not recommending what she says we are.

Bit difficult when she keeps cancelling from everything mind.

Many, many women and disabled people were treated with ECT in years gone by. In our lifetimes people with mild learning disabilities lived their whole lives inside mental hospitals.
Women who did not conform to society's, or their families, notions of how they should live their lives were incarcerated too. And received ECT. Nowadays these girls are put on medical pathway, playing with their endocrine system with untested drugs, and encouraged to mutilate their bodies.
This is just as horrifying as ECT. Its the opposite of kind.

@Thingybob

I may be wrong but I don't think electric shocks given historically as adversion therapy is the same thing as ECT.

The first is based on behavioural science. A reward or a punishment (in this case an electric shock) is used in an attempt to program an individual into behaving in a desired way

The second is a much used treatment for psychiatric conditions that passes an electric through the brain to trigger a seizure.

Yes, ECT is entirely different to shock treatment as aversion therapy - I did RMN training 76-79 when psychiatry/psychology was based in large asylums. I assisted in the use of ECT mostly for voluntary patients, but not always and indeed, this was the main reason I left the profession after training. In many cases a course of ECT could dramatically change the patients mood, however in most cases my personal observation it resulted in a flattening of mood and confused memories. Given no one knows how ECT does this, my conscience couldn't countenance doing this to anyone by force.

@NecessaryScene

So they could be saying great news about the gay conversion

Well, they could, but it's all made up. There is no actual "conversion therapy" happening of any type in 2022, so there's no point in a "partial victory".

The only real purpose of this bill is to try to force affirmation of trans identies in normal therapy. Digging into the reason for trans identification in conventional treatment is the thing that is actually happening, and so that's the only thing that could possibly be hit by the bill. Not the imaginary "conversion therapy".

It's like having an "anti-unicorn" bill. The only thing that could possibly be hit by it are horses mis-identified as hornless unicorns...

I loved one particularly brainless Twitter response to stuff about not going ahead with the conversion therapy ban. "Oh my god, I can't believe this is still happening in 2022! Of course it should be banned."

Presumably these same braniacs would respond to a proposed anti-unicorn bill being canned with "Oh my god, I can't believe there are unicorns wandering around! They should be stopped!".

ECT is interesting - it was initially seen as a magical way to cure many patients. I suspect families were told their relatives would commit suicide if they didn't have it.
Better a child undergo ECT than a dead child. But when it was properly assessed it was found in most cases to cause harm. It only helped in a small number of cases where other therapies failed. It shows the vital importance of evidence based treatment.

I wonder if there might be any parallels that can be drawn here with children with gender dysphoria??

To be even more off topic, I’d like to point out that the 1970s are only, like, about 20 years ago thank you very much shut up! 😂

@CovoidOfAllHumanity

This is horrible untrue messaging for many reasons not least the demonisation of ECT which is an excellent treatment for life threatening severe depression.

When given for depression the patient is anaesthetised and doesn't know they are having a shock or a seizure. They do not experience anything unpleasant beyond having an anaesthetic.
ECT is 80% effective for severe psychotic depression which nothing else is. Arguably it's a lot less cruel than the drugs that would be the alternative or being left to suffer to the point of suicide.
People I have known who were treated with ECT often ask for it again in subsequent episodes as it is so effective and with modern methods side effects are few.
Most people who have it consent very willingly to have it. In the very few cases where someone does not they would be catatonic or psychotic and unable to give valid consent, it would be done to save life and an independent second opinion would be required by law. There are massive safeguards in the MHA law to protect against misuse of ECT already.

The 'electric shock' aversion therapy the TAs are taking about has nothing at all to do with ECT and is not a recognised treatment that would ever ever be used by any licensed practitioner in the U.K.
There is obviously no need for a law against it as it is not legal now anyway.

