Nancy Kelley's TEDx talk "Why the ban on conversion therapy must include trans people"

[MrsJamin]

"Conversion practices are still a reality for many in the LGBTQ+ community. In the UK, around 5% of LGBTQ+ people have been pushed to engage with a conversion practitioner with trans people twice as likely to be forced into or be harmed by conversion practices. Yet the proposed ban by the UK government on conversion practices will exclude trans people. This is despite widespread support from leading medical bodies, inclusive Faith leaders, the LGBTQ+ voluntary sector and the general public to legalise a ban on conversion practices that includes trans people. In this powerful talk, CEO of Stonewall, Nancy Kelley shares why we must include trans people within any conversion bans and why we must protect the human rights of trans people. Nancy’s background is in research, policy and campaigns across a wide range of social justice issues, including mental health, migration and poverty. She is currently the CEO of Stonewall, which campaigns for a world where all LGBTQ+ people are free to be themselves, and to live their lives to the full. Nancy is also an obsessive reader and mum to two boys, two dogs, two giant African land snails, six fish and one lizard. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx"

This will not date well.

Interesting that whoever wrote the description was keen to stress NK’s social justice credentials and position her current role as the latest in a long line of involvement in such issues.

I also think stressing her role as a mother with lots of pets, is trying to come across as an ‘ordinary, slightly harassed mum you might perhaps find on Mumsnet’, to preempt accusations of being pro sterilisation and mutilation of kids.

Not surprised she has lots of pets given she doesn’t believe in sex.

Ah, misread, she doesn’t have many yet.

But it’s all very ‘boys - slugs n snails and puppy dogs tails’ huh?

I started to watch it and right away my bullshit detector was pinging away. She starts by talking about aversion therapy of someone being shown pictures of women, whilst being electrically shocked, to cause them pain and humiliation. I can’t help thinking that her mate told her about his favourite wank fantasy and she took it as the gospel truth. Maybe I am too cynical…..

After starting with a premise like that, something that, if it ever happened, doesn’t happen now.

You know what, maybe Stonewall should campaign to stop trepanning too.

No, it'll be this story:

Trans conversion therapy survivor: 'I wanted to be cured so asked to be electrocuted'

It's the only one they've got and it happened in the 1960s.

When parents of trans kids say “I’d rather have a trans daughter than a gay son” - isn’t that conversion therapy?

OMG I can't believe people are getting electric shock aversion therapy to stop them wearing the wrong clothes!

Thankfully instead of associating 'femininity' with pain, disgust and humiliation these days we are more enlightened, and instead will offer young girls double mastectomies to allow them to avoid that humiliation and disgust of being female.

People are made to ingest toxic substances as part of religious rituals? Wow, that's awful. It should be illegal.

So it was bullshit then, he asked for it. Aversion therapy was only for illegal things wasn’t it? And the way she starts with how he was “strapped down” and “tortured” makes it sound like he didn’t ask for or consent to it.

Yes.

www.bps.org.uk/blog/aversion-therapy-1950s-and-1960s

It's such an odd video. I can't see anyone that shared it on social media, I just looked at Ted's YouTube channel and found it. Wouldn't Stonewall want to share this? Or are they starting to see that this kind of propaganda doesn't help them? After all, the opposite of so called trans conversion therapy, ie "gender affirmation" IS gay conversion therapy... Gay girls and boys saying they're trans are being affirmed as the opposite sex, and thus are converted from homosexuality. Can we just also mention that she says "LGBTQ children"... Wtf? Why are we talking about children having a sexuality?

It wasn't until 1974 that homosexuality was unclassified as a mental disorder. As I understood it, psychotherapy still required one to be 'cured' of homosexuality up until pretty recently before practising as a psychotherapist. I remember a psychiatrist friend telling me about it, quite sheepishly - must have been late 90s.

Yes, or children being 'queer'.

Plus, the "no debate" extends to Tedx talks... Comments are turned off but are available for most other ted talks.

There is no evidence that what we understand as conversion therapy is still happening in the UK. It never was a widespread practice here, but did happen in the past. I don't think there's any need to ban what we don't have anymore, but if it is banned I think that's a reasonable preventative measure against a harmful practice.

What we now have I believe is rare people who think there's a cure for homosexuality seeking it out for themselves. The only ones I'm aware of are inevitably linked to various religions. I don't know if that should be banned, but coercion within religious groups does happen, so it may be advisable.

As for people who identify as trans, everything presented as contemporary evidence so far points to a redefinition of normal diagnostic processes and normal safeguarding practices prior to undergoing medical treatment with serious lifelong consequences as conversion therapy.

To ban the latter would be disastrous. For obvious reasons.

Yes, we need to see far, far more detail of what exactly they mean by 'conversion therapy'. I'd like to see evidence of when this happens.

I'm also a bit wary that 'conversion therapy' could expand to just 'trying to change someone's mind' on various other issues. Is this legislation likely to affect other issues? Will any disagreement be allowed?

Is persuading a dangerously obese person to lose weight, or persuading someone with anorexia to eat, conversion therapy? Surely therapists are tasked with asking someone to change? So who decides who should change and what is acceptable to change to? Because, Nancy Kelley, we shouldn't be persuading children that they can be the opposite sex (no matter how they feel)- that to me should be seen as conversion therapy.

I can see that the job of therapy is not to 'persuade' anyone of anything. I would roughly say therapy is there to allow a person space and time to look at their inner self and address any issues - one could say the point is to enable someone to change, maybe?

What bothers me is the implication that there is one desirable outcome of that process, and undesirable outcomes. That risks suggesting a political or ideological force behind therapy, rather than one that is focussed on the patient recovering or improving. I guess one could argue that all therapies are grounded in some kind of ideology, one way or another - I'd have thought the aim was to be as aware as possible of these biases and try to maintain an open dialogue and not push a client/patient towards one outcome due to one's own prejudices?

So yes, I can see this law could be really tricky in that its presumably disallowing for mental shifts and changes (that one might address gender incongruence by shifting ideas about stereotypical behaviours, for example, or finding self acceptance for one's sexuality), and instead externalising problems. Seems especially disempowering.

What is Nancy Kelly's viewpoint on the conversion therapy that is practised in Iran?

In Iran gay men are converted into women and given sexual reassignment surgery.

Her problems with biology are bigger than I suspected given the range of species that she "is mum" of.