#gay conversation therapy

[feckcops]

Psychology Today’s conversion therapy problem

“In 1992, religiously-motivated conversion therapist Joseph Nicolosi founded the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. NARTH provided a ‘clinical’ hub for the ex-gay movement, and was a melting pot of pseudoscience ...

“In 2014, after realizing they’d fundamentally (eh, get it?) failed to convince the public that they were anything other than ardent homophobes, and that science had long since moved on to realized that being gay is not only non-pathological, but a natural part of human diversity, NARTH rebranded under the Association for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity. Like so much of the anti-LGBT, pronatalist far-right, ACTSI refocused on transgender people as part of a political strategy shift to ‘separating the T from LGBT’ ...

“One of the pivotal strategies during the early days of NARTH, was to focus on the specific language of ‘same-sex attraction’ ... Conversion Therapists wanted to inculcate the public with the idea that SSA was a test of one’s moral or religious convictions, but not a part of a person’s innate sexuality ...

"A cursory search of Google’s index of the site shows an alarmingly high rate of results for SSA ... [For mentions of] ‘sexual brokenness’, a term that comes from evangelical Christianity to describe having normal sexual feelings, you get 1,300 results, the overwhelming majority of which are in the United States. Among these results includes Joseph Nicolosi’s son. David Pickup, an LMFT who deals exclusively in the empirically disproven notion that ‘same sex attraction’ is the result of trauma and sexual abuse, is also listed on Psychology Today. Pickup has the distinction of being one of the more prolific purveyors of alleged ‘expert’ testimony on behalf of states like Florida and his home state of Texas. 

“Perhaps just as disturbingly, it is host to a range of ‘Gender Exploratory Therapists’ like Lisa Marchiano, the original author of ‘Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics’, an absolute nonsense paper which argues that the apparent rise in transgender youth is due to what Jungian psychoanalysts refer to as the ‘collective unconscious’ after too much LSD.”

#trans conversion therapy #gay conversation therapy #conversation therapy #therapy #therapists #psychology #psychologists #pseudoscience #christian evangelicals #christian fundamentalists #far right #conservatives #trans genocide #transphobia #transgender #trans #gender #gay #sexuality #usa

[misuser-of-the-speaking-weight]

these r the questions everyone is asking

#i’m in mourning bc of the finale so i’m rewatching some highlight episodes #this was Such an episode. conversion therapy escapes evil nuns murder coverups intense student body president campaigning lodge weirdness #truly had everything #also them going to gay kevin for gay conversion therapy escape advice is so funny to me. ofc he knows! we will miss u gay kevin #riverdale #veronica lodge #luna.words

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

The Tavistock performed gay conversion therapy in broad daylight, while undertaking medical experiments on kids with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/it-feels-like-conversion-therapy-for-gay-children-say-clinicians-pvsckdvq2

So many potentially gay children were being sent down the pathway to change gender, two of the clinicians said there was a dark joke among staff that “there would be no gay people left”.

“It feels like conversion therapy for gay children,” one male clinician said. “I frequently had cases where people started identifying as trans after months of horrendous bullying for being gay,” he told The Times.

Transing the gay away is what Iran does.

#Wesley Yang #Tavistock #Time to Think #Hannah Barnes #gender affirming care #gay conversion therapy #conversion therapy #autism #autism spectrum #queer theory #gender ideology #mental health issues #mental health #medical malpractice #medical corruption #medical scandal #trans the gay away #trans away the gay #religion is a mental illness

[crossdreamers]

The Norwegian parliament bans "conversion therapy" for LGBTQ people

"Conversion therapy is an unacceptable interference in people's sexual orientation and gender identity, which destroys lives. Now it will finally be banned," said Norwegian Culture and Equality Minister Anette Trettebergstuen this summer.

The ban affects "anyone who offends another by using psychotherapeutic, medical, alternative medicine or religiously based methods or similar systematic procedures, with the intention of influencing the person concerned to change, deny or suppress their sexual orientation or gender identity".

The ban also applies to Norwegian citizens offering such treatments outside Norway.

The Norwegian parliament, Stortinget, passed the ban on December 12, with 85 votes against 15.