Bringing ECT into this is abhorrent as it will put patients and their families off a life saving intervention

@CovoidOfAllHumanity Yes, absolutely. I wish your excellent explanation was in the Guardian to counteract the very misleading scaremongering.

Can anyone remember conversion therapy being such a massive headline, all or nothing, demo in the streets issue for Stonewall and their equivalents in other white majority Western countries when the main victims of it were homosexual people from what are in the UK, minority religious cultures? No, me neither. Coincidentally, women (and men) from those cultures are also now given nowhere to go, literally, by Stonewall and co's mixed sex toilets, changing rooms, hospitals, sports sessions and the like policy push.

In 2021, the board of Pride in London resigned after allegations that the organisation had a hostile environment for volunteers of colour. And this week we see Britain's LGBTQ organisations forcing the cancellation of a conference about global LGBTQ+ people's safety, 'safe to be me', because they want to prioritise medically transitioning children here over executions, beatings and imprisonments in other countries.

@OvaHere

Thank you! That's fantastic.

Yep, it's just like that, isn't it?

@Signalbox

Trans people were being “treated” with electroshock therapy on the NHS well into the 1970s.

So 50 years ago. Not now.

A mate of mine was treated with ECT for manic depression in the 70s. How is this relevant. She is getting a bit desperate.

I wish someone, in a live radio interview, would play Nancy Kelley that interview with Kai Shappley's mother, the one where she says how horrified she was at the prospect Kai might be gay and how she prayed and beat her young child, and then researched transitioning, and did it. And then ask Kelley what she thinks was going on there?

Let me get this right - ect for actual mental disorders is bad and obviously brutal and wrong, chopping off body parts because you've been told they are wrong is amazing, affirming and a way to show your true authentic self?

Nah.

@zanahoria

The Government probably knew Stonewall's boycott was coming and made the calculation that they do not need them any more.

For sure. I think the govt have looked at the numbers, seen which way the wind's blowing ('I agree with Boris' thread yesterday was on 93%, iirc) and decided that rainbow tantrums, overblown threats and flounces aren't actually going to lose them any many votes.

They've saved £5million on that cancelled gravy train conference alone. It's all win-win. And Labour look like utter disingenuous, incompetent fools.

The only conversion therapy I'm worried about is the conversion of young lesbians into transboys.

Barbaric in this day and age, and that doesn't even include the dangerous medication and surgical mutilation.

What choice did the government have over the boycott? Giving in would make them look weak, would be agreeing to bad law because of a bully. It would lay them open to further blackmail as they got closer to the conference. They had to cancel.

My mil was treated with ECT for her mental illness in the 70's. Didn't help much.

This has nothing to do with current trans issues though.

Does Tom know how babies are made?

[quote NecessaryScene]@OvaHere

Thank you! That's fantastic.

Yep, it's just like that, isn't it?[/quote]
I only realised from reading the comment section that the skit was based on a real life incident - a Leprechaun sighting in Alabama!

www.huffpost.com/entry/key-peele-pegasus-sighting-video_n_1291435

@Lovelyricepudding

Does Tom know how babies are made?

Sorry wrong thread

My response to this thread title is: of course she does.

Currently a lot of young LGB people are going through a much worse form of conversion therapy than ECT, they are having their bodies pumped full of synthetic hormones and having body parts removed.

As @CovoidOfAllHumanity has already described, I don't think they realise how or why ECT is currently used. My mother saw it administered during her own nurse training many years ago and was aghast when I talked about seeing it at work, mostly because when she saw it being done it was pre-anaesthesia . ECT is only ever given as a last resort treatment. It is never given without patient consent unless the patient is so unwell they don't have capacity to consent and it is deemed in their best interests. Even then, I only see it used when a) all other treatments have been proven insufficient and b) there is a realistic risk of actual harm in the absence of treatment.
It was over-used historically but anecdotally I've seen it do amazing things, particularly in treatment resistant depression (esp in the elderly), psychotic depression and treatment resistant postnatal illnesses.