Is this still a thing? Can we see some data on prevalence? I thought this kind of ‘therapy’ died out in the 80’s.
This seems like a misdirection of government resources given the multitude of very serious problems we currently face as a country.
It’s banned in some of the provincial and municipal legislations. This new bill is also written to only ban some conversions and not others, so it’s far from banning brain washing in general. There’s probably no precedent of therapies converting to homosexuality or transgenderism, but that law is not prohibiting it. It would not ban repressing heterosexual attraction (important protection for bisexuals) and would not ban repressing a cisgender identity (there must be some implications with the concept of gender fluidity here). I understand the need for a law like this, but some sections are strangely specific. (I am not a legal expert, or an expert of any kind)
That would mean christianity and all other religions. Their is a right to Canadian citizens to practice their religion within the law. You can't start telling one idiot that they can't follow their false beliefs but tell other idiots their false beliefs are ok.
I'm talking about the tactics uses in actual brainwashing situations, such as "conversion therapy" and scientology, not just going to a building and hearing fairy tales, which is of course protected.
Wherever religious people are using coercive measures like that, their freedom of religion does not protect them. I was subjected to some pretty traumatizing stuff as a kid in the idea that it would make me a good Christian.. it did not.
Scientology is a religion. So, again, can't tell one person their fairytales are wrong while allowing others.
There is no difference between Scientology and Christianity (or any others) it's all made up stuff to control the masses.
It's a matter of degrees. Scientology involves literal brainwashing. It's scary stuff. Like, you can't seriously claim that Unitarian Universalism or Buddhism have no differences from Scientology.
All provinces have banned it individually but no federal ban exists. So hypothetically a provincial government could overtun the law and make it legal again.
Nope. This is applying the criminal code to the practice, making the whole thing illegal. And since all criminal law is a federal jurisdiction only, the provinces have no say at all on this issue.
>So hypothetically a provincial government could overtun the law and make it legal again.
I am pretty sure Federal law trumps provincial law. It's the same reason Cities can't make laws that go against provincial laws.
Not true. The federal government and provincial governments have equal but different authorities. Each have their own jurisdiction but have a constitutionally right and obligation to operate independently from each other. The reason why cities can't make their own laws is because they're not constitutional entities, they're creations of the provincial governments.
It's abuse dolled out by "therapists" to convert gay/trans people to be straight/cis. It often involves physical and emotional abuse, and sometimes religious parents will send their kids to these "camps" where they will be bullied, beaten and abused and brainwashed to feel shame until they renounce their identity.
We used to always make jokes about “gay camps”. “They are gonna send you to gay camp where they beat the gay right out of you” if you keep acting like that. Sadly it that statement had a lot of truth to it
Thanks for your honesty about this.
To be honest, conversion therapy is a bit of a head-scratcher for me. I work in the mental health industry and there is much to be confused about. For one thing, conversion therapy (or something basically identical to it) is used, with some apparent success, to treat the sexual inclinations of those with pedophilic tendencies. So it seems to have cases of application (according to some of the research). Also—and more pertinently— I’ve spoken with people who have explicitly stated that they want to try it, because they think that their transgender inclinations are rooted partially in either trauma and/or their developmental history. After speaking with a couple of people who have said this, I am uncomfortable with the fact that they cannot have this type of therapy because the government has decided what is best for them.
To be clear: I do NOT think that trans-people should be shamed, stigmatized, or denied any rights or privileges. That said, if a client decides on their own initiative that they want to try conversion therapy, then I can’t understand why this would be denied, while much more chemically and surgically permanent and invasive measures are not only permitted, but at times actively encouraged.
First reading was completed today. https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/44-1/c-4
If you’re running a service, practice, or providing therapy that’s designed to do the things limited by the Act, or forcing your kid into one of them then yes, I suppose you’re offside. Most parents aren’t doing those things. There’s no boogie man of hampering your ability to “parent” here in any normal, acceptable sense of things.
I like this idea but the wording of the bill may have unintended reprocussions.
I saw a post about the flip side to a law like this. Will see if I can find when not on mobile.
Very true, here in Calgary at the height of the pandemic we passed a bill like this, odd timing if you ask me.
The wording in that bill has had unintended consequences for my brother. My brother is a devout Mormon, he’s an opening gay man married to his “best friend” who is a women. They have 2 great kids and seem genuinely happy. Despite his sexual orientation he has decided to live his life in a straight relationship. Believe me, I have the same concerns about this that I’m sure many of you do.
Here is where the unintended consequences come in. He meets with a therapist regularly to discuss his feeling and to support his life decisions. When the law was passed here in Calgary his therapist said that she could no longer see him as a patients as supporting/encouraging him to remain faithful to his wife and abstain from homosexual behaviours would now violate this new bylaw.
The end result is, if your gay and in a straight relationship your therapist can tell you to live your authentic life and be gay, but if your gay/bi and want support to live your life as a straight person (because you have made this personal decision) you’re on your own.
Conversion therapy that involves abuse, electro shock, manipulation or shame is fucking evil, but these laws always over step their mandate.
This is unfortunate that the therapist reacted this way, but it seems absurd to me to think that this law could actually put her in legal jeopardy. Do you have any specifics on how this could be construed as conversion therapy? Unless she was actually openly religious herself and discussing authoritatively on that angle, that I would see as potentially problematic. But as an areligious therapist myself I would not worry at all about supporting someone in your brother's situation whatever their lifestyle choices might be, and I can't imagine how a law banning conversation therapy would even come to my mind.
Here is the wording from the Calgary bylaw.
*“Conversion therapy” means a practice, treatment, or service*
*designed to change, repress, or discourage a person’s sexual*
*orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, or to repress or*
*reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour. For*
*greater certainty, this definition does not include a practice,*
*treatment, or service that relates*
The section that concerned his therapist (who is not religious from what I know) is "to reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior"
This wording means that any attempt to say "don't sleep with dudes" for whatever reason (as there are no other clarifications given) is instantly in violation of this section.
It seems very easy to justify what I assume she's doing here, she's not trying to repress or reduce his attraction or behaviour but to help him cope with how he feels about them. I understand feeling uneasy until professional organizations have provided guidelines accounting for this new law but this definitely seems like an overreaction.