Hilde Arntsen, leader of the Norweigan LGBTQ organization FRI, says:

"Today we celebrate that it is finally illegal to try to convert us. We as queers have always known this – we cannot be converted."

The Ministry of Culture and Equality has more.

Photo from FRI.

#transgender #trans #lgbt #lgbtqa #queer #nonbinary #gay #lesbian #bisexual #lgbtq #conversion therapy #politics

[teddykaczynski]

men are so goddamn fucking infuriating!!!!!!!!!!!! we were sharing examples of gender based discrimination in our own lives in sociology class and one guys example was how he works as a caregiver for children and people think hes a pedo when he takes the kids to the park. another was a GUY who is STUDYING to become a FUCKING MIDWIFE and he was saying how so many people dont want men to be in the field of midwivery and how thats oh so hard for him :( WOMEN DONT WANT YOU. DO SOMETHING ELSE

#of like 8 or so who shared only 2 were women and they both had actual examples. some of the men had actual examples but #none of them had an example that was. misogyny like one mentioned religious trad gender roles and the other said #his parents sent him to gay conversion therapy camp #i couldnt think of a good one to share myself or else i would have. should have just made something up thats a Real thing

[uncanny-tranny]

You know, it isn't the fact that conversion therapy is ineffective that makes it immoral. Even if it was somehow effective, it would still be immoral to punish and traumatize queer people into "being normal". Even if conversion therapy saw "successes", that wouldn't make it okay.

There have been so many progressives who seem to think that the only issue with conversion therapy is that it isn't effective. I've seen so many people say things like, "well if there were a cure for transness, of there were a cure for queerness, then people would take it!" and never mind the fact about conversion therapy is that it inherently robs people of their autonomy. Their single qualm about conversion therapy is that it is ineffective, not that it relies on traumatizing queer people and denying us agency and life.

Conversion therapy is not progressive. You can never make conversion therapy progressive.

#gay #lesbian #bi #bisexual #trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #conversion therapy #conversion therapy tw #just saw a 'progressive' claim that if there were a cure for gender dysphoria and transness people *should* and *would need to* take it #'IF conversion therapy worked there would be no issue' 🤨🤨 #i am so so so tired of conversion therapy apologists claiming to be on queer peoples' side

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eliel Cruz for Teen Vogue:

When I was a teenager in the early aughts, conversion therapists reigned supreme in evangelical Christian spaces, spewing pseudo-scientific techniques as a supposed “remedy” for LGBTQ identities. Growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist church and school system, LGBTQ identities were vilified and demonized at the pulpit and in our classrooms. The answer to our sexualities, according to the church, was to deny ourselves love or a partner, stay celibate, or to work on “changing” our sexuality so that we were no longer queer. There were groups and conferences with self-proclaimed “ex-gay” speakers providing testimonies about how they “overcame” their sexuality and therapists eager to “help” others pursue the same path.

According to a Williams Institute report, 7% of LGB adults ages 18 to 59 in the United States have undergone conversion therapy. About 81% of those individuals were in “therapy” with religious leaders, which heightened suicidal thoughts and ideation in comparison to LGB people who have not gone through conversion “therapy” practices. Across the globe, these numbers fluctuate between 2% all the way up to 34% of LGBTQ+ people having undergone conversion practices. By the mid-2010s, these groups and their influence began to dwindle as national organizations like Exodus International, one of the longest-running and largest ex-gay organizations, shuttered its doors after 37 years, admitting that not only did conversion or reparative therapy not work, it was harmful to the LGBTQ people subjected to it. Former Exodus International President Alan Chambers said: "I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn't change,” admitting his own attractions to men had not gone away, despite being married to a woman and having children.

