In Australia - Childhood conversion therapy and now living as a transwoman

[TheSandgroper]

To be shown on our premier news programme this evening

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-06/conversion-therapy-trans-paper-pushed-decades-later/105850280

www.mja.com.au/journal/2025/223/7/autoethnographic-critique-past-report-inpatient-psychiatric-treatment-gender

I am not one to wish unhappiness on anyone but, dear God, the mental contortions his wife must put herself through.

What a horrific story ! That poor child.

It is good to highlight how horrific this treatment was. However, I cannot see it as being relevant to the exploratory therapy treatments that are being wrongly categorised as conversion therapy these days. It is replay important that this story gets out, but not then used to support affirming only treatment. That would be a clumsy misuse of these cases.

Awful 1970s study, fancy taking a child away from its parents and institutionalising

I am not one to wish unhappiness on anyone but, dear God, the mental contortions his wife must put herself through.

And what about their children? It say he transitioned 22 years after the hospital admission, so would have been in his early 30s when their children must have been quite young. It seems he went off to discover his inner woman while his wife was left to bring up their children alone.

Yes, putting a child in an institution like this is hardly comparable to letting them wear what they want, choose their own toys and friends but explaining to them that changing sex isn't possible.

The institution stuff is terrible but I suspect not that unusual back then. Women were only just starting to be allowed to open their own bank account, to receive a single parent payment after divorce and things like that.

I don’t know if this story is going to be helpful or harmful to transgender issues in children here. It’s going to depend on how 7:30 presents it.

It should be available for online viewing in a few hours on ABC iview. The show airs in two and half hours. No, wait, it’s daylight saving down south isn’t it? One and a half hours for those who like to go outside in the daylight heat of spring and summer while those of us up here wait for the sun to set so the heat might decrease a bit before we consider leaving air conditioning and fans.

@FeralWoman or over t‘borders. It’s a right dogs breakfast of zones and all before we wake up here.

I missed this when it first came out and haven’t listened to it now but some may like to

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/kaya-wilson-tsunami-scientist-family-history-transition-rpt/105809394

@TheSandgroper You’re west aren’t you? Do they do DLS over there? So we go from three time zones to four across the country. We’ve learnt to always clarify online or phone appointments as Sydney/Melbourne time or Brisbane time.

Searching up Anja Ravine shows she also co published today www.mja.com.au/journal/2025/223/7/cass-review-does-not-guide-care-trans-young-people

Anja Ravine is a trans identifying male.

@FeralWoman nope.

Thanks heaps. I did wonder, looking at the teeth.

No wonder I was getting confused about which was the trans woman. It’s both. The patient is clearly very tall but then is slightly shorter than the researcher so maybe the researcher is an unusually tall woman. Now it makes sense.

There’s so much wrong with this article. It’s such shoddy journalism.

Firstly, inpatient care of children with mental health conditions is still a thing. There are many inpatient units around the world.

Second, neither the subject of the article, nor the journalist has confirmed if he was actually one of the subjects in the paper. It’s just assumed because of similarities. Despite this glaring possibility of error, the article was published anyway.

It’s also based on recollection of events from someone who was 10, 50 years ago. No verification of events has been done.

It also says the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists guidelines rely “heavily” on the paper in question. So I looked them up.

https://napp.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Managing-Gender-Dysphoria-in-Young-People-–-The-NAPP-Guide-17thAug22.pdf

The paper in question is just one reference of many in guidelines that describe exploring a child’s identity without pressure, not remotely anything to do with “conversion therapy” at all and the guideline in no way “relies heavily” on that paper.

The paper very clearly delineates what its intentions are.

Psychotherapy for gender dysphoria in children and adolescents is a respectful, supportive and exploratory process that does not seek any particular outcome in relation to gender identity or sexual orientation. It seeks to understand the nature and meaning of the young person’s gender distress and the context in which it has arisen. Psychotherapy addresses the multiple factors that contribute to the young person’s difficulties, helping to address issues that resolve distress and support ongoing development and maturation. Conversion therapies, on the other hand, aim to achieve a pre-determined outcome, such as gender normativity or heterosexual orientation. Psychotherapy for gender dysphoria must NOT be conflated with conversion therapies.

It’s a hit job article. It’s basically trying to say something that possibly happened to someone 50 years ago that sounds plausible but hasn’t been verified is being encouraged to happen again, when it blatantly isn’t when you read the document itself.

And the reporter https://www.abc.net.au/news/mon-schafter/6019356

@NotBadConsidering and @TheSandgroper Thank you for looking those things up. It definitely won’t be an unbiased report by the they/she reporter.

I think it’s advertising, is what it is, which isn’t allowed on the ABC. Publish something, write a press release, send it to your pet journalist and get your publicity.

So the answer for a victim of gay conversion therapy is to trans away the gay.

And this is supposed to be a moralistic story where everyone lives happily ever after and we should a) aspire to b) as women suck it up using a guilt trip story.

Slow handclap Australia.

You know this is like Iran but with social media and pr spin. Well Done on your 'progressiveness'.

This is the original 1987 paper.

Gender‐disordered children: does inpatient treatment help? - Kosky - 1987 - Medical Journal of Australia - Wiley Online Library

It's behind a paywall, and this is the only version I could find to read the whole thing without a subscription.

Gender-Disordered-Children-does-inpatient-treatment-help-Robert-J.-Kosky.pdf

It's a scribbled-on copy which someone has scanned and uploaded, but it is readable.

The 'treatment' does seem to have been driven by homophobia. It mentions that previous treatments of similar children had been 'unsuccessful', with 40% growing up to be gay.

I would not be betting against it being used as leverage to support affirming only. I also would be surprised if it was a well balanced piece.

Link to the segment. You’ll need to create an ABC account to watch if you don’t have one. Available to view for one month.

https://iview.abc.net.au/video/SEGS2025105859724

I haven’t watched it yet. I was watching Celeb Amazing Race.

Valerie the dachshund was the subject of Australian Story tonight, for something lighter. She’s the sausage dog who was lost on Kangaroo Island for about 2 years.

https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2502Q033S00

Sadly, I don't think I can watch it from here. Australia has some of the strongest security walls around media that I have come across. But that has often been the way because it was usually the test country for such tech.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.5694/mja2.70035

This may also be of interest. Published today it seems and Ravine is a contributor. It’s titled ‘Cass Review does not guide care for trans young people’.

Really? That’s stupid. It’s news, not state secrets. It might turn up on their YouTube channel. There’s also Facebook.

https://youtube.com/@abcnewsindepth?si=7apnNe6SG68ePX74

That is heartbreaking. But I do wish that children who 'identify' as the wrong gender were given the exact opposite type of therapy. Want to sit down to pee? Fine. Want to play with girls? Fine. Like pink and fairy-dolls and want to wear floral skirts? Fine. Interested in becoming a beautician? A nursery nurse? Hobbies are sewing clothes and baking cakes? Fine. All fine. You are a boy who likes those things and you are allowed to. You may be unusual but being unusual is fine and does harm to no one. It should be allowed and I will campaign until I am dead for your right to be unusual and not subjected to bullying or criticism for it. Men come in all different shapes, sizes and with all sorts of tastes and interests. And that is FINE. Embrace and express the kind of man you are with our full support.

Same for girls who like cropped hair, fatigues, shorts and tees, who are interested in car mechanics, carpentry, engineering etc etc.

There is nothing wrong with being someone who is different from the norm. But you cannot change sex. And people shouldn't be bullied into pretending you have or can.