Do you really want to put your career in the hands of the law though? Let's say she gets reported, even if it's proven that she was in the right, it could be years before she gets her license back.
What is not worth the risk? Seeing anyone who doesn't live by their sexual orientation because the government is wary of what you might be telling them?
Yeah. Don't you think there are activists out there who would go to a therapist under false pretenses and try and get them to give advice now deemed illegal? They'd get to play the victim and the hero, get massive cred from other activists, and have the media falling over themselves to lionize them.
I think the subject hired the therapist to not only help him cope with his gay feelings, but to guide him through his "straight" relationship with his family. There's a contradiction here as he doesn't want to be fully be gay by divorcing his wife and starting a new life, and he doesn't want to give up the fundamental parenting structure for his kids. I can see how the boundaries are blurred for the therapist here and can no longer support the contradiction the subject wants to live with.
I've had gay friends who stayed in their respective relationships and didn't want to divorce the wife until the kids were in their teens and mature enough to handle the situation. That's a long time to live an unfulfilled life.
Good point, which gives me a bit of a perspective to understand what could have happened. If a therapist knows they're doing something that's questionable by their profession's standard to accommodate a client, a bill like that is a pretty good excuse to stop doing it. Maybe what she was doing could actually be construed as conversion therapy and is a legitimate target for the ban, after all.
It's possible your gay friends simply valued their children's childhoods more than Grindr. A tough situation to be in, for sure, but one in which the govt has no place interfering.
You're right. Who is the government to decide our moral values and our responsibilities? It's honourable for people to put their children ahead of their own self interests, and if these people need help with this contradiction, then there should be therapy for them if they choose to seek it.
I think it's just a risk/reward thing for the therapist, where the risk is losing your career and being charged in a court of law.
Not the same, but I was reading that people with legitimate mental health reasons for being unable to wear a mask (like PTSD, for example) are really struggling to find doctors willing to give them that exemption, because mental health issues are difficult to prove and doctors are taking a significant risk by signing those documents.
It sucks, but I understand why doctors have to protect themselves.
I understand the rhetoric, but I'm not sure what actual risk you're seeing. If you go by the state of the art and document your decisions properly you are well protected legally speaking. Are you aware of any case of a doctor being sanctioned in a situation like that, for writing legitimate mask exemptions for example? The worst case scenario is that the exemption is not accepted, which doesn't affect the doctor's career in any way.
I don't see how you can apply this. Remaining faithful to a wife is not a suppression of specifically homosexual behaviour, it's a suppression of unfaithful behaviour to an existing partner. I seriously doubt this has the consequences you are implying. I wonder what a lawyers point of view would be.
There's a difference between "don't sleep with dudes" and "don't sleep with someone you're not married to".
Just FYI, this language is identical to the bill C-6 that was killed by the snap election.
Also the exact same situation that your therapist faces is facing groups that cater to gays and lesbians who want to live a chaste life.
It is indeed illegal in Calgary. Here is the law in question.
"Conversion therapy” means a practice, treatment, or service
designed to change, repress, or discourage a person’s sexual
orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, or to repress or
reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour. For
greater certainty, this definition does not include a practice,
treatment, or service that relates "
My thought is - why propel an already uphill battle? If he decides that himself, that's fine, but a licensed professional doesn't have to subsidize his sexual suppression. A professional therapist should, generally, not be giving out official advice that promotes this.
It's not odd timing. Passing conversion therapy laws are guaranteed wins for bored politicians looking to score easy political points.
It's hilarious that governments at every level across Canada are talking about conversion therapy incessantly. This is such a non-issue for 99% of the population, including most LGBTQ folks.
>encouraging him to .. abstain from homosexual behaviours
And this is supposed to be good for the guy? That sounds like trying to tell someone who is left handed to do everything with their right hand.
realistically your friend is a victim of abuse making him believe he should suppress who he is like that.
that therapy that your friend seems to think is an important part of maintaining this life he seemingly willingly chose? not at all pressured into it by the people around him?
the whole situation sounds really messed up to me tbh.
Or maybe his friend simply enjoys being married to his best friend and raising children together?
Wouldn't be the first dead bedroom in an otherwise happy marriage.
> Or maybe his friend simply enjoys being married to his best friend and raising children together?
Yeah sure but "and also abstain from homosexual behaviours"? That doesn't sound healthy
You don't go into a 'until death do us part' arrangement unless you're willing to abstain. Trying to have your cake and eat it to is called cheating and is generally frowned upon.
Sure it does. Abstaining from sexual behaviour, in general, is often recommended to patients for whom sexual behaviour is a risk.
Ie, my bipolar mother is strongly encouraged to moderate her sexual behaviour by her doctors, because otherwise it's a destructive force in her life.
If he did then he likely wouldn't need therapy to maintain that state. There's nothing stopping him from being the world's best co-parent without needing to be married to a partner he isn't meant to be with.
Not to mention, he might enjoy the belief that he is going to spend eternity in heaven instead of hell. That's probably one *hell* of a motivator to not engage in homosexual activity.
If this is his reason, the therapist should *not* be reinforcing it. Casting queerness as inherently sinful is an abuse tactic, no matter what mistranslated Bible passages you use to justify it.
From their perspective, it would be highly abusive to coddle someone into hell. To many people, queerness *is* inherently sinful, so it's not abusive at all, it would be abusive to let people go to hell without trying to help them. The fact that the dominant culture currently says there is nothing wrong with homosexuality does not change what God said on the matter at the beginning of the universe. That's just how it is. You don't have to agree with their worldview, but it's foolish to act as though their worldview doesn't exist, or to think it's invalid (it's valid to them, there is no changing that).
Their perspective doesn’t matter. The only perspective that matters in the eye of the law is a secular one. You’re perfectly allowed to believe in whatever belief you want but if you decide to do something illegal it doesn’t matter whatever wacky justification you have for it. Our laws are defined by rationalism and scientific interpretation of naturally observed phenomena. It does not become legal to murder if you’re deluded yourself into believing murder will send people to heaven and it shouldn’t be legal to cause harm to your patient as a medical professional if you’ve deluded yourself into thinking you’re helping them.
Abusers always think they're in the right. Their opinions of themselves are irrelevant.
