Transgender politics: conversion therapy bans

[sangreporsangre]

I'd like to see what some of you guys see regarding this legal trend happening here in North America, not sure if anything similar is taking place in Europe or anywhere else around the world. So in the US, Democrat lawmakers are trying to get a nationwide ban on what is known as "conversion therapy" for LGBTQ youth under the age of 18. The practice is already banned in: California, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico and the District of Columbia. In Canada it's banned in my home province of Ontario as of 2015, I believe it's illegal in Manitoba, and of course the process is in motion to have it outlawed in other provinces as we speak.

So what does it mean exactly? Well I'm sure we've heard of parents sending their kids to some kind of "pray the gay away" camps or whatever put on by some church. Personally, I think services like that to try to turn a gay person into a straight person by shaming them or whatever are pretty dumb. If an adult wants to go that route for themselves, let them, but a parent shouldn't be allowed to force their kid under 18 into that. So I'm in agreement with the law. But what does it mean in a trans context? Well here's where it gets interesting, and it's a genius way to play with language that I'm sure @IDL would appreciate: "conversion therapy" for a trans youth is treatment that looks to avoid beginning the transition process soon as possible - socializing as the opposite gender and starting the child on puberty blockers - and see if the child can become comfortable in their own skin and live as their birth sex. Proponents of this method point to the research that shows about 80% of trans children grow to be cis-gendered if given time to mature (most grow to be homosexual). After all we're talking about emotionally disturbed children who have yet to go through puberty yet.

Since so much trans rhetoric these days throws the word "science" around, one wonders why it's so important that therapy for both homosexuality and transgenderism would be covered under the same legislation - obviously from a scientific standpoint these are 2 different things right? Anyway here's an article I found interesting on the subject:

On April 25, Democratic lawmaker Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) reintroduced a bill to ban therapy in the United States that seeks to change “sexual orientation or gender identity.”

While attempts to make gays straight may have little value, that little “or gender identity” nonchalantly added to the end is a live grenade. In disguised language, it ensures no American child unhappy with his or her natural sexed body will have access to therapy other than drastically changing the body.

Consider this scenario, based on real events: One day, your high-school-age daughter comes to you with a surprising announcement. She has a history of psychological problems and is unhappy with the pressures of being a young girl. She has spent a great deal of time online reading about transgender and is certain she must really be a transgender man: her gender identity is that of a man. She wants to go on testosterone and cut her breasts off.

After you talk it over with her, she agrees to find a therapist to see if she could be happy with herself without drastic treatment. However, a nationwide law bans any professional from offering care that doesn’t uphold her feeling she is transgender. Instead, your teen daughter takes hormones, which sterilize her healthy body, lower her voice, and change her bone structure, and goes to live as a man. Years later, her body irreversibly damaged, she changes her mind and bitterly regrets losing her fertility. “Why did they let me do this to myself as a child?”

Seven U.S. states have passed similar bills that ban “gender identity conversion.” These bills enforce what clinicians call the “gender-affirming” approach to children unhappy about being boys or girls. If a child’s claims about his or her gender are “insistent, persistent, consistent,” this is taken as evidence that the child is transgender, and should transition, turning the child into what used to be called a transsexual.

https://thefederalist.com/2017/05/1...ensnaring-transgender-children/#disqus_thread

If you read that and follow the links, it paints a pretty disturbing picture. "Conversion therapy" for trans is demonized and outlawed while "gender affirmation" is not just considered the preferred treatment option by trans activists, it's the only legitimate one and if you disagree you have blood on your hands from all the trans people who commit suicide due to a society that doesn't accept them. But they're big on dogma but short on evidence: there's no data showing that trans kids who go through the affirmation process are less likely to kill themselves than those who don't.

We know that kids often have body issues, especially little girls. Could a child going through some emotional issues become convinced that they're trans - especially in the face of a media push that lionizes transgender people, and an education system that gets children to start thinking about their gender identity (which they stress has nothing to do with biological sex) at a young age? So if a child then insists that they are actually born in the wrong body, is it really fair that the only therapy available should be to start treating them as the opposite sex and chemically delaying their puberty, with an eye to starting them on cross hormone drugs (thereby sterilizing them) when they reach 16?

I personally don't agree with this. What do you guys say? Should "conversion therapy" be considered the same for transgenderism as it is for homosexuality? Should transgender issues really be handled under the same umbrella as those of homosexuality in general? And should left-of-centre political parties (Liberals and Democrats here in North America) try to untangle themselves from the trans advocacy movement or should they stay the course?

