The website leans heavily on religious therapy and "gender exploratory therapy" a misleadingly named type of therapy meant to convince trans people they are not truly transgender.
Astounding. The need to demonize people who could use real support, and pretend to be that support. I just don't have a big comment, on this piece, but it is another profound example of the need to be informed, that Erin does such a great job with.
We could just start a campaign to get the hosting provider to remove the site if it violates TOS I did’t know about this I’ll run some tools over the weekend and see what our chances are thanks for the info Eran
> In an FAQ section, several questions seem aimed to deter transgender teens from transitioning, suggesting they'll face “a lot of pain” and asking, “are you ready to give up your ability to ever have biological children for life?”
If they're talking about AFAB trans men or non-binary people, this is blatantly and biologically false. AFAB Trans men can and do get pregnant, as well as AFAB non-binary people. This is propaganda and lies in the worst way possible.
This nonsense is worse, in some ways, than the hateful rhetoric spewed by Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, and others. At least they're honest in their hate. They want us all back in the closet, or dead.
This kind of "helpful" "Save the children!" disinformation is going to lead so many parents with good intentions (and, admittedly, too many with bad intentions) into mistreating their trans (or gay) children while believing they're doing right by them, and it's going to make those same parents feel awful about themselves when this nonsense therapy doesn't "fix" their kids.
You can't therapize transness out of a kid any more than you can beat it out of them. You need to love your kids for who they are, not who you want them to be.
I see so many common threads between these anti-trans folks and promoters of the ex-gay movement 20-30 years ago. Especially when it comes to adopting a veneer of evidence-based science, both anti-trans and ex-gay movements have wanted to prove themselves professional and above board.
For ex-gay promoters, NARTH (National Assn for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) was co-founded and led by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi for a decade-plus. He strongly touted the absent-father/domineering mother theory as the cause of males being gay. While NARTH collaborated with Christian, LDS and Jewish organizations, it claimed that people of any or no faith alignments could be helped to go from gay to straight.
In 2006, I attended a one-day Love Won Out conference for ex-gays and conservative families who bring their LGBTQ loved ones over to the ex-gay side. (I had been out to several of the leaders there in online venues, so was not hiding my identity.)
Nicolosi spoke first; I had been looking forward to hearing a calm, evidence-based version of his work. Instead, it was a 45-minute tirade. He was angry that his "research" and psychotherapy approaches were not accepted by his mainstream peers. He spoke in absolutes -- like that for every gay teen or adult, some form of abuse or malignant family issue. And, one of the things he was most vitriolic about was the surge of people identifying as LGBTQ Christians. It is not just the height of blasphemy, he said; gay Christians mock God and the Bible.
I didn't expect to agree with Nicolosi, but hearing him say the quiet part in a thundering angry voice surprised me: He considered his work to be a religious crusade at its root.
The American College of Pediatricians, with it's Biological Integrity Institute is following NARTH's 30-year-old playbook: Paint a false, thin veneer over a religious crusade.
SO many things I want to say, but I don't want to get kicked off Substack. I cannot believe they are still trotting out that asinine nonsense from the 50s and 60s of "things parents can do so their kids don't end up gay." And, if your kids do end up gay, it's always the mother's fault for being too nagging, controlling, assertive, etc. etc. Ugh! Also, regarding the conversion therapy, they are very sneaky. A few years ago, my husband and I (just wanting to talk to other parents with gay/trans kids--not looking to "fix" them) accidentally attended a Catholic meeting called Encourage. The one for LGBTQ+ is called Courage - DON'T BE FOOLED AND KEEP AWAY FROM BOTH OF THESE. (These orgs need to be shut down as well.) The meeting was misrepresented and we quickly realized this was NOT the place for us. There were only about 6-7 people there and it got awkward real fast when the others realized we had no problem with our children being who they are and were not afraid to say so. Luckily after that we found PFLAG and Serendipitydodah - Home of the Real Mama Bears, very affirming places.