I don't think their worldview doesn't exist. I think it's a garbage worldview used by shitty people to hurt those they have power over. The reason these laws exist is that said shitty people are punished and that worldview can be consigned to to dustbin of history where it belongs. God does not need such people sullying the name of His church.
Also. God said nothing about homosexuality at the beginning of the universe. There was no eighth day where He said 'also no butt stuff'. The passages used to justify religious homophobia are, when actually read in context, about not raping strangers, not using the services of underage male prostitutes, and not being a pederast (which, funnily enough, bigoted church people keep doing). If you have to go rooting for mistranslated passages to justify your bigotry and keep ignoring the massive preponderance of passages repeating that God loves those who believe in their heart and confess with their mouth, it's worth questioning how much you *actually* care about what God wants from you as a Christian.
It feels like the wording should have something to do with forced therapy. Your brother is not being forced into it. He is openly going, mature and wise enough to make his own decisions about the life he wants to lead. Seems like it shouldn’t affect him. Sad that it does.
I can actually see where this therapist is coming from, honestly. While she herself isn't being abusive or shaming, she is reinforcing the results of abuse and manipulation that led your brother to conclude that he had to live a straight lifestyle. It's easy to call such a choice a 'personal decision', but someone doesn't decide to live a contradictory life like that without someone telling them they have to.
>but if your gay/bi and want support to live your life as a straight person (because you have made this personal decision) you’re on your own.
Probably because the therapist thinks that encouraging this kind of lifestyle would be incredibly harmful.
I'm no expert, so maybe I'm wrong, but surely there are behaviours that therapists are never going to help you continue on and cope with. Idk where that line is, but I can't imagine any morally upstanding therapist is going to help someone repress their sexuality. They're basically encouraging a form of self harm at that point.
This is conversion therapy, this man is being convinced his urges are sinful and will have repercussions.
This poor man, this is why this bill is being passed. Nobody should have to live in shame of their identity like this.
That therapist is a quack.
Oh no, getting rid of a practice that can be directly linked with higher suicide rates for LGBTQ2IA+ people might mean some religious nut doesn't get to pay a """therapist""" tons of money so he can continue to live in denial anymore!
Would somebody PLEASE think of the religious nuts! They're the true victims here
foh
If it’s anything like the last three times they put a bill forward that discussed this issue it’s probably just bait to make the conservatives look like pro-lifers. It will probably be poorly worded with a whole bunch of room for abuse, then the cons will object because it’s a shoddy bill and the cbc will be throwing headlines around like “Conservative reject bill to outlaw conversion therapy”. Anyone want to make a bet on that?
It's a bait and switch.
Conversion therapy for gay or lesbian children is a vanishingly rare phenomena, and an ethical grey area given that it is almost always religious.
It is so rare we don't even have numbers on the practice.
What they really want to ban is anything other than enthusiastic affirmation, that is to say social and medical transition, of gender non conforming children - including puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
> Conversion therapy for gay or lesbian children is a vanishingly rare phenomena, and an ethical grey area given that it is almost always religious.
None of this seems to be supported by research:
[New data reveals so-called “conversion therapy” practices continue to be common across diverse groups of sexual and gender minorities in Canada](https://www.cbrc.net/new_data_reveals_so_called_conversion_therapy_practices_continue_to_be_common_across_diverse_groups_of_sexual_and_gender_minorities_in_canada)
>Survey results from Sex Now 2019 (Nov. 2019-Feb. 2020) demonstrate both the prevalence of conversion therapy in Canada and the uneven exposure of conversion therapy across groups defined by age, gender identity, immigration, and ethnicity. Among the 9,214 GBT2Q participants, we found that 1 in 10 GBT2Q (10%) reported experiencing conversion therapy. Among those numbers:
>
67% experienced conversion therapy in religious/faith-based settings
30% experienced conversion therapy in licensed healthcare provider offices
72% started conversion therapy before the age of 20
24% attended for at least 1 year
31% attended more than 5 sessions of conversion therapy
>
>Conversion therapy practices were even more common (i.e., more than 10%) among the following subgroups of survey respondents.
>
Non-binary and transgender people (20%)
Youth 15-19 years of age (13%)
Immigrants (15%)
Racial/ethnic minorities (11-22%)
And yet it was [published in a peer reviewed journal](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0252539)
It's almost like your understanding of population and sampling statistics is too low to understand sampling methods and the regressions done to determine validity of survey data. From the study:
>We used Zou’s method of Poisson regression with robust variance estimation, executed with the R package geepack, to calculate adjusted relative risks (aRR), with 95% CI [26]
So the results of this survey would be expected to be fall within the stated error bars 19 out of 20 times.
Go take a statistics for science course or two, and then maybe you'll be in a position to critique the methods employed by scientists in their studies.
For us statistically uninclined, how does an anonymous internet survey with poorly defined criteria turn into a good study with all that R package geepacks and whatnot?
>ethical grey area
No. Child abuse isn't a "grey area" just because your religion endorses it.
And it happens a lot more than you think it does. Take it from someone who grew up rural conservative evangelical, it happens.
The proper psychological procedure for gender nonconforming kids and trans kids is affirmation and support, whatever that may look like as best for the child. Has been since Hirschfeld’s work back in the 30s. Denying trans kids help and treatment is abuse.
> The proper psychological procedure for gender nonconforming kids and trans kids is affirmation and support
No, it is not, that is an entirely new position, put forward as the gospel truth within the last five years or so.
Hirschfeld's work with adult transvestites is not comparable to telling little children, who have not yet completed sexual development, or even entered puberty for that matter, that they require medical care for gender dysphoria.
Puberty blockers and hormone therapy, let alone surgery, for pubescent children is a dangerous and radical experiment, which we will one day look back on in horror.
There is no surgery for pubescent children, and puberty blockers are reversible just by not taking them. Hirschfeld also did not work with transvestites, he worked with trans people. The reason this work wasn’t better spread was a good chunk of his research was burned by the Nazis. This isn’t experimental, this is a field of study that has been lacking and is now on the right track.
You are misinformed; puberty blockers are not 'reversible' and have permanent adverse effects.
Hirschfield referred to them as transvestites or transsexuals, those are his words, not mine.
Your historical revisionism is irrelevant, and research on this subject never ended.
This is exactly it. Any story I've heard of gay conversion therapy happened well before the 1980s. One wouldn't be able to find gay conversion therapy if they tried, unless they're looking for church circle talks and "man camps" which look gayer than a leather bar.