 

[freakyfarley]

Gay conversion therapy and trans conversion therapy are immensely different things. Giving puberty blockers to confused kids is imo child abuse.

There's girls who are 'tomboys' who get hormone therapy for absolutely no reason at all.

Gender non-conforming children get hormone therapy way too fast and it's unhealthy.

 

[Tamriel Terror]

If someone wants to go through the "conversion" its their decision, but it should be outlawed for anyone under 18, also any parent that pushes ideas like this on their children are messed up imo.

Also just because a boy or girl plays with "girl or boy toys" or maybe likes to do things that are typically assigned the opposite gender DOESN'T MEAN THEY ARE TRANS. They're kids, they aren't considering shit like "i'm really a boy inside" unless their parents are pushing that on them.

 

[BEER]

Trans people need mental health care.

Say that around most leftists and they'll bite your head off, but transgender folks, by definition, suffer from Gender Identity Disorder. This disorder is often coupled with Major Depression. Trans folks are no less likely to commit self-harm or suicide during or even after full transition. It's not an issue that can be fixed with hormones and surgeries. Trans people are suffering from mental illness, and most trans people I've met absolutely hate it. They're sick, they know they're sick, and they're surrounded by leftists with "savior" complexes that want to validate what they know to be sick delusions.

Some transition. Some seek therapy. But I've never met a trans person who didn't know it wasn't healthy. The transition process caters to delusions brought on by illness. It's like handing someone with strong suicidal ideation a fucking razor blade. And the far left is pushing it because identity politics are all they have to hang their hats on. It's dangerous.

 

[BEER]

If someone wants to go through the "conversion" its their decision, but it should be outlawed for anyone under 18, also any parent that pushes ideas like this on their children is messed up imo.

Probably one of the more alarming things is the amount of people in the trans community that commit suicide. Even if you don't like the idea of trans people, its still sad to see people end their lives.

I want to see hormonal therapy blocked until age 18 as well.

No 14 year old boy should be altering his hormones because he doesn't feel masculine enough.

 

[Tamriel Terror]

I want to see hormonal therapy blocked until age 18 as well.

No 14 year old boy should be altering his hormones because he doesn't feel masculine enough.

Like I said, I feel its probably parents pushing the ideas on their kids, so a kid may goe through the transitions and realizes later on in life they are confused and not sure about themselves thus having high suicide rates. (Thats just a theory from me though).

Either way they need help, and just because a boy plays with a barbie doesn't mean hes a "girl inside".

 

[HereticBD]

I saw this shit on an episode of VICE. Pretty fucked up that parents are taking their prepubescent children, who can't possibly have the capacity to make such a decision like this, to have this done. It's flat out enraging that doctors are okay with it.

 

[ripskater]

Bruce Jenner can chop off his penis and get breast implants but it's illegal to get counseling, mental and emotional help in California to help him go back to the sex he was born into.

That's freakin messed up.

 

[sangreporsangre]

Here's an example. People who live in Toronto may have heard about this case when it happened, and Peterson has talked about it a bit as an example of political correctness gone mad. Dr Kenneth Zucker is a psychologist who was considered one of the leading authorities on gender dysphoria in children. He was head of the Child and Youth Gender Identity Clinic at CAMH which is a prestigious mental health and addiction facility in Toronto. He was a strong proponent of letting kids try to become more comfortable with their birth sex and not rush to transition them. He had a long track record and had treated hundreds of patients over the years, and he points to the research that shows that the majority of the children who report gender dysphoria will "desist" and live life as their birth sex. Well this put him at odds with the current "science", and he was demonized as a Literal Mengele by trans activists and their allies in the media for months before CAMH decided to commission an outside, independent report on the GIC. When the report found that the GIC had been involved in some abusive practices, Zucker was unceremoniously fired and the GIC shut down, to be re-opened as a gender clinic that focuses on gender affirmation. This was treated as a major victory for trans activists in Ontario, the heartless monster who stands on the bodies of so many trans kids who committed suicide was finally defeated.

But then someone actually read the report and tried to verify it. I recommend everyone who has any interest in this at all read this article:

On paper, Dr. Kenneth Zucker isn’t the sort of person who gets suddenly and unceremoniously fired. For decades, the 65-year-old psychologist had led the Child Youth and Family Gender Identity Clinic (GIC), in Toronto, one of the most well-known clinics in the world for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria — that is, the feeling that the body they were born with doesn’t fit their true gender identity. Zucker had built up quite a CV during his time leading the clinic: In addition to being one of the most frequently cited names in the research literature on gender dysphoria and gender-identity development, and the editor of the prestigious journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, he took a leading role helping devise diagnostic and treatment guidelines for gender dysphoric and transgender individuals. He headed the group which developed the DSM-5’s criteria for its “gender dysphoria” entry, for example, and also helped write the most recent “standards of care” guidelines for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health — one of the bibles for clinicians who treat transgender and gender-dysphoricpatients.