The closing of Exodus International signaled the end of a decades-long push for ex-gay therapy, or so it would seem. But in recent years, as legislation has passed across the country to ban conversion therapy for youth, a new push for so-called “change therapy” has re-emerged with the same flawed premise and tactics of the ex-gays of old. A group called Changed Movement, formed in response to legislation banning conversion therapy in California, is one such group using new language to promote the same-old conversion therapy. Conversion or reparative therapy, loosely defined, is any attempt to influence and change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Often, these counselors blame trauma or violence, family dynamics, or your upbringing as the root of the deviant sexuality or gender identity. Changed Movement shares stories of individuals blaming these roots as the cause of their sexuality or gender. This assertion is false and only serves to shame the individual, often for reasons beyond their control. Importantly, ex-gay groups like the Changed Movement do not seem to reckon with the fluidity of sexuality and gender and, as proponents of this ideology typically do, seemingly view things as either gay or straight, trans or cisgender.

[...] In a report by the Trevor Project, researchers found at least 1,320 conversion therapy practitioners in almost all 50 states, including states with active conversion therapy bans for minors. Almost half of those counselors are unlicensed, and most are attached to some sort of religious ministry. While couching their language and pretending to be there to help LGBTQ people, the danger of these groups and practitioners cannot be understated.

Recently, an ex-gay group called Coming Out Ministries bought a building across from my alma mater, Andrews University, a Seventh-day Adventist University, intending to “work closely” with the university on LGBTQ issues “from a redemptive perspective.” Groups like Changed Movement and Coming Out Ministries see LGBTQ young people’s identities as “confusion” instead of who they are intrinsically. Their ideology stems from a theological understanding of sexuality that does not take into account science or the world as it exists around them. Anti-LGBTQ theology fuels conversion therapy, and it’s not only flawed but also inherently harmful and violent. As a queer person of faith, I reject theology and religious practices that cause harm, as it is not from God. The history and devastating impacts of ex-gay practices are clear in the irreparable damage it has caused to large swathes of the LGBTQ community raised in religious settings.

Eliel Cruz writes in Teen Vogue the changing history of anti-LGBTQ+/anti-trans medical pseudoscience practice of conversion therapy.

#Conversion Therapy #Ex Gay #LGBTQ+ #Transgender #Religion #Changed Movement #Exodus International #Coming Out Ministries

[takeme-totheworld]

"You did that to yourself."

(cw: religious indoctrination, religious trauma, conversion therapy no seriously I talk a lot about the ex-gay thing in this one, brief mention of mental health hospitalization)

When you're brought up in a fundamentalist Christian mindset you are trained to constantly keep your attention focused on your "sins."

Which is weird, because supposedly Jesus died for your sins and all you have to do to be saved is believe? That's what they claim, anyway. But of course, if all you had to do to be saved from damnation was believe the thing and pray the prayer, you could then go on your merry way as soon as you'd done that and not have any need for the church ever again. They wouldn't be able to control you that way.

So they find ways to subtly insinuate doubt into your mind, keeping you off-balance and unsure. They tell you that you just have to do this one thing to be saved, that it's so easy, but then they find a million and one ways to encourage you to question whether you really did it right, whether your belief and prayer were sincere enough, whether you're backsliding away from the faith and need to commit anew, whether you've actually been accepted by God or whether you shouldn't examine yourself and your life and your soul extra-rigorously just one more time to make absolutely sure.

So, this religion that claims to free you from sin and damnation and the fear of those things is often a perfect breeding ground for endless self-judgment and scrupulosity. Fun!

(What's really fun is when you love and trust the church so much that you believe their whole freedom from fear and sin and damnation shtick. So, you wonder, why are you so anxious all the time? It must be something wrong with you personally, something broken in your brain. Because the church certainly never did anything to make you feel this way.)

Now imagine that you're a teenager who has had this mindset programmed into you basically from birth, and you start to realize that there's something different about you. You have crushes on the "wrong" people, or you have the "wrong" feelings about your gender, or (insert other queer feelings here).

There are a number of different directions this could go. Queer folks who grew up in fundamentalist churches have lots of different stories. But a lot of us—including me, a teenager of the late 90s/early 00s—became easy prey for crackpot "ex-gay ministries" that drew in vulnerable queer religious youth with promises that we could be cured.

The type of story that's usually told, in the few movies and tv shows out there that attempt to portray conversion therapy, is a story about horrified parents finding gay porn under their kids' beds and then dragging the kids kicking and screaming off to ex-gay camp. That happens, of course, and it's horrible, and it's a story that needs to be told.