Thank you Erin. It should be no surprise that the extreme right wing conservatives would listen to a pseudo medical society with few members who have little experience if any treating transgender individuals as opposed the the Amer. Academy of Pediatrics with around 70,000 members who support gender affirming care as do every other legitimate medical organization including the World Health Organization. Gender Exploratory Treatment is simply abuse and as you state worsens the suicide statistics for trans children as does the overt hate exhibited by legislators who have no expertise nor value the real experts. Sometimes an impartial judge will recognized and call this out but just as frequently they are conservative appointees. Our only salvation would be wide dissemination in the news and social media of this obscenity.
> The United Kingdom’s NHS Trust has incorporated “gender exploratory therapy” in its training resources and seems to be contemplating its usage for trans youth treatment.
This is not quite right, although the gist is correct. Think of the most byzantine, bizarrely overcomplicated organisational structure you can imagine:— the NHS is more so. An NHS Trust is, roughly speaking, any legal entity set up under the National Health Service Act 2006 to provide NHS healthcare. At some point in 2022 there were 215 of them in the UK. (It isn't even possible to draw a map of them, because the geographical areas they operate in overlap, and there are various different types.)
More worryingly, NHS England had floated using gender exploratory therapy for trans children and adolescents throughout England — which is much worse than one of the 58 NHS Mental Health Trusts in England doing it. This was in the initial proposal (linked at https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/specialised-commissioning/gender-dysphoria-services/) published in October 2022 of the "Interim service specification for specialist gender incongruence services for children and young people". Specifically this section of the proposal, while it doesn't use the term "gender exploratory therapy" in so many words, was widely (and I think correctly) interpreted as referring to it:
> Psychoeducation
> Provision of or, signposting to psycho-education resources may be key outcomes of both an initial enquiry and a professional consultation meeting. Psycho-education material for children and young people, parents/carers and local professionals alike will include information on gender identity development including research evidence and how to support an exploratory approach that allows their child or young person time and opportunity to consider different options in a flexible and non-judgemental context.
> Children, young people accepted for direct assessment and/or intervention, and their parents/carers, will receive further psycho-educational information, including the implications of medical treatment (and non-treatment). Parents, carers and families, (including siblings) will have the opportunity to access additional resources including facilitated group discussions with peers on a similar journey.
This intervention included describing the proposal's implication that the NHS could interfere in social transition as "an unconscionable degree of medical and State intrusion into personal and family decision-making about simple everyday matters such as clothing, name, pronouns, and school arrangements." (Obviously WPATH et al are not the most radical of organisations; for them to describe anything as "an unconscionable degree of medical and State intrusion" is pretty spectacular.)
> The primary intervention for children and young people who are assessed as suitable for The Service is psychosocial (including psychoeducation) and psychological support and intervention; the main objective is to alleviate distress associated with gender incongruence and promote the individual’s global functioning and wellbeing. The approach for onward referrals to endocrinology clinics are described in separate NHS England clinical commissioning policies for puberty suppressing hormone treatment and gender affirming hormone treatment.
Also, it still requires trans kids' forced participation in a research study to access blockers or gender-affirming hormone therapy. As I said in my response to the consultation (https://twitter.com/feministPLT/status/1599505433424642049), this is illegal, violates the Declaration of Helsinki which covers the ethics of medical research, and violates the General Medical Council's ethical guidelines to doctors (https://twitter.com/feministPLT/status/1599517338877198336).
74 years old. I wish I knew back when what I know now. Couldn't have been raised with a stronger male presence in my life. Dad was a WWII marine. He spent most of his life As a NYC policeman He,and my mother, also a marine, went hunting every year at least once a year . It probably would have made my childhood wasier!
Disgusting, duplicitous and dangerous! These bigoted, cisgender supremacists do not belong ANYWHERE near vulnerable teens. SOOOO far away from upholding their Hippocratic oath. This is right up there with "crisis pregnancy" centers that pretend to provide care for pregnant people. It's a big lie.
Is there a way to go after the licenses of those pushing bias and abuse under the false premise of being a "professional"? If conversion therapy is recognized as harmful, is there a way to get those practicing it to lose their therapy license? Can we get legitimate pediatric organizations to come out and oppose this group?
Republicans in WI were successful overturning Gov. Ever's ban on conversion therapy back in February. Then they present gender affirming care bills that prohibits everything except "talk therapy". The bill has language about brain maturity fully developing at age 25. They paint all current medical professions currently providing gender affirming care as being in it for the money. They are specifically targeting parents of young children who have the language to express what's going on with them to manipulate doubt and confusion so they question what's really real. This is calculated, evil, and needs to be stopped. But how??