An impressive career, yes, but it’s doubtful any of this gave him much comfort on December 15. That was when he was called in from vacation for an 8:30 a.m. meeting with his employer, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), one ofthe largest mental health and addiction research hospitals in Canada. Given the long-brewing investigation of his clinic by the hospital, it’s unlikely Zucker was feeling optimistic about what awaited him in downtownToronto.



The GIC, which operates out of CAMH, pronounced “Cam-H,” had been standing firm against a changing tide in the world of psychological treatment for children with gender dysphoria. The “gender-affirmative” approach, which focuses on identifying young transgender children and helping them socially transition — that is, express their gender to others through their everyday clothes, name changes, or other means — has been on the rise in recent years, and has become the favored protocol of many activists and clinicians. GIC clinicians, who saw clients between ages 3 and 18, had a much more cautious stance on social transitioning for their younger clients — they believed that in many cases, it was preferable to first “help children feel comfortable in their own bodies,” as they often put it, since in the GIC’s view gender is quite malleable at a young age and gender dysphoria will likely resolve itself withtime.



Many activists see this approach as a rejection of young children’s transgender identities, and Zucker as its regressive standard-bearer. As a result, the GIC had been tarred for years as a “conversion” or “reparative” therapy clinic — terms which conjure images of outfits operated out of backwoods shacks in the Bible Belt. Responding to what felt like a surge in this line of criticism from activists, CAMH had agreed in February of 2015 to commission an External Review that would evaluate the clinic’s operations, and possibly, Zucker and his staffers knew, determine its future. CAMH had already taken actions suggesting that that future might be dim: In June of 2014, the hospital closed the GIC’s approximately 80-family waitlist (for being too long, administrators said), and about two months before Zucker’s vacation was interrupted, the clinic’s only other full-time staffer, the psychologist Dr. Hayley Wood, was laid off on her first day back from maternity leave. (Wood declined to comment for thisarticle.)



And now, the meeting: According to a source close to Zucker, he was met at CAMH by Christina Bartha, executive director of the hospital’s Underserved Populations Program. She gave the psychologist a three-ring binder: the long-awaited External Review. Bartha instructed Zucker to read it in her presence, and to offer up any comments he had about it. Not far into the report, Zucker told Bartha that he had noticed a factual error. Bartha responded that the review would be posted on the hospital’s website that afternoon, as-is — no changes. Zucker continued reading and saw that the reviewers had interviewed a handful of activists and clinicians who had claimed that the GIC was engaging in conversion therapy; that photos were taken of patients without their consent and then disseminated; and that former clients said they felt traumatized and ashamed as a result of their time there. Then, Zucker got to a truly bizarre allegation: A former patient, at the time an adolescent transitioning from female to male who was seeking a sex-reassignment surgery referral, said that Zucker had asked him to take his shirt off, laughed when he had done so, and then told him, “You’re a hairy little vermin!” The incident had never happened. Zucker looked at Bartha and, in disbelief, said something like, “So, you are going to post this on the website?” Yes, Bartha responded. Meaning that in a few hours, Zucker’s many detractors would read about how he had cruelly mocked the body of a young transperson.



Zucker told Bartha there was no point in continuing the exercise. Sometime around 9:00 or 9:15, Bartha left, and she was replaced by a human resources staffer who informed Zucker that he was fired, effective immediately. He was told it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to retrieve his coat and keys from his office — someone would grab them for him. Zucker was presented with materials on how to find a new job, and that was that. (Zucker’s attorney, John Adair, confirmed this account of his dismissal, while a CAMH spokeswoman and Bartha didn’t respond to a request for comment. Through Adair, Zucker otherwise declined to comment for thisarticle.)



For transgender activists in North America and around the world, the ouster of one of their biggest enemies in the field of mainstream sex research was a spectacular victory. Sweeter still, they found out later that day that CAMH would be “winding down” the GIC entirely, with an eye toward eventually retooling and reopening it with input from its critics. Years of activism, years of hearing and telling stories about what Zucker’s clinic did to vulnerable, gender-questioning young people, had finally paid off. The activists had won what seemed like a satisfying end to a simple, sad story. “Infamous Reparative Therapy Clinic For Transgender Youth Set To Close” trumpeted ThinkProgress. “Hooray! A Big, Bad Conversion Therapy Clinic For Trans Youth In Canada Is Shutting Down,” went the MTV headline. Good prevailed over evil, in other words. Those innocent children would never sufferagain.