What you don't hear about so much are those of us who were already so twisted up into knots of fear and self-loathing by our upbringing that we joined these organizations voluntarily. Asking to be healed.

Because why would anyone do that to themself?

It's a much more uncomfortable story to tell. People who weren't raised in a fundamentalist mindset find it hard to comprehend. But the fact is, a religious organization claiming you can be "cured" of your queerness through faith and prayer (under their particular guidance, of course)—it sounds disturbingly cult-like, because it is, but it's also a natural extension of the kind of psychological control fundamentalist churches already exert over their members.

"Didn't you know there was something wrong? Couldn't you see how fucked up their claims were? Couldn't you tell how creepy and predatory and cult-like the whole vibe of the group was? For that matter, couldn't the religious parent who allowed you to do this, who was thirty years older than you and should have known better, tell?"

NO! Of course not! What in our experience could have possibly equipped either of us to look at this "ministry," that was promising to heal me from my sinful queerness while spouting exactly the same rhetoric we'd both heard in church all our lives, and realize how incredibly destructive it was going to turn out to be?

Seriously, it was basically a bunch of queer teens sitting around confessing our "sinful" thoughts and feelings, talking about everything we thought was wrong with us, vowing to do better, and praying for each other. It wasn't actually that different from my regular church youth group, except that we were all a lot more (openly) depressed and anxious.

...well, and there were a bunch of very severe rules with very severe consequences re: hanging out with each other outside the confines of group meetings and activities, presumably to make sure we didn't all start secretly hooking up with each other. Or, you know. Having conversations with each other about our queerness that weren't aggressively monitored and directed by the ex-gay thought police. (Couldn't let us start thinking that maybe there was nothing wrong with us after all.)

Okay, so the environment actually was more aggressively controlling than my church in rather significant ways. But I'd been raised my whole life to willingly submit to any rules dictated by religious leaders. I did not have the mental tools to look at what this organization was doing and go "Wow, something is really not right here."

I spent three years involved with the particular "ministry" I'd gotten attached to. It came to an abrupt end with a mental health hospitalization when I was in college, an experience that shook me up enough to realize that the ex-gay path was going to destroy me if I stayed on it. I got out of the hospital, moved across the country to live with my other parent and start picking up the pieces, and never went back to my childhood church or the ex-gay group again.

That was almost twenty years ago and the entire ordeal feels like a weird fever dream now when I look back on it. For a long time I did my best to forget the whole thing. These days, for the first time, I'm trying to remember. Partly for my own healing, because I can't live the rest of my life treating those three years like a deep dark shameful secret. But also because I've come to realize more and more that if people like me don't tell our stories, we let ourselves (and others like us who may still be trying to break free) get painted with the victim-blaming "You did that to yourself" brush.

I did not do that to myself. No one in a situation like mine who made choices like mine did that to themselves. That is not remotely how that works. But it's taken me all this time to let go of the mountain of misplaced self-blame I've carried around my whole adult life.

People who have been raised in intensely fundamentalist environments, with all the indoctrination that entails, often have to resort to all kinds of emotional and psychological contortions just to survive the experience. That's doubly true at least for queer kids growing up in these environments. And yes, that includes those of us who, after years of marinating in religious repression and self-loathing, made choices that looked completely incomprehensible from the outside, choices that had destructive consequences for ourselves and possibly others.

Our stories may not be as easy to understand or empathize with. But we need and deserve that understanding just as much.

#personal #religious indoctrination #religious trauma #exvangelical #ex gay #ex ex gay #conversion therapy #so yeah #i was in a sort-of cult in high school and early college #with the full knowledge and approval of one of my parents #i do not blame the parent in question #they've been dead several years #but they were unwell #and deeply religiously traumatized #i blame the church #and the ex-gay movement #seriously fuck them

[mouseline-cowgirl]

The whole asexual vs hyposexual diagnosis is kinda outrageous. So basically if youre fine with being ace, youre asexual, and thats it. But if youre freaked out about being ace, you have an illness that needs to be cured (???) As if there werent any emotional/psychological factors in this society that could produce stress over being ace culturally or interpersonally. It really rubs me the wrong way.