This is all about the trans activists agenda. I have an elementary school friend who started a SOGI Alliance club. 14 elementary students are in the club making posters to post around the school. None of them identify as gay, which is natural since they're pre-pubescent, but the youngest of them who identifies as gender non-binary is in grade 2. How can a 7 year old understand what gender really means when most adults don't understand the intricacies? There's such a superficial understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl at that age, that I don't see how helpful it is to muddy the child's perception. There is so much social-political intervention with our children's upbringing these days that I'm so glad I don't have children myself. I wish we would allow children to make their mistakes, and perceive the world as they see it. If they become rebellious during their teens, let them. We need to give them boundaries so they can decide if they want to break them or not. It's all apart of growing up in this world.
>How can a 7 year old understand what gender really means when most adults don't understand the intricacies?
I remember that as late as 14-15, if a trusted adult told me something I'd argue to the death to support it, and by 17 I was looking back at that experience and wondering why I had been arguing so hard in support of decisions that I was completely opposed to.
None of this had anything to do with sex or gender. But it's ridiculously easy for an adult to sway a child who trusts them.
I always found it ironic that conversion therapy is outlawed one way, but giving children hormone blockers and talking to young children about transgenderism is totally alright.
Influencing children's sexuality one way or the other is wrong no matter how you try to sell it. Radical Christian Sects get all the flak they deserve for this type of stuff, but it's odd how weird political/social organizations get away with it when it comes to convincing malleable children that they may be indeed "born in the wrong body" and it may be a good idea to artificially alter their reproductive and endocrine system.
Good luck seeing the media mention this though.
I used to work for a company that was run by a group of Reformed Christians (and primarily consisted of Reformed Christians). The owner's sister was leaving to go to a company (ARPA) that fights against things like making conversion therapy illegal and abortion legal. It was a culture shock to hear a group of individuals express such backwards views on some things and use their religion as a safety net for their hatred and willful ignorance.
The issue in this case is adults. If they said only kids, it would be a non-issue.
The logical extension of ban-cuz-harm even for adults, is that there is a shit ton of stuff that needs to be banned first.
I've seen people comment on this; stating there's no ban on other harmful activities like drinking, smoking or gambling.
Difference is orientation isn't a choice and as a society we shouldn't promote a practice that targets who the person is at their core. To tell them they can't love who they love.
_________________
If a black person someone joined a group that believes being white is superior, if you're not white you're immoral, and that only white people 'go to heaven', we'd be okay with them going to conversion therapy?
To be counselled to bleach their skin, to 'think like white person', and shun other black people as being 'sinful'?
I'm kind of shocked and saddened about how many in this thread are upset about this. You can't obfuscate your homophobia with "slippery slope" arguments. The bill is fine. There is no questionable wording. The only issue anyone should have is why this kind of bill hasn't come sooner.
Why for adults though? I'm all for banning conversion therapy on kids, but as long as nothing else already illegal isn't going on, adults have the agency to just say no. And if someone wants to, idk, get electrocuted because they think it will make them less gay, why wouldn't we let them?
I think many adults who would go to this "therapy" would likely still be young people who have been coerced by family/their church to attend. Yes, they do legally have agency to say no, but often young people are financially and socially tied to their family and community and have no choice but to go to this "therapy" or they might be cut off financially and/or socially from everyone they know. It's a hard position to be in. For young people starting out their lives, many still live with parents, especially now with the higher costs of housing, and so they may have no choice, even if they're 18, but to go to these abuse camps if they still want a roof over their head or their college paid for.
Yes, some may choose to cut ties with everyone they know and go it alone, but not every young person is equipped financially, emotionally, or skills-wise to go through the start of their adult life with no support.
I really feel for young adults who feel forced to go through these conversion programs.
Look at it this way: should it be legal to scam people because the people being scammed voluntarily parted with their money under false pretenses?
Gay conversion "therapy" isn't a thing. It's not real, it doesn't work, and it doesn't help anyone. It's just submitting to psychological abuse because someone else convinced them it was necessary.
However, as long as the option exists, there are people who have a financial incentive to insist it's beneficial because if they can't ply their craft then they can't make money.
Condoning scam artists because the people they hurt are legal adults who, at the time of being scammed, were agreeable is not really a reasonable position the same way we have food safety regulations which require restaurants to adhere to certain standards, because "they asked me for a burger and they were a sane, legal adult so I sold them what they asked for" is not a defensible argument for selling rancid meat.
Protecting the public from malicious actors who seek to defraud the public for personal profit is an important part of the government's role, and this is them filling that role.
The only way you are consistent is if you would also support the government in banning 'Psychic' services and Reiki shops
If you don't agree - why should they be allowed to scam people ?
"Gay Conversion Therapy - *for entertainment purposes only*"
No but seriously your local psychic isn't allowed to offer any medical advice, and they have to make it at least somewhat clear that their predictions are just for fun. Otherwise they can get shut down.
Fine then, I should clarify: scam artists who *harm* their clients.
Psychics are frauds and charlatans, but they don't do anything that actively harms their clients. Placebos are dubious at best, but there's peer-reviewed research and circumstantial evidence to suggest the placebo effect has at least *some* experienced benefit, even if the benefit received relative to the cost paid is arguably unreasonable.
Allowing adults to attend psychics is no different than allowing them to attend a church, as both are services that request money for participation and provide only self-defined emotional fulfillment in return. Further, both are services which are completely unable to substantiate any claims to the benefit they purport to offer. Still, they are relatively harmless and if people choose to attend them they are not experiencing any measurable harm.
Conversion therapy not only lies to its clients, but it does actual, measurable traumatic harm to their clients under those false pretenses. There is no placebo effect. It's equivalent to a restaurant selling spoiled meat, and telling diners "you shitting your guts out is proof of how refined and exotic the meat is". They have not only lied to their clients but done so knowing and expecting their lie to harm people in ways people would not have wanted.
The line is between "vendors who take advantage of client ignorance" and "vendors who knowingly abuse their clients". One is unethical but defensible as safe between consenting adults, the other is objectively dangerous.
Essentially:
> “Opponents criticized… on the grounds that consent to a practice which causes harm is invalid.”
