A LOOK AT TRANS CONVERSION THERAPY

Conversion therapy is banned in many places for lesbians, gays and bisexuals.  It is defined as any attempt to change a person's identity to heterosexual.  More cautious campaigners understand that changing a person's nature so that they will be celibate if nothing else is also conversion therapy.  The Bible says that it is not good for the person to be alone but uses this to validate man and woman relations only.  But at least it admits that celibacy is abuse.  In 2022, the United Kingdom brought in a ban but expressly left trans and enbys out.  Increasingly, laws are perceiving that if somebody even a child says they are the opposite gender or no gender or both that they must be believed.  Otherwise you end up believing they are cis and acting accordingly.  It is not just about the harm this does.  It is about declaring that you know better than the other person and imposing your cis privilege on them.

Conversion therapy can be implied.  The subtle pressure put on LGBT to deny who they are is the most prevalent form.  Religion prays for celibates and heterosexuals as if being LGBT needs only prayer to change or be celibate.  Don't limit conversion therapy to the psychologist's practice.  Counselling and everything else are not working in a bubble. They reflect society and need it.  They hope to lead you to more engagement with it.

Conversion therapy takes place in secret and changes its form to something more innocuous when it is banned.

So to get rid of conversion therapy you need to strike at the attitudes that give birth to it and the attitudes that are implemented by it.  You need to recognise as well that the worst of it does not happen at the hands of the therapist. No therapist helps you without society.  Period.

Christian critics of trans rights say that your dignity as male or female is real. You are valuable as a person who is also male or female. They say that viewing one without the sex considerations or without affirming one's biological sex is opposing what that person is. They say that we do not earn our dignity or worth but it is a gift from God. This is related to notions such as that the further we go from God the further we go from ourselves. What does that mean?

It is possible to hold that people may be born in the wrong body or wrong existence and that your friend who comes out as trans is wrong.

It is possible to hold that people may be born in the wrong body and that the radical surgery is wrong or too unlikely to have good outcomes.

It is possible to hold that trans is real but that attempts to help them become cis should be made.  The idea is that the true trans will stay on the road they are on.

It is possible to hold that trans is real but there is no biological cause, no natural component, so trans rights should not be based on science like the rights of other races are.

It is possible to hold that there are occult or psychic forces in a person that can create such a cause.  This would say that even if you make your transhood it is now part of your very physical existence and so should be a basis for civil rights just like your race would be.  Religion says the occult is a sin.  Many would say that you don't need to invoke the paranormal to describe mind over matter.

It is possible to say trans is valid but caused by unsexed souls in a sexed body, female souls in male bodies, male souls in female bodies and so on. This threatens trans right and healthcare for in a secular society we cannot endorse that kind of thinking.  Secular rights are human rights.  The argument is a threat to trans healthcare.  Trans who accept such a notion must be willing to get the law to accept that there is some unknown cause and it is biological and that the law has to make do without proof.  Lived experience shows there is something.

It is possible to say trans people are valid and yet claim that whatever forces you to go on a journey like that instead of leaving you free to help others better is evil.  You need to have the self-respect to argue that you have defeated God to be who you are and that now you are a person who is able to be there for others after your transition.

It is possible to hold that trans deserve to be called what they say they should be called and granted gender affirming care but that this is about being liberal and kind rather than really thinking trans should be happening and be acted upon.  It is, "It is hard to truly accept but the person may know best so I will keep out of it."

The point is that many who support trans rights have a narrow view of what that means. They have only some favourite trans people in mind.  They have one "kind" of trans that they favour. Their view excludes many trans and nonbinary people and activists.  Beliefs such as God do not help with that problem.  Trans care could be reversed or neglected over these things.  We see many cases of successful care being given and then suddenly withdrawn.  The only way to address this is to affirm that a cis person at the mercy of nature is as well off as a trans person who has to take action and not let things run their natural course.

There is no real dignity in thinking God makes you trans so that you can overcome the hardship. It is cruel and a good outcome does not justify it. And there is the problem of how it is telling you to think that you are so special that God has to give you this challenge.  People may pretend to think that of you but they do not and you know it. 

The experience of some with gender dysphoria is that they are non-binary and not male, not female.  They may claim to be neither.  Or both.  These would be hurt by the religious doctrine that God makes wholes not parts.  Such a teaching is in response to the teaching of evolution that says we are just a collection of parts that made a very advanced biological machine.  The non-binary experience is that regardless of what nature or god has given them, the parts may seem healthy by any standard but the mind say they are not and are defects.

The Bible says you can't love the God you can't see, if you don't love the neighbour you can see. What has seeing to do with it? Why is Bible so weak on motivating love? Because it's insincere.  Rubbish like that is a threat to everybody especially trans.  And nonbinary people are the most oppressed within the trans class.

Affirm the experience of those who determine that something, perhaps nature if you are atheist, perhaps nature and a god if you are not, that put you in the wrong existence.

 Affirm those who think if there is a God, that we have the right to love ourselves and get healthcare regardless of what he thinks. We have the right to love ourselves and say we are responding to his mistakes. It takes great stunning bravery to do that.

Affirm voices of trans and nonbinary people who relate to how the god theory denigrates and threatens them.

Susie Green’s trans daughter, Jackie, tweeted on 1 August 2018, “I was meant to be female and thus had surgery to correct my small birth defect. For a long time I was told I had to play with action men and other ‘boy toys’, another concept I find rather silly, but still wanted the Barbies and little mermaid toys.”

Affirm that “All prayer that seeks to change or suppress someone’s innate sexuality or gender identity is deeply damaging and causes immeasurable harm” [Jayne Ozanne. She calls it “hate prayer.”].  This needs to include everyday trans erasing rites such as the Catholic marriage ceremony.  Horribly it is based around readings claiming that God made Adam as man and woman to be his mate and that Jesus was right to make this the unchangeable pattern.  Those utterances are declared sacred and that God is to be thanked for them.

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