#ace #asexual #lgbt #lgbt+ #imagine if they did the same regards gay people in general #“oh yea if youre okay with being gay youre gay no probs” #“but if youre stressed out about being gay then its an illness and you need conversion therapy” #i hope im understanding this wrong because holy hecc

[zinniajones]

Like anti-gay conversion practices citing "sexual fluidity", anti-trans activists have alleged that gender dysphoria is fluid and transient. But behind the scenes, Genspect parents wonder why their trans kids still aren't "desisting" after several years.

#trans #transgender #transphobia #conversion therapy #conversion practices #anti-gay #anti-trans #homophobia #IFTCC #ATCSI #NARTH #ACPEDS #Florida anti-trans experts #Genspect #SEGM #tw transphobia #tw homophobia #tw conversion therapy #tw conversion practices

[gayvampyr]

asexuals will literally get assaulted, beaten, correctively raped, forced into medical and/or psychological conversion therapy, and driven to suicide, and y’all will STILL have the audacity to say that “aphobia isn’t real”. you think the heterosexuals give us a free pass because we’re not actively having gay sex? no, because we look queer, we sound queer, we ARE queer for not being heterosexual. the lack of interest in the opposite sex is literally one of the blueprints for queerness. aces get bullied for some of the same reasons lesbians and gay men do — for not being attracted to the opposite gender. i remember being in school and especially church and being treated like an outcast, a freak, a queer and a dyke, because i didn’t like boys and i made no effort to date them. im an asexual, and im a lesbian, and both of those things made me a pariah. no non-hetero is exempt from queerphobia and suffering at the hands of straight people and im sick of the erasure

#im so sick of this shit #i hate all of you #i can’t count how many times men have tried to ‘fix’ me or doctors have told me there’s something wrong with me #that im just a flaw in human evolution and it’s in our *nature* to want sex because of procreation #that i need to be treated chemically to fix my broken brain #the same shit that gay and trans and bi people hear because we are the same #we are different but we are the same #a homophobe does not discern if you’re ace or gay or bi because no matter what you are wrong. an abomination. a sinner #and no amount of distance you put between us will change that #i’ve tried to kill myself far too many times to put up with this bullshit #acephobia #aphobia #rape tw #conversion therapy #r/pe tw

[wrongmeat]

He walked, so he could walk a little faster I guess run. Never forget that.

#also I think they would f*ck #I don’t CARE that the ending sucks I just will restart the game and play it over again! #Dorian over Astarion tbh 🫢 #but that’s just my purrsonal opinion #when he said #I prefer the company of men #also I’m glad Astarion is romancable by anyone but #Dorian having his backstory be explicitly about being gay and avoiding magical conversion therapy…. #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age 3 #dorian pavus #baulders gate 3 #baulders gate astarion #bauldur’s gate #baulders gate

[vavandeveresfan]

"Kemi Badenoch: I have evidence gay young people are being told they are transgender."

Via the Telegraph:

Daniel Martin, Deputy Political Editor 6 February 2024 • 8:14pm

Minister quotes clinicians who believe helping a homosexual child change gender is in effect 'making them straight’

Mrs Badenoch prepared the evidence for the Commons women and equalities select committee Credit: WIKTOR SZYMANOWICZ/ANADOLU

Kemi Badenoch has told MPs she has strong evidence that gay young people are being convinced they are transgender instead.

The equalities minister quoted experts who said children likely to grow up to be same-sex attracted “might be subjected to conversion practices which persuade them to change gender."

In a letter to the Commons women and equalities select committee, she revealed a former clinician at the NHS Tavistock child gender identity clinic had said that in agreeing to requests to help children change gender, they were in fact “making them straight."

Another said that agreeing to help a homosexual child change gender was in effect “conversion therapy for gay kids."

Mrs Badenoch agreed to write to the committee to provide the evidence following an appearance before them last month.

Her letter shows that the number of children in England going to the NHS Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) has soared from 250 in 2011-12 to more than 5,000 in 2021-22.