So...... I just wonder when the Right-wingers will start attacking Autistic children. In one of the main Norwegian news papers it states that there has been an “EXPLOSIVE RISE” in cases of female kids with Autism (remember how the right-wingers screamed about ROGD... instead of admitting we’re just getting better at diagnosing children)
Anyways. It’s coming. Mark my words. They’ll be tired of transgender people soon and will get a new group to attack and take away rights from. That’s what gets them off.
My mom tried to raise me as a female, it didn't work. Fortunately, my dad was more than happy to let me work on the dairy farm and dress in jeans and t-shirts. I had a rough enough time growing up but I think my mom did one thing right, let me work on the farm and help dad with the cows. It helped that I had 2 younger sisters that were happy to be "girls".
Astounding. The need to demonize people who could use real support, and pretend to be that support. I just don't have a big comment, on this piece, but it is another profound example of the need to be informed, that Erin does such a great job with.
We could just start a campaign to get the hosting provider to remove the site if it violates TOS I did’t know about this I’ll run some tools over the weekend and see what our chances are thanks for the info Eran
> In an FAQ section, several questions seem aimed to deter transgender teens from transitioning, suggesting they'll face “a lot of pain” and asking, “are you ready to give up your ability to ever have biological children for life?”
If they're talking about AFAB trans men or non-binary people, this is blatantly and biologically false. AFAB Trans men can and do get pregnant, as well as AFAB non-binary people. This is propaganda and lies in the worst way possible.
This nonsense is worse, in some ways, than the hateful rhetoric spewed by Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, and others. At least they're honest in their hate. They want us all back in the closet, or dead.
This kind of "helpful" "Save the children!" disinformation is going to lead so many parents with good intentions (and, admittedly, too many with bad intentions) into mistreating their trans (or gay) children while believing they're doing right by them, and it's going to make those same parents feel awful about themselves when this nonsense therapy doesn't "fix" their kids.
You can't therapize transness out of a kid any more than you can beat it out of them. You need to love your kids for who they are, not who you want them to be.
I see so many common threads between these anti-trans folks and promoters of the ex-gay movement 20-30 years ago. Especially when it comes to adopting a veneer of evidence-based science, both anti-trans and ex-gay movements have wanted to prove themselves professional and above board.
For ex-gay promoters, NARTH (National Assn for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) was co-founded and led by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi for a decade-plus. He strongly touted the absent-father/domineering mother theory as the cause of males being gay. While NARTH collaborated with Christian, LDS and Jewish organizations, it claimed that people of any or no faith alignments could be helped to go from gay to straight.
In 2006, I attended a one-day Love Won Out conference for ex-gays and conservative families who bring their LGBTQ loved ones over to the ex-gay side. (I had been out to several of the leaders there in online venues, so was not hiding my identity.)
Nicolosi spoke first; I had been looking forward to hearing a calm, evidence-based version of his work. Instead, it was a 45-minute tirade. He was angry that his "research" and psychotherapy approaches were not accepted by his mainstream peers. He spoke in absolutes -- like that for every gay teen or adult, some form of abuse or malignant family issue. And, one of the things he was most vitriolic about was the surge of people identifying as LGBTQ Christians. It is not just the height of blasphemy, he said; gay Christians mock God and the Bible.
I didn't expect to agree with Nicolosi, but hearing him say the quiet part in a thundering angry voice surprised me: He considered his work to be a religious crusade at its root.
The American College of Pediatricians, with it's Biological Integrity Institute is following NARTH's 30-year-old playbook: Paint a false, thin veneer over a religious crusade.