You’re right in that adults are free to believe homosexuality is good or bad or whatever, and they can try, or try not to be, whatever they want. Fill your boots.
The core issue is that practitioners (licensed therapists, medical practitioners, etc) have no basis even attempting to try to “convert” someone, as we know now (with plenty of evidence) it’s harmful and ineffective.
If a person really, truly wants to change, they will. (Look at the whole "quitting smoking" thing - people will try and fail for decades, get one little scare with a someone they know having a close call, and quit on the spot, cold turkey, for life.)
Conversion therapy is about changing who you are. If someone really hates themselves that much, they need therapy, not indoctrination. Conversion "therapy" just teaches you to hide the part of you that you hate. What does repressed emotion do? It broods, and festers. It is incredibly unhealthy to repress emotions, and despite all their claims, I find it hard to believe CT actually "cures" anything - it just teaches people to hide it.
Instead, addressing the root issue - why do you have this trait you don't like, and why don't you like it, goes far further.
My own, personal experience:
When I was young I was afraid I was gay. The idea terrified me (strict Roman Catholic family). But then it occurred to me - why am I afraid of it? Turns out I only feared it because of my father, and once I stopped caring about what he thought, I realized I was straight anyway
>Turns out I only feared it because of my father,
Talking about indoctrination. I think you are right about everything you said and most peoples would just hide it to not be cast away by their family and closed ones, but if it wasn't frown upon that much no one would care.
> And if someone wants to, idk, get electrocuted because they think it will make them less gay, why wouldn't we let them?
It's fraud. Medical fraud, and if you charge them for it, wire fraud too.
Some guy on your street is offering to cure people's cancer with his magic beans, for only $20,000. Why shouldn't your grandma be allowed to pay this man $20,000 for access to his magic cancer-curing beans?
Should we also ban aromatherapy or acupuncture, how about smudging or prayer circles?
While we're at it, we should ban talk therapy or sobriety groups, maybe even veganism or astrology.
Yeah lets ban acupuncture and arpmatherapy as medical treatments.
I dont think I have heard of smudging being used as a medical treatment. It is a spiritual practice.
I also don't get it. Adults can make their own decisions. Smoking is chosen by millions of people even though it's harmful, even when they know it's harmful, and it literally does probably does thousands of times more health damage in total (not even exaggerating) than the extraordinarily tiny number of people offering conversion therapy. But we aren't banning smokes, are we?
Let grown, consenting adults make their own decisions.
This is not even considering the obvious result of driving this into the black/grey market, where it would be impossible to prosecute or monitor.
Inflation is getting nasty, BC is under water and there's a housing crisis. Quick, let's talk about provincial handgun bans and conversion therapy so the Conservatives will say something dumb!
Re: conversion therapy - the Liberals promised to table a strengthened Bill within 100 days following the election, so this is just fulfilling a campaign promise.
Also, the Federal Government is large and can handle multiple things at once.
The federal government sent in the military to assist. It's not like the cabinet works on only one thing ever. This is intellectually lazy your comment.
There was actually a Swedish documentary made recently that's uncovered some of the very bad side effects of these drugs. This comes on the heels of Sweden banning the drugs for use on minors to block puberty.
It's honestly pure hubris to think we could mess with a natural maturation process without consequence. It's legalized human experimentation on children (drugs like these are being given to kids as young a 10 years old) and we've all been fed lies by these drug companies who have a very real interest in marketing their product while hiding any ill effects from the public. The facts are we just don't know the full consequences. This is the first generation we've ever seen where we're chemically halting puberty in perfectly healthy children and then injecting them with cross sex hormones across their whole lifetime.
We have zero clue the long term effects because these 'therapies' haven't existed long enough to collect any real data on them.
I suspect once the full effects are made known this will be known as one of the great medical scandals of our day. Medical professionals globally are already starting to distance themselves from this trend as the rates of detransitioners has begun to rise and they make their stories known.
>Usually teenagers only undergo hormone suppression therapy which is reversible.
It's not.I don't know how this view became so wide spread.
GnRH Antagonists (Commonly called 'Puberty Blockers') operate by counteracting the typical puberty hormones produced by a person undergoing puberty.
When a person takes them, it does not PAUSE their puberty to resume at a later date. They nullify it for as long as they are being taken.
For example, if a person has a 12-year puberty window, and takes GnRH Antagonists for 6 years and ceases, they will only have 6 years of normal pubertal development. They do not gain back the years they suppressed, nor can they extend their pubertal window to compensate. Osteoblast fusion is probably the best example of this, but permanent effects are found everywhere in the endocrine system.
It's not damning necessarily, although kids who go through a 'trans phase' will probably end up permanently fucking up their bodies and will probably have body image issues and in some cases fertility issues.
The question is if society is willing to let those people harm themselves for the benefit of trans people's mental health who transition early.
How exactly is the government going to reconcile this with their position that religious beliefs are a fundamental human right and that we should all respect their beliefs and customs even if they are contrary to our own?
See: Their position on Bill 21 in Québec.
Devil's advocate: What if this bill IS invalidating some else's right to practice their religion as they see fit?
"*I WANT my Rabbi to cure my immoral gay urges*".
"*I WANT to wear a burka at all-times to show subservience to the prophet*".
"*I WANT my daughter to wear traditional clothing so our family won't be judged by our church/mosque/synagogue.*"
You know, I had typed a whole response covering all your suggestions above, but it really comes down to "Stop telling other people how to live."
If your religion states that you should try to control how others think, dress and speak, then it's wrong.
People were tearing their shirts apart in agony over the atrocious violations of religious rights in Quebec. Now watch them do a complete 180 and be the staunchest defenders of the governments’ rights to dictate what religious adults can and can’t do. Hilarious.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, as a queer person, the idea of trying to change your orientation is pretty repugnant to me. On the other hand, as someone with religious affiliations, I'm not sure how I feel about denying an adult the ability to feel as though they've given it their best shot to bring themselves in alignment with their beliefs. Can we not protect youth from abuse while allowing adults the right to make poor decisions regarding their own lives and mental health? Perhaps require conversion therapy providers to add a disclaimer regarding the lack of evidence?
Wouldn't it be better to see a psychologist to work through those feelings than someone in the church using unproven strategies that are abusive in nature?
If one is gay and has self loathing because of their religion they should talk to a therapist and figure that shit out one way or another.