She wrote: “I committed to providing further details on the evidence that children likely to grow up to be gay (same-sex attracted) might be subjected to conversion practices on the basis of gender identity rather than their sexual orientation.

“Both prospective and retrospective studies have found a link between gender non-conformity in childhood and someone later coming out as gay.

“A young person and their family may notice that they are gender non-conforming earlier than they are aware of their developing sexual orientation. If gender non-conformity is misinterpreted as evidence of being transgender and a child is medically affirmed, the child may not have had a chance to identify, come to terms with or explore a same-sex orientation."

She cited the Dutch founders of a medical gender transition service from 1999, who stated: “Not all children with GID (gender identity disorder) turn out to be transsexuals after puberty…

“Prospective studies of GID boys show that this phenomenon is more strongly related to later homosexuality than to later transsexualism."

One of the same authors said in 2012: “Follow-up studies have demonstrated that only a small proportion of gender dysphoric children become transsexual at a later age, that a much larger proportion have a homosexual sexual orientation without any gender dysphoria."

‘Reparative therapy against gay people’

Mrs Badenoch also pointed to English data from GIDS, showing that older patients expressing a sexual orientation were overwhelmingly lesbian, gay or bisexual.

For example, 68 per cent of adolescent female patients were recorded as being attracted to other females only, 21 per cent were bisexual and just 9 per cent were heterosexual.

Among adolescent male patients, 42 per cent were attracted only to other males, 38 per cent were bisexual and 19 per cent were only attracted to females.

She said she was aware of “troubling accounts" that some clinicians are hesitant to work in gender identity services because they feel under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach.

She quoted Dr Natasha Prescott, a former GIDS clinician, who said in her exit interview from the Tavistock that “there is increasing concern that gender affirmative therapy, if applied unthinkingly, is reparative therapy against gay individuals, i.e. by making them straight."

Dr Matt Bristow, a former GIDS clinician, said he had come to feel that GIDS was performing “conversion therapy for gay kids." 

Tavistock was closed two years ago.

‘Discover sexuality on own timescale’

The minister also quoted a survey of 100 “detransitioners" – people who have changed gender but then regretted it – which found the experience of homophobia or difficulty accepting themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual was expressed by 23 per cent of respondents as a reason for transition and subsequent detransition.

She quoted one German gender clinic as stating: “It must be understood that early hormone therapy may interfere with the patient’s development as a homosexual.

“This may not be in the interest of patients who, as a result of hormone therapy, can no longer have the decisive experiences that enable them to establish a homosexual identity."

Bev Jackson, co-founder of the LGB Alliance, said: “LGB Alliance is delighted that the minister for equalities has recognised the concerns that we have been raising for a long time.

“The evidence is clear. The vast majority of young people being put onto irreversible medical pathways are attracted to their own sex.

“We are literally ‘transing the gay away’ when we should be helping them to understand and accept their sexuality and grow up to live happy, healthy lives as lesbians, gay men or bisexuals."

Helen Joyce, from the women’s rights group Sex Matters, said: “It has been well-established for decades that children destined to grow up gay are far more likely than other children to be highly gender non-conforming in early youth.

“Such children need to be allowed to grow up in a safe, supportive environment, and to be allowed to discover their sexuality on their own timescale.

“Instead, trans ideology interprets gender non-conformity as a potential sign of a trans identity. This tragically misguided framing is today’s version of the historic atrocities of gay conversion therapy."

#conversion therapy #lgb #Kemi Badenoch #transing the gay away #Sex Matters #gender critical #UK #the receipts #LGB Alliance #Tavistock

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/most-transgender-kids-turn-out-to-be-gay-gender-affirming-care-conversion-therapy-58111b2e

Most ‘Transgender’ Kids Turn Out to Be Gay

Subjecting them to medical interventions is the modern-day version of ‘conversion therapy.’

By: Roy Eappen

Published: Dec 14, 2023

As a medical professional who happens to be gay, I’ll be celebrating Dec. 15, the 50th anniversary of the American Psychiatric Association’s decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. The longstanding designation was based on prejudice, not medical research, and the revision marked the beginning of the end for so-called conversion therapy, which sought to “cure” gays and lesbians of a nonexistent malady.

