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?
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?
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.
Dr. Randi Ettner, the chief psychologist at the Chicago Gender Center, describes the standard of care treatment plan promoted by transgender activists, otherwise known as the “Affirmative Care Model“:
• Changes in gender expression and role, consistent with one’s gender identity (also referred to as social role transition).
• Psychotherapy for purposes such as addressing the negative impact of stigma, alleviating internalized transphobia, enhancing social and peer support, improving body image, promoting resiliency, etc.
• Hormone therapy to feminize or masculinize the body.
• Surgery to alter primary and/or secondary sex characteristics.1“Declaration of Randi Ettner, Ph.D., U.S. District Court, Middle District of North Carolina, Case 1:16-cv-236-TDS-JEP, p. 5.”
This plan is often called “transitioning” but some transgender activists regard that term as stigmatizing and inaccurate. From the perspective of the transgender person they are simply engaged in a process of “settling in to themselves” or “coming home” to what they always were inside.2“PFLAG, Our Trans Loved Ones: Questions and Answers for Parents, Families, and Friends of People Who Are Transgender and Gender Expansive (2008, 2015), p. 9, https://www.pflag.org/ourtranslovedones.”
A similar linguistic jujitsu is at work when activists prefer to speak of gender-affirming therapies instead of sex reassignment therapies. (Since when did it become the primary job of doctors to affirm?). For women these affirming therapies mean life-long testosterone, double mastectomies and the creation of a penis (phalloplasty). For men, life-long estrogen, gonadectomy, penectomy, and the creation of a vagina (vaginoplasty). Here are some affirming treatment details:
“Sex reassignment surgeries available to the MTF3male to female transsexual persons consist of gonadectomy, penectomy, and creation of a vagina. The skin of the penis is often inverted to form the wall of the vagina. The scrotum becomes the labia majora. Cosmetic surgery is used to fashion the clitoris and its hood, preserving the neurovascular bundle at the tip of the penis as the neurosensory supply to the clitoris. Most recently, plastic surgeons have developed techniques to fashion labia minora. Endocrinologists should encourage the transsexual person to use their tampon dilators to maintain the depth and width of the vagina throughout the postoperative period until the neovagina is being used frequently in intercourse. Genital sexual responsivity and other aspects of sexual function should be preserved after genital sex reassignment surgery…. Another major effort is the removal of facial and masculine-appearing body hair using either electrolysis or laser treatments. Other feminizing surgery, such as that to feminize the face, is now becoming more popular.
Sex reassignment surgeries available to the FTM4female to male transsexual persons have been less satisfactory. The cosmetic appearance of a neopenis is now very good, but the surgery is multistage and very expensive. Neopenile erection can be achieved only if some mechanical device is imbedded in the penis, e.g. a rod or some inflatable apparatus. Many choose a metaidoioplasty that exteriorizes or brings forward the clitoris and allows for voiding while standing. The scrotum is created from the labia majora with a good cosmetic effect, and testicular prostheses can be implanted. These procedures, as well as oophorectomy, vaginectomy, and complete hysterectomy, are undertaken after a few years of androgen therapy and can be safely performed vaginally with laparoscopy.
The ancillary surgery for the FTM transition that is extremely important is the mastectomy. Breast size only partially regresses with androgen therapy. In adults, discussion about mastectomy usually takes place after androgen therapy is begun. Because some FTM transsexual adolescents present after significant breast development has occurred, mastectomy may be considered before age 18.”5“Hembree et al., “Endocrine Treatment of Transsexual Persons,” 3149.”
Again, like I did in a previous post I must ask, who is engaged in conversion therapy here?
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?
Who is the conversion therapist?Gender Identity Ideologues pin that label on those clinicians and pastors who try to help an individual become more comfortable with their immutable biological sex. These concerned professionals and pastors counsel them not to transition away from their birth sex. It’s called Talk Therapy. And it is very effective, especially for children with gender dysphoria. Trans Activists and Gender Identity Ideologues regard these efforts as immoral and professional clinicians are forbidden in some states and other countries from steering individuals toward accepting their birth sex.
Leveling the charge of “conversion therapist” packs quite a rhetorical punch because these therapeutic techniques are said to be just like some of the therapies used in the past to “convert” homosexuals. That’s not true. It’s Talk Therapy! And also, as I’ve said before homosexuals don’t deny their biological sex. This is different. Helping someone align their thoughts and desires with the indisputable facts of their body is not converting them into someone different. Leveling the charge of “conversion therapist” on those professionals or pastors who don’t “affirm” is Orwellian doublespeak. Don’t believe it. And push back. Firmly. Even if you are called a bigot. Do it anyway.
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I’m a Classic Christian and regard Gender Ideology as anti-creational to the core. This blog is about “God’s Good Creation.” That’s why I’m writing about Gender Ideology. And “speaking up” as I’m confident Jesus would.
"Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female.'" [Matt 19:4]
If you would like more detail on how my Christian worldview informs my understanding of Sex and today’s Gender Ideology please read the following posts.