Zucker, his colleagues, and their many allies in the world of academic sex research see things differently. To them, the real scandal here is how CAMH responded to a sustained campaign of political pressure: by allowing a vital scientific question — vital not only to gender-dysphoric and transgender young people, but to anyone who is a parent or will one day become one — to be decided by activists on the basis of flimsy, anonymous allegations. They think the activists’ claims about the clinic are unfounded, and argue that the controversy has more to do with adult agendas than with genuine concern for gender-dysphoric children and youth. As Dr. Jack Drescher, a psychiatrist with a research focus on gender-identity issues, explained in an email, this fight resembles many other culture-war battles: “[C]hildren serve as proxies for the competing value systems of adults.” Indeed, some parents of GIC patients feel that as a result of the clinic’s closing, their children have been cut off from a place that was — despite rumors to the contrary — a safe, nurturing environment for young people to explore their emerging genderidentities.



The External Review, Zucker’s allies believe, was just a sloppily executed pretense for submitting to political pressure. “There was likely a desire on the part of the [CAMH] administration to close the clinic, and the review was designed to allow them to do just that,” wrote Dr. Susan Bradley, who founded the GIC in 1975 before handing the reins over to Zucker about a decade later, in anemail.



And if you look closely at what really happened — if you read the review (which CAMH has now pulled off of its website), speak with the activists who effectively wrote large swaths of it, examine the scientific evidence, and talk to former GIC clinicians and the parents of patients they worked with, it’s hard not to come to an uncomfortable, politically incorrect conclusion: Zucker’s defenders are right. This was a showtrial.

It's really long but it's worth the read, it's a great work of investigative journalism. Anyway what the guy found out is, the allegations of abusive practices all came second hand - the authors of the report interviewed 3 trans activists (who had been leading the charge to get Zucker fired) and accepted their horror stories supposedly made by previous patients of the GIC as fact - without any apparent attempt to confirm them! The money shot of the report was an instance where Zucker supposedly made some kid take his shirt off in front of a bunch of people and called him a "hairy little vermin". An activist told this story on behalf of the person that it happened to. Well when the author of this article tracked the former patient down and tried to confirm the story, it took about a minute to realize that it didn't happen the way he said it did - it was at a completely different clinic, and Zucker wasn't even there. Just the details of the story should have set off alarm bells (the procedure he was at the clinic for was something that GIC didn't do, for example) but the authors of the report made no attempt to confirm it before including it in their report! And this is what got this guy fired??

This seems to be the way it's going. Not based on science, or logic, or truth. It's more akin to a religious movement actually: go against the dogma and you are a heretic and must be destroyed.

edit: forgot to include a link to the article like the clown that I am. I recommend this it's a good read, but really disturbing. http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-researcher-fired.html

 

[freakyfarley]

If someone wants to go through the "conversion" its their decision, but it should be outlawed for anyone under 18, also any parent that pushes ideas like this on their children is messed up imo.

Also just because a boy or girl plays with "girl or boy toys" or maybe likes to do things that are typically assigned the opposite gender DOESN'T MEAN THEY ARE TRANS. They're kids, they aren't considering shit like "i'm really a boy inside" unless their parents are pushing that on them.

Agreed

 

[dontsnitch]

So conversion therapy is illegal even for those who desire the therapy? That's... odd.

 

[gannima]

I suppose it depends on what exactly the conversion therapy is. If it's simply not beginning the transition process for kids, while they are kids, than I don't see a problem with that.

Personally, I find the issues surrounding transgender identity to be fascinating because I'm not sure what to think about it. Allowing a kid to change genders seems too extreme to me and I would be in favor banning sex changes until 18 years old. On other hand I sympathize with those who know they are in the wrong body and have to live like that for years.

I would like to see more research to determine if this is a mental illness and a treatable one.

 

[HereticBD]

If you took your 11 year-old to the tattoo parlor to get inked, you'd be looked down upon as a parent.

Think about that.

 

[ripskater]

I want to see hormonal therapy blocked until age 18 as well.

No 14 year old boy should be altering his hormones because he doesn't feel masculine enough.

There was this show called Jazz. A junior high boy who became a girl.

This is what happened one episode.