Half a century later, the medical establishment is pushing a new kind of conversion therapy under the guise of transgender identity. No one is suffering more than gay kids. In Canada, where I practice, and in the U.S., physicians provide what’s euphemistically known as “gender-affirming care” to patients as young as 8, and the leading transgender health association has opened the door to interventions at even earlier ages. Under this framework, those who feel uncomfortable with their bodies may receive a medical regimen including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex-change surgeries. These interventions typically stunt, remove or irreversibly modify a patient’s sexual development, genitals and secondary sex characteristics. Any endocrinologist or other physician who rejects this approach is alleged to be endangering the health and even the life of his patients.

But are these patients really “transgender”? Research shows that some 80% of children with “gender dysphoria” eventually come to terms with their sex without surgical or pharmaceutical intervention. Multiple studies have found that most kids who are confused or distressed about their sex end up realizing they’re gay—nearly two-thirds in a 2021 study of boys. This makes sense: Gay kids often don’t conform to traditional sex roles. But gender ideology holds that feminine boys and masculine girls may be “born in the wrong body.”

In this light, “gender-affirming care” looks a lot like conversion therapy. In the past, it took the form of electroshock therapy, chemical castration and even lobotomy. Now it takes the form of rendering teenagers sterile and sexually dysfunctional for life. Clinicians from the main U.K. transgender service referred to prescribing puberty blockers as “transing the gay away”—a play on the description of old-fashioned conversion-therapy as “praying the gay away.” A clinician who resigned from the U.K. service accused it of “institutional homophobia.” Clinicians at the service had a “dark joke” that “there would be no gay people left at the rate Gids”—the Gender Identity Service—“was going.”

Consistent with conversion therapy, physicians are telling young gays and lesbians that something is wrong with them, based on a regressive view of what it is to be male or female. Also consistent with previous efforts to cure homosexuality: The resulting interventions often create lifelong medical problems, both physical and mental. Contrary to advocates’ claims, there’s no evidence that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgeries reduce the risk of suicide.

Children who take this road face a lifetime of pain, infertility and anguish. They deserve real mental-health care to address common underlying comorbidities, not mind- and body-altering medical interventions that try to make them into something they aren’t.

Fifty years ago, the medical assault on homosexuals began to end. Now society has been told that accepting transgender identity is the same as accepting gays and lesbians. But it isn’t. Even well-intentioned acceptance of transgender identity disproportionately harms them. One day perhaps professional organizations like the Endocrine Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics will follow the evidence, as the APA did in 1973. Until then, gay kids will continue to suffer from an injustice that was supposed to end 50 years ago.

Dr. Eappen is a practicing endocrinologist in Montreal and a senior fellow at Do No Harm.

==

Reminder:

There's no such thing as "trans kid."

#Roy Eappen #gay conversion therapy #gay conversion #homophobia 2.0 #woke homophobia #gender ideology #queer theory #medical mutilation #medical malpractice #medical corruption #medical scandal #gender affirming care #gender affirming healthcare #religion is a mental illness

[crossdreamers]

A substantial proportion of LGBTQ people report having been subjected to systematic efforts to deter them from expressing their sexuality or gender identity, according to a major new international review of over a dozen studies.

NBC News has more.

The research paper can be found here: A systematic review of the prevalence of lifetime experience with ‘conversion’ practices among sexual and gender minority populations

#transgender #trans #lgbt #lgbtqa #queer #conversion therapy #gay #lesbian #bisexual #lgbtq #transphobia #homophobia

[chronically-enthusiastic]

TW: jkr and conversion therapy

Hmmm listening to the sci-guys episode about gay conversion therapy annnnddd Today I Learnt That JKR's pen name is the name of the person who pioneered gay conversion therapy.

LIKE WHAT ON EARTH?!?!?!?!??!? its so gross and horrific......... i feel sick.

(article talking about him)

#tw transphobia #trans #transphobia #jk rowling #tw jk rowling #gay conversion therapy #tw conversion therapy