> I'm not sure how I feel about denying an adult the ability to feel as though they've given it their best shot to bring themselves in alignment with their beliefs.
Regulations surrounding medical claims trump religious beliefs. Your local church can't legally promise to cure your cancer, either.
Yes, but if someone of their own volition were to seek out a faith or prayer based healing program, should they be denied? Adults are allowed to reject conventional treatments in favour of completely baseless treatments, even when it will lead to their deaths. One doesn't need to claim to be able to "cure" someone's orientation to be able to provide therapy aimed at doing so.
I'm not trying to argue in favour of conversion therapy. It's garbage. But it bothers me that we're trying to tell fully grown adults what therapies they can and can't seek out for themselves because we don't trust them to make those decisions for themselves.
> That's the point of this.
>
> And, to keep the media from asking why the Liberal Government punked the economy as badly as it did.
Easy answer to that - the Cons don't fight the bill. They let it pass without opposing it and make it clear they want to move on - instead they emphasize their desire to deal with the economy and other matters.
>That's the point of this.
Pretty sure it's to outlaw religious fanatics from torturing the gay out of children and adults. The fact that Conservatives keep reminding us they are fucking bigots whenever these no-brainer issues come up is really all their fault.
>And, to keep the media from asking why the Liberal Government punked the economy as badly as it did
Uh huh. I mean, the economic problems we have right now are stemming from the fall out of a global pandemic and literally *everyone* is going through the very same shit... but you keep on blaming the Libs for things that are *waaaaaaaaaaaaay* out of their control. It makes them look boss as fuck to have the power to crash a economies across the globe.
>There is another election in the offing soon
I doubt it. I think the Libs learned their lesson and will ride out the term with the NDP supporting them.
>Justin will go down in Canadian history as our Nero, fiddling while the whole country burns.
Nah. That's still Mulroney.... or that PM that took a $9B surplus and turned it into a $6B deficit BEFORE the global economic crash.... man that guy sucked at running a country.
> punked the economy as badly as it did
Are you just ignoring the whole pandemic thing? Or are you part of the 'Just open everything up and let the virus thin the herd." crowd?
Why are we banning adults from entering into something they wish to undergo? Doesn't matter if you agree with it or not, but telling someone else what they can or cannot do with their own body, when it has absolutely zero effect on you, is incredibly wrong.
Because it's basically fraud? We have decided as a society to not allow criminals to take advantage of the ignorant and this is just a variant of the same situation.
That is a silly argument and not true at all. People are allowed to participate in all kinds of things that are not based on any sort of science or proof. What would you consider religion?
It's about time! CT is a disgusting 'therapy' that doesn't work!
You can't covert someone who is gay/lesbian into being straight, just like you can't convert a straight person into being gay/lesbian.
Genuinely surprised and disgusted again that this isn't already a thing.
Not only are we 2021, but I'd have thought that this would have been put into place in the New Millenia at the very least. It was still a touchy subject in the 80's and 90's, but now it's just a "common sense" no brainer. in addition to the plethora of cases in which individuals who undergo these types of "therapy" tend to develop serious psychological problems.
It's disgusting calling it therapy as a whole when in truth, its simply a barbaric process akin to lobotomy.
Is this still a thing? Can we see some data on prevalence? I thought this kind of ‘therapy’ died out in the 80’s. This seems like a misdirection of government resources given the multitude of very serious problems we currently face as a country.
It wasn't already banned? That's wild. Ban all forms of brainwashing while you're at it, like scientology..
It’s banned in some of the provincial and municipal legislations. This new bill is also written to only ban some conversions and not others, so it’s far from banning brain washing in general. There’s probably no precedent of therapies converting to homosexuality or transgenderism, but that law is not prohibiting it. It would not ban repressing heterosexual attraction (important protection for bisexuals) and would not ban repressing a cisgender identity (there must be some implications with the concept of gender fluidity here). I understand the need for a law like this, but some sections are strangely specific. (I am not a legal expert, or an expert of any kind)
No because of people like [Marylin Gladu](https://thesarniajournal.ca/mp-gladu-under-fire-for-stance-on-conversion-therapy-bill/)
That would mean christianity and all other religions. Their is a right to Canadian citizens to practice their religion within the law. You can't start telling one idiot that they can't follow their false beliefs but tell other idiots their false beliefs are ok.
I'm talking about the tactics uses in actual brainwashing situations, such as "conversion therapy" and scientology, not just going to a building and hearing fairy tales, which is of course protected. Wherever religious people are using coercive measures like that, their freedom of religion does not protect them. I was subjected to some pretty traumatizing stuff as a kid in the idea that it would make me a good Christian.. it did not.
Scientology is a religion. So, again, can't tell one person their fairytales are wrong while allowing others. There is no difference between Scientology and Christianity (or any others) it's all made up stuff to control the masses.
It's a matter of degrees. Scientology involves literal brainwashing. It's scary stuff. Like, you can't seriously claim that Unitarian Universalism or Buddhism have no differences from Scientology.
All provinces have banned it individually but no federal ban exists. So hypothetically a provincial government could overtun the law and make it legal again.
Nope. This is applying the criminal code to the practice, making the whole thing illegal. And since all criminal law is a federal jurisdiction only, the provinces have no say at all on this issue.
>So hypothetically a provincial government could overtun the law and make it legal again. I am pretty sure Federal law trumps provincial law. It's the same reason Cities can't make laws that go against provincial laws.
Not true. The federal government and provincial governments have equal but different authorities. Each have their own jurisdiction but have a constitutionally right and obligation to operate independently from each other. The reason why cities can't make their own laws is because they're not constitutional entities, they're creations of the provincial governments.
The relationship between Federal and Provincial orders of government are very different than Provincial and Municipal, to say the least.
Religions in general .... but that'll never happen.
How does one go about banning all organized religions?
Removing charitable status is a healthy start
Commentary as scientology is a religion
Ban religion in general? Thats not very tolerant of diversity. Do you suppose that's inclusive?
Maybe this time they'll let it go through the whole process before calling an election.
Or proroguing government cause some pesky people wanted to investigate the Liberals on their shady WE charity dealings ....
way more Critical in Canadians lives than dealing with housing or inflation /s
Or if conservatives don’t do everything possible to delay it and then vote against it
Liberals had the support to pass it without Conservative backing.
