Conversion Therapy? - God’s Good Creation

July 2, 2022July 1, 2022

Biden Admin’s War On “Conversion Therapy”

Important article by Kat Rosenfield on the distinction between yesterday’s Conversion Therapy and today’s definition. Verbal sands are shifting. Entire linguistic territories are being appropriated.

A few grab graphs:

Eight years after Time magazine declared that we are living through a transgender tipping point, there’s a growing sense of unease in the US, that we might have tipped too far, too fast. The momentum of the movement has given way to unanswered questions and nagging doubts: about the long-term side effects of using puberty blockers off-label, about the revelation that patients who begin to transition as children are likely to experience infertility or sexual dysfunction, about the testimony of regretful transitioners who say they were rushed by a gung-ho medical establishment into lives, and bodies, that they didn’t really want.

Unlike in Britain, stories like this, horrifying to the average person, do not appear to have breached the consciousness of the American government. The Biden White House has enthusiastically taken up the cause of not just ensuring access to medical transition for children who identify as trans, but taking other treatment options off the table. Last week, the White House announced that Biden will sign an executive order which takes specific aim at “so-called ‘conversion therapy’ — a discredited and dangerous practice that seeks to suppress or change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQI+ people”.

Critics have already noted the error in lumping in conversion therapy practices in relation to sexual orientation — which were ineffective at best and barbaric at worst — with the type of therapy that aims to help patients find a measure of peace with the bodies they have; such concerns have already led to the exclusion of transgender people from a government ban on conversion therapy in England and Wales. In the US, it is not yet clear whether a doctor with a patient who presented with gender dysphoria and an eating disorder, for instance, would be guilty of practising “conversion therapy” if he tried to address the patient’s mental health issues before opening the door to puberty blockers, hormones, and gender reassignment surgery.

It’s not the job of a doctor to affirm your identity

Full Article Here [Standard link disclaimer¹].

Relevant previous posts….

Philosopher Says Stop Linguistic Colonialism

I repeat what I said in an earlier post. Who is the Conversion Therapist?

Is it the one who is trying to help a person align their thoughts and feelings with the body they were given at birth or the professional who disregards the body and proposes irreversible radical surgeries combined with life-long hormone treatments in hopes of aligning the outer body with a patient’s inner desires?

Full post:

Who Is The Conversion Therapist?

What about Christian therapists or counselors? Will they be allowed to continue to practice in the U.S. with a state approved medical license? Will the Christian Worldview and its anthropology be respected by licensing associations?

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Drawing by T. Cheesman, May 1816
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license
Courtesy of the British Museum

Love Refuses to Affirm Confusion

June 30, 2022June 30, 2022

Biden Admin’s Confused Embrace of Trans Rights

Its muddling of terms is a real mess
The Economist

Until recently the term “conversion therapy” was used to refer to the barbaric and pointless practice of trying to turn a gay person straight. Of late it has been widened to include talking therapy that explores why a person’s gender identity is at odds with their biological sex. President Joe Biden used that broader meaning in an executive order “advancing equality for LGBTQI+ Individuals”, on June 15th. The order is designed to tackle discrimination suffered by “LGBTQI+” young people, which is laudable. But it refers to them as a single group (offering no definition of “queer” or “intersex”), which raises problems. It describes conversion therapy as “a discredited practice that research indicates can cause significant harm”, yet fails to specify what it means when applied to trans-identifying children.

Some therapists who work with children with gender dysphoria worry that this could be interpreted to mean therapists should not investigate why someone feels distressed about their biological sex. This is not the same as trying to convince someone they are not gay. Sexual orientation and gender identity are different. Sexual orientation tends to be innate and fixed; gender identity can be nebulous and changeable. It also, increasingly, prompts medical interventions that can have irreversible, harmful effects. It has long been held that people with gender dysphoria should have therapy before drugs.

[Source: The Economist]

Clinicians and counselors will lose their jobs because of this confused embrace. Or they will decide to forgo doing a thorough job. Either way, their patients suffer.

I repeat what I said in an earlier post. Who is the Conversion Therapist?

Full post:

Who Is The Conversion Therapist?

Another relevant post.

“Anti-Conversion Therapy” Laws

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Love Cannot Affirm Confusion, But It Can Embrace

May 24, 2022June 30, 2022

“Anti-Conversion Therapy” Laws

From the site SexMatters this letter writing campaign to UK members of government.

U.S. citizens should express concerns to their representatives too.

These so-called “anti-conversion therapy” laws massively overreach and disregard both free speech and religious liberties.

Here’s the letter they recommend UK citizen’s send to their representatives.

I was disappointed to see the photograph of you holding a placard that says “I support a trans-inclusive ban”.

This sounds like a clear slogan to get behind – but this is not a straightforward issue. I urge you to think again.

Affirming that a child is “trans” is not similar to sexual orientation. Childhood gender distress often resolves, and extreme treatments that involve social transition, cross-sex hormones and a pathway to surgery and sterilisation should never be routine.

I am sending you two reports that I hope you will read. One is by Dr Hilary Cass, former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, on NHS gender identity services for children. The other is by Sex Matters, based on its research on the campaign to ban conversion therapy.

Dr Cass’s interim report sets out serious concerns about how children are being treated – not using normal clinical standards for exploring the causes of gender distress, but being declared as “trans” by their school and doctors after self-diagnosing. Her report highlights that a high proportion of those presenting at gender clinics are children and young people in care, with autism or experience of abuse, and those who would likely grow up to be lesbian or gay.

Threatening teachers, parents, foster carers, clinicians and youth workers with prison, fines and a criminal record if they disagree with a child’s self-diagnosis is not the way to get these children the support they need.

The call to “include trans in the ban” is presented as a simple moral test, but it obscures the complexity and uncertainty about the cause of so many children declaring themselves trans. Inclusion in a new criminal law will make it harder for children experiencing gender distress to get careful therapy, or to get support in school and in the community that does not simply “affirm” them as being “born in the wrong body” and needing a lifetime of hormone treatment and surgery.

I would like to meet to discuss this.

The Cass Review – an interim report to the National Health Service England.

Although not mentioned, Christian Pastoral Counseling will be effected by these proposed UK laws as well.

See this relevant post: Christian “Hate Crimes?“

And this one: Who Is The Conversion Therapist?

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As a Classic Christian I encourage everyone to “Embrace, Don’t Affirm.”

Individuals with a Gender Identity Disorder (Gender-Dysphoria) need Truth-filled Love. Please read this post for more details.

Love Refuses to Affirm Confusion