SO many things I want to say, but I don't want to get kicked off Substack. I cannot believe they are still trotting out that asinine nonsense from the 50s and 60s of "things parents can do so their kids don't end up gay." And, if your kids do end up gay, it's always the mother's fault for being too nagging, controlling, assertive, etc. etc. Ugh! Also, regarding the conversion therapy, they are very sneaky. A few years ago, my husband and I (just wanting to talk to other parents with gay/trans kids--not looking to "fix" them) accidentally attended a Catholic meeting called Encourage. The one for LGBTQ+ is called Courage - DON'T BE FOOLED AND KEEP AWAY FROM BOTH OF THESE. (These orgs need to be shut down as well.) The meeting was misrepresented and we quickly realized this was NOT the place for us. There were only about 6-7 people there and it got awkward real fast when the others realized we had no problem with our children being who they are and were not afraid to say so. Luckily after that we found PFLAG and Serendipitydodah - Home of the Real Mama Bears, very affirming places.
Thank you Erin. It should be no surprise that the extreme right wing conservatives would listen to a pseudo medical society with few members who have little experience if any treating transgender individuals as opposed the the Amer. Academy of Pediatrics with around 70,000 members who support gender affirming care as do every other legitimate medical organization including the World Health Organization. Gender Exploratory Treatment is simply abuse and as you state worsens the suicide statistics for trans children as does the overt hate exhibited by legislators who have no expertise nor value the real experts. Sometimes an impartial judge will recognized and call this out but just as frequently they are conservative appointees. Our only salvation would be wide dissemination in the news and social media of this obscenity.
> The United Kingdom’s NHS Trust has incorporated “gender exploratory therapy” in its training resources and seems to be contemplating its usage for trans youth treatment.
This is not quite right, although the gist is correct. Think of the most byzantine, bizarrely overcomplicated organisational structure you can imagine:— the NHS is more so. An NHS Trust is, roughly speaking, any legal entity set up under the National Health Service Act 2006 to provide NHS healthcare. At some point in 2022 there were 215 of them in the UK. (It isn't even possible to draw a map of them, because the geographical areas they operate in overlap, and there are various different types.)
There was a specific NHS Trust that incorporated "gender exploratory" materials in its training. That was South London and Maudley NHS Mental Health Trust: https://transsafety.network/posts/gender-exploratory-nhs-training/
More worryingly, NHS England had floated using gender exploratory therapy for trans children and adolescents throughout England — which is much worse than one of the 58 NHS Mental Health Trusts in England doing it. This was in the initial proposal (linked at https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/specialised-commissioning/gender-dysphoria-services/) published in October 2022 of the "Interim service specification for specialist gender incongruence services for children and young people". Specifically this section of the proposal, while it doesn't use the term "gender exploratory therapy" in so many words, was widely (and I think correctly) interpreted as referring to it:
> Psychoeducation
> Provision of or, signposting to psycho-education resources may be key outcomes of both an initial enquiry and a professional consultation meeting. Psycho-education material for children and young people, parents/carers and local professionals alike will include information on gender identity development including research evidence and how to support an exploratory approach that allows their child or young person time and opportunity to consider different options in a flexible and non-judgemental context.
> Children, young people accepted for direct assessment and/or intervention, and their parents/carers, will receive further psycho-educational information, including the implications of medical treatment (and non-treatment). Parents, carers and families, (including siblings) will have the opportunity to access additional resources including facilitated group discussions with peers on a similar journey.
Make no mistake; "psycho-education" is a malevolent dogwhistle for conversion therapy, and everyone saw through that. It wasn't the only objectionable thing in the proposal, which clearly had a lot of explicitly transphobic input (see https://growinguptransgender.com/2022/11/02/nhs-service-specification-a-dangerous-attack-on-trans-kids/).
There was a huge backlash to that in the public consultation, including a joint intervention from WPATH, ASIAPATH, EPATH, PATHA, and USPATH that basically amounted to sitting NHS England down and berating them for being transphobic and proposing to violate trans kids' human rights: https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/Public%20Policies/2022/25.11.22%20AUSPATH%20Statement%20reworked%20for%20WPATH%20Final%20ASIAPATH.EPATH.PATHA.USPATH.pdf?_t=1669428978
This intervention included describing the proposal's implication that the NHS could interfere in social transition as "an unconscionable degree of medical and State intrusion into personal and family decision-making about simple everyday matters such as clothing, name, pronouns, and school arrangements." (Obviously WPATH et al are not the most radical of organisations; for them to describe anything as "an unconscionable degree of medical and State intrusion" is pretty spectacular.)