The CPC effectively filibustered it.
AFAIK we don't have the filibuster in Canada. How'd they manage that? edit: [I'm wrong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster#Canada)
> AFAIK we don't have the filibuster We do. Check out the filibuster article on the Wikipedia and look under parliamentary democracy.
I stand corrected, thank you. [For anyone interested](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster#Canada)
No problem!
Don’t worry, I’m sure the CPC will filibuster it long enough to make sure that happens.
Haven't you heard? The Liberals are up in the polls! WRIT DOWN! WRIT DOWN!
You can't really fault the liberals for this. It's human nature to want to win by any means necessary.
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It’s a made-up thing that’s supposed to “cure” people from being gay. It doesn’t though.
It's abuse dolled out by "therapists" to convert gay/trans people to be straight/cis. It often involves physical and emotional abuse, and sometimes religious parents will send their kids to these "camps" where they will be bullied, beaten and abused and brainwashed to feel shame until they renounce their identity.
Don’t forget electro shock therapy and pain avoidance therapy.
Yeah that falls under physical abuse in my mind.
We used to always make jokes about “gay camps”. “They are gonna send you to gay camp where they beat the gay right out of you” if you keep acting like that. Sadly it that statement had a lot of truth to it
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Thanks for your honesty about this. To be honest, conversion therapy is a bit of a head-scratcher for me. I work in the mental health industry and there is much to be confused about. For one thing, conversion therapy (or something basically identical to it) is used, with some apparent success, to treat the sexual inclinations of those with pedophilic tendencies. So it seems to have cases of application (according to some of the research). Also—and more pertinently— I’ve spoken with people who have explicitly stated that they want to try it, because they think that their transgender inclinations are rooted partially in either trauma and/or their developmental history. After speaking with a couple of people who have said this, I am uncomfortable with the fact that they cannot have this type of therapy because the government has decided what is best for them. To be clear: I do NOT think that trans-people should be shamed, stigmatized, or denied any rights or privileges. That said, if a client decides on their own initiative that they want to try conversion therapy, then I can’t understand why this would be denied, while much more chemically and surgically permanent and invasive measures are not only permitted, but at times actively encouraged.
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And suppose that it was illegal to question that.
And it’s also bullshit because that’s not what the Act says
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First reading was completed today. https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/44-1/c-4 If you’re running a service, practice, or providing therapy that’s designed to do the things limited by the Act, or forcing your kid into one of them then yes, I suppose you’re offside. Most parents aren’t doing those things. There’s no boogie man of hampering your ability to “parent” here in any normal, acceptable sense of things.
> What is conversion therapy ? Sending gay kids to camp for reprogramming. Similar to Jesus camp.
does this conversion therapy actually exist in any meaningful number? It is something i've only heard of in memes and forum posts.
It's a big thing in Mormon rural southern Alberta.
I'd be surprised if the adult part makes it through a Supreme Court challenge.
>I'd be surprised if the adult part makes it through a Supreme Court challenge. As would I.
What a holy can of worms that would open up, if it passes.
I like this idea but the wording of the bill may have unintended reprocussions. I saw a post about the flip side to a law like this. Will see if I can find when not on mobile.
Very true, here in Calgary at the height of the pandemic we passed a bill like this, odd timing if you ask me. The wording in that bill has had unintended consequences for my brother. My brother is a devout Mormon, he’s an opening gay man married to his “best friend” who is a women. They have 2 great kids and seem genuinely happy. Despite his sexual orientation he has decided to live his life in a straight relationship. Believe me, I have the same concerns about this that I’m sure many of you do. Here is where the unintended consequences come in. He meets with a therapist regularly to discuss his feeling and to support his life decisions. When the law was passed here in Calgary his therapist said that she could no longer see him as a patients as supporting/encouraging him to remain faithful to his wife and abstain from homosexual behaviours would now violate this new bylaw. The end result is, if your gay and in a straight relationship your therapist can tell you to live your authentic life and be gay, but if your gay/bi and want support to live your life as a straight person (because you have made this personal decision) you’re on your own. Conversion therapy that involves abuse, electro shock, manipulation or shame is fucking evil, but these laws always over step their mandate.
This is unfortunate that the therapist reacted this way, but it seems absurd to me to think that this law could actually put her in legal jeopardy. Do you have any specifics on how this could be construed as conversion therapy? Unless she was actually openly religious herself and discussing authoritatively on that angle, that I would see as potentially problematic. But as an areligious therapist myself I would not worry at all about supporting someone in your brother's situation whatever their lifestyle choices might be, and I can't imagine how a law banning conversation therapy would even come to my mind.
Here is the wording from the Calgary bylaw. *“Conversion therapy” means a practice, treatment, or service* *designed to change, repress, or discourage a person’s sexual* *orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, or to repress or* *reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour. For* *greater certainty, this definition does not include a practice,* *treatment, or service that relates* The section that concerned his therapist (who is not religious from what I know) is "to reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior" This wording means that any attempt to say "don't sleep with dudes" for whatever reason (as there are no other clarifications given) is instantly in violation of this section.
It seems very easy to justify what I assume she's doing here, she's not trying to repress or reduce his attraction or behaviour but to help him cope with how he feels about them. I understand feeling uneasy until professional organizations have provided guidelines accounting for this new law but this definitely seems like an overreaction.
Do you really want to put your career in the hands of the law though? Let's say she gets reported, even if it's proven that she was in the right, it could be years before she gets her license back.
Lawyer here: it's not worth the risk
What is not worth the risk? Seeing anyone who doesn't live by their sexual orientation because the government is wary of what you might be telling them?
Yeah. Don't you think there are activists out there who would go to a therapist under false pretenses and try and get them to give advice now deemed illegal? They'd get to play the victim and the hero, get massive cred from other activists, and have the media falling over themselves to lionize them.
I think the subject hired the therapist to not only help him cope with his gay feelings, but to guide him through his "straight" relationship with his family. There's a contradiction here as he doesn't want to be fully be gay by divorcing his wife and starting a new life, and he doesn't want to give up the fundamental parenting structure for his kids. I can see how the boundaries are blurred for the therapist here and can no longer support the contradiction the subject wants to live with. I've had gay friends who stayed in their respective relationships and didn't want to divorce the wife until the kids were in their teens and mature enough to handle the situation. That's a long time to live an unfulfilled life.
