One of the great manias — and they are many and very manic — of the woke left is banning “conversion practises”. What are “conversion practises”? Don’t bother asking, because the language of such laws as the Ardern government’s are so vague that they could mean anything.
But that’s beside the point: when you read the phrase “conversion therapy”, you’ve already thought of what you’re supposed to. Antiquated horrors such as Electro-Convulsive Therapy administered to try and literally shock homosexual tendencies away, or the more recent fringe religious practices. But that’s not what the laws ban: they ban, potentially, therapists, even parents, just talking to children about whatever struggles they may be going through, vis-a-vis sexuality.
This is a classic motte-and-bailey gambit: pretending to assault one easily-demolished target, when their real aim, secretly, is a much more indefensible one. Think of “Black Lives Matter”: who would argue that they don’t? But that’s not the real target of BLM: their real target is far more sinister and indefensible — a Marxist revolution that aims to impose a black supremacist regime on the West.
“Banning conversion practises” is a similar motte-and-bailey. Real “conversion therapy” is abusive and indefensible — and rare. On the other hand, many people, young people especially, do struggle with sexuality. But they are being banned from getting any real help.
Trans Rights Activists in this debate are trying to compare the type of therapy I underwent to offering exploratory talking therapies to nonconforming or gender dysphoric young people. The only therapeutic approach acceptable to these extremists is the “affirmation model”. What does this look like for nonconforming and dysphoric youth?
As a 15-year-old I felt really grim about being a girl and a lesbian. Because I was attracted to girls, and rejected feminine frippery, I was constantly asked if I was a boy. Young women throughout the ages have had similar experiences, but nowadays if they go to a gender clinic, they may end up in “affirmation therapy”. They will be prescribed puberty blockers, followed by testosterone, double mastectomy, hysterectomy and lifelong medical treatment.
How is any of that any different from the horrors of conversion therapy?
As most of us will remember, adolescence can be a difficult time, for many reasons. Bindel, feminist that she is, focuses exclusively on the difficulties, real or imagined, of teenage girls. As if life is an easier ride for boys. Perhaps she might consider the gross imbalance of the “gender suicide gap”?
Still, she is correct that “responsible, empathic therapy” can help a great many troubled, unhappy adolescents — female and male.
It is precisely this type of therapy that trans activists wish to ban.
They want to ban the type of support that would have helped me: a confused, self-hating teenager, who would have grabbed the opportunity to transition with both hands. And yet, here I am, an out and proud lesbian of more than 40 years.
That said, I really could’ve done with some therapy when I was struggling with the feelings I had developed for a girl in my class — a friendly, skilled ear, to listen to my distress and tell me I was perfectly fine as I was.
The Critic
“Tell me I was perfectly fine as I was.”
Ponder that phrase again. Because that’s precisely what “trans affirmation” does not do: transgenderism doesn’t tell confused children that they’re just fine as they are. It tells them that they have to be something else — and chemically and surgically imposes that other self on them.
Is that not the most dramatic conversion of all?
Yet, it’s increasingly not just the only option, but the one mandated by “progressive” politicians and activists.