The final (insofar as an interim thing can be final) "Interim service specification" was published in June 2023: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/interim-service-specification-for-specialist-gender-incongruence-services-for-children-and-young-people/ Some of the most transphobic elements have been watered down but it still includes this:
> The primary intervention for children and young people who are assessed as suitable for The Service is psychosocial (including psychoeducation) and psychological support and intervention; the main objective is to alleviate distress associated with gender incongruence and promote the individual’s global functioning and wellbeing. The approach for onward referrals to endocrinology clinics are described in separate NHS England clinical commissioning policies for puberty suppressing hormone treatment and gender affirming hormone treatment.
Also, it still requires trans kids' forced participation in a research study to access blockers or gender-affirming hormone therapy. As I said in my response to the consultation (https://twitter.com/feministPLT/status/1599505433424642049), this is illegal, violates the Declaration of Helsinki which covers the ethics of medical research, and violates the General Medical Council's ethical guidelines to doctors (https://twitter.com/feministPLT/status/1599517338877198336).
Suggested correction:
"A local NHS Mental Health Trust in the United Kingdom [incorporated “gender exploratory therapy” in its training resources](https://transsafety.network/posts/gender-exploratory-nhs-training/). In addition, NHS England seemed last year to be [contemplating its usage for trans youth treatment throughout England](https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/specialised-commissioning/gender-dysphoria-services/) — prompting huge [opposition](https://growinguptransgender.com/2022/11/02/nhs-service-specification-a-dangerous-attack-on-trans-kids/), including a [dressing-down from WPATH, ASIAPATH, EPATH, PATHA, and USPATH](https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/Public%20Policies/2022/25.11.22%20AUSPATH%20Statement%20reworked%20for%20WPATH%20Final%20ASIAPATH.EPATH.PATHA.USPATH.pdf?_t=1669428978) that described the proposals as "an unconscionable degree of medical and State intrusion into personal and family decision-making".
I can’t help asking, “Why is this so important for them? Why is it seen as such a threat?”
I can’t help wondering if it has everything to do with patriarchy, and maintaining gender inequality.
74 years old. I wish I knew back when what I know now. Couldn't have been raised with a stronger male presence in my life. Dad was a WWII marine. He spent most of his life As a NYC policeman He,and my mother, also a marine, went hunting every year at least once a year . It probably would have made my childhood wasier!
This .... it's just so sad 😔
Disgusting, duplicitous and dangerous! These bigoted, cisgender supremacists do not belong ANYWHERE near vulnerable teens. SOOOO far away from upholding their Hippocratic oath. This is right up there with "crisis pregnancy" centers that pretend to provide care for pregnant people. It's a big lie.
Is there a way to go after the licenses of those pushing bias and abuse under the false premise of being a "professional"? If conversion therapy is recognized as harmful, is there a way to get those practicing it to lose their therapy license? Can we get legitimate pediatric organizations to come out and oppose this group?
Republicans in WI were successful overturning Gov. Ever's ban on conversion therapy back in February. Then they present gender affirming care bills that prohibits everything except "talk therapy". The bill has language about brain maturity fully developing at age 25. They paint all current medical professions currently providing gender affirming care as being in it for the money. They are specifically targeting parents of young children who have the language to express what's going on with them to manipulate doubt and confusion so they question what's really real. This is calculated, evil, and needs to be stopped. But how??
So...... I just wonder when the Right-wingers will start attacking Autistic children. In one of the main Norwegian news papers it states that there has been an “EXPLOSIVE RISE” in cases of female kids with Autism (remember how the right-wingers screamed about ROGD... instead of admitting we’re just getting better at diagnosing children)
https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/xgXpgX/over-et-halvt-aar-ventetid-for-autismeutredning-har-tatt-helt-av
Anyways. It’s coming. Mark my words. They’ll be tired of transgender people soon and will get a new group to attack and take away rights from. That’s what gets them off.
My mom tried to raise me as a female, it didn't work. Fortunately, my dad was more than happy to let me work on the dairy farm and dress in jeans and t-shirts. I had a rough enough time growing up but I think my mom did one thing right, let me work on the farm and help dad with the cows. It helped that I had 2 younger sisters that were happy to be "girls".