The doctor put him on testosterone blockers, messing with his hormones made him severely depressed and then the doc put him on depression medication.

It was so bad that the depression medication did not work. So the doc eventually took him off the testosterone blockers.

Messing with a 13-14 year old's hormones, no wonder the kid was screwed up and depressed. But this is what PC has done to the medical profession. It is insanity.

And if this kid decides to be a boy/man some day, his body is gonna be screwed up cause this is the hip/cool way to treat gender identity disorder.

I have a suggestion, get the kid in counseling if it's not already illegal in your state.

 

[sangreporsangre]

Like I said, I feel its probably parents pushing the ideas on their kids, so a kid may goe through the transitions and realizes later on in life they are confused and not sure about themselves thus having high suicide rates. (Thats just a theory from me though).

Either way they need help, and just because a boy plays with a barbie doesn't mean hes a "girl inside".

Right just because a boy plays with a Barbie doesn't mean he's a girl, or a girl who wants to play football a boy. But what if they've been conditioned since a young age to look out for indicators like this to prove that they were born in the wrong body?

You mentioned parents. What if the parents themselves have been conditioned in a way to look out for such things as evidence of transgenderism as well? You'll notice that pretty much all media stories about a child who is transitioning always start with how the kid was into the clothing and toys of the opposite gender at a young age. What if trusted media outlets pushed this as well?

What if, say, you were someone my age (mid 30s) and a trusted television personality, who we were introduced to at a young age as an authority on science, also started pushing the same rhetoric?



Could all this stuff be a factor in emotionally disturbed kids being misdiagnosed as trans and then having life-altering procedures done to them?

 

[BEER]

Like I said, I feel its probably parents pushing the ideas on their kids, so a kid may goe through the transitions and realizes later on in life they are confused and not sure about themselves thus having high suicide rates. (Thats just a theory from me though).

Either way they need help, and just because a boy plays with a barbie doesn't mean hes a "girl inside".

I've read stories about parents who are clearly pushing their children in that direction. It's like the gender version of the Marinovich Project. If you take a kid and force him to play with barbies and teach him about "gender binaries" and shit, you're setting him up to eventually say "mommy, I think I'm a girl inside", and by 14 is on hormones to develop during puberty as a female.

THAT should be outlawed.

 

[Tamriel Terror]

I've read stories about parents who are clearly pushing their children in that direction. It's like the gender version of the Marinovich Project. If you take a kid and force him to play with barbies and teach him about "gender binaries" and shit, you're setting him up to eventually say "mommy, I think I'm a girl inside", and by 14 is on hormones to develop during puberty as a female.

THAT should be outlawed.

If the kid commits suicide and the parents pushed them to be trans, the parents should be charged imo.

 

[MMA IAN]

Starting hormone blockers on children is absolute insanity. I am a manly man, but my younger brother is even more of a manly man.

My brother is a gym rat who looks like an off season zyzz, has 2 trade certificates under his belt, runs his own successful construction business, dates a hot as fuck asian chick he met while travelling overseas but guess what? When he was a kid my brother liked dressing up in my moms clothes and high heels. He also named some of our furry toys very feminine names.

There was never any pressure to identify as anything my parents are very middle of the road hippy types who don't care either way and who have a gay brother so they just left him to do what he wants and grow up.

If my brother had been raised by these nutjob types he'd probably be fucked for life. Instead he GREW OUT OF IT.


These wackos would have supported my brothers experimentation and encouraged it as a lifestyle choice instead of a simple experiment. These people are ruining their childrens lives

 

[ultramanhyata]

This is classic Marxism, guys. Karl was an adamant opponent of transgender conversion therapy, thinking it only served the interests of the bourgeois.

 

[BEER]

There was this show called Jazz. A junior high boy who became a girl.

This is what happened one episode.

The doctor put him on testosterone blockers, messing with his hormones made him severely depressed and then the doc put him on depression medication.

It was so bad that the depression medication did not work. So the doc eventually took him off the testosterone blockers.

Messing with a 13-14 year old's hormones, no wonder the kid was screwed up and depressed. But this is what PC has done to the medical profession. It is insanity.

And if this kid decides to be a boy/man some day, his body is gonna be screwed up cause this is the hip/cool way to treat gender identity disorder.

I have a suggestion, get the kid in counseling if it's not already illegal in your state.

Transgenderism is recognized as a mental illness. The idea that you can't get therapy and psychiatric assistance is fucking absurd. I'm wondering what the parameters of "conversion therapy" are in regards to transgender youth.