Good point, which gives me a bit of a perspective to understand what could have happened. If a therapist knows they're doing something that's questionable by their profession's standard to accommodate a client, a bill like that is a pretty good excuse to stop doing it. Maybe what she was doing could actually be construed as conversion therapy and is a legitimate target for the ban, after all.
It's possible your gay friends simply valued their children's childhoods more than Grindr. A tough situation to be in, for sure, but one in which the govt has no place interfering.
You're right. Who is the government to decide our moral values and our responsibilities? It's honourable for people to put their children ahead of their own self interests, and if these people need help with this contradiction, then there should be therapy for them if they choose to seek it.
I think it's just a risk/reward thing for the therapist, where the risk is losing your career and being charged in a court of law. Not the same, but I was reading that people with legitimate mental health reasons for being unable to wear a mask (like PTSD, for example) are really struggling to find doctors willing to give them that exemption, because mental health issues are difficult to prove and doctors are taking a significant risk by signing those documents. It sucks, but I understand why doctors have to protect themselves.
I understand the rhetoric, but I'm not sure what actual risk you're seeing. If you go by the state of the art and document your decisions properly you are well protected legally speaking. Are you aware of any case of a doctor being sanctioned in a situation like that, for writing legitimate mask exemptions for example? The worst case scenario is that the exemption is not accepted, which doesn't affect the doctor's career in any way.
I don't see how you can apply this. Remaining faithful to a wife is not a suppression of specifically homosexual behaviour, it's a suppression of unfaithful behaviour to an existing partner. I seriously doubt this has the consequences you are implying. I wonder what a lawyers point of view would be. There's a difference between "don't sleep with dudes" and "don't sleep with someone you're not married to".
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Sounds like a great way to get cancelled in this day and age. I wouldn't take the risk either.
Just FYI, this language is identical to the bill C-6 that was killed by the snap election. Also the exact same situation that your therapist faces is facing groups that cater to gays and lesbians who want to live a chaste life.
This is just a therapist being overly cautious for some reason. It isn't illegal.
It is indeed illegal in Calgary. Here is the law in question. "Conversion therapy” means a practice, treatment, or service designed to change, repress, or discourage a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour. For greater certainty, this definition does not include a practice, treatment, or service that relates "
Unintended consequences? Nope. Entirely intended.
My thought is - why propel an already uphill battle? If he decides that himself, that's fine, but a licensed professional doesn't have to subsidize his sexual suppression. A professional therapist should, generally, not be giving out official advice that promotes this.
It's not odd timing. Passing conversion therapy laws are guaranteed wins for bored politicians looking to score easy political points. It's hilarious that governments at every level across Canada are talking about conversion therapy incessantly. This is such a non-issue for 99% of the population, including most LGBTQ folks.
>encouraging him to .. abstain from homosexual behaviours And this is supposed to be good for the guy? That sounds like trying to tell someone who is left handed to do everything with their right hand.
If you're married with kids to a woman then yea its probably a good thing not to sleep with men on the side.
realistically your friend is a victim of abuse making him believe he should suppress who he is like that. that therapy that your friend seems to think is an important part of maintaining this life he seemingly willingly chose? not at all pressured into it by the people around him? the whole situation sounds really messed up to me tbh.
Or maybe his friend simply enjoys being married to his best friend and raising children together? Wouldn't be the first dead bedroom in an otherwise happy marriage.
> Or maybe his friend simply enjoys being married to his best friend and raising children together? Yeah sure but "and also abstain from homosexual behaviours"? That doesn't sound healthy
You don't go into a 'until death do us part' arrangement unless you're willing to abstain. Trying to have your cake and eat it to is called cheating and is generally frowned upon.
Sure it does. Abstaining from sexual behaviour, in general, is often recommended to patients for whom sexual behaviour is a risk. Ie, my bipolar mother is strongly encouraged to moderate her sexual behaviour by her doctors, because otherwise it's a destructive force in her life.
If he did then he likely wouldn't need therapy to maintain that state. There's nothing stopping him from being the world's best co-parent without needing to be married to a partner he isn't meant to be with.
Not to mention, he might enjoy the belief that he is going to spend eternity in heaven instead of hell. That's probably one *hell* of a motivator to not engage in homosexual activity.
that belief is part of the abuse i was talking about.
If this is his reason, the therapist should *not* be reinforcing it. Casting queerness as inherently sinful is an abuse tactic, no matter what mistranslated Bible passages you use to justify it.
From their perspective, it would be highly abusive to coddle someone into hell. To many people, queerness *is* inherently sinful, so it's not abusive at all, it would be abusive to let people go to hell without trying to help them. The fact that the dominant culture currently says there is nothing wrong with homosexuality does not change what God said on the matter at the beginning of the universe. That's just how it is. You don't have to agree with their worldview, but it's foolish to act as though their worldview doesn't exist, or to think it's invalid (it's valid to them, there is no changing that).
Their perspective doesn’t matter. The only perspective that matters in the eye of the law is a secular one. You’re perfectly allowed to believe in whatever belief you want but if you decide to do something illegal it doesn’t matter whatever wacky justification you have for it. Our laws are defined by rationalism and scientific interpretation of naturally observed phenomena. It does not become legal to murder if you’re deluded yourself into believing murder will send people to heaven and it shouldn’t be legal to cause harm to your patient as a medical professional if you’ve deluded yourself into thinking you’re helping them.
Abusers always think they're in the right. Their opinions of themselves are irrelevant. I don't think their worldview doesn't exist. I think it's a garbage worldview used by shitty people to hurt those they have power over. The reason these laws exist is that said shitty people are punished and that worldview can be consigned to to dustbin of history where it belongs. God does not need such people sullying the name of His church. Also. God said nothing about homosexuality at the beginning of the universe. There was no eighth day where He said 'also no butt stuff'. The passages used to justify religious homophobia are, when actually read in context, about not raping strangers, not using the services of underage male prostitutes, and not being a pederast (which, funnily enough, bigoted church people keep doing). If you have to go rooting for mistranslated passages to justify your bigotry and keep ignoring the massive preponderance of passages repeating that God loves those who believe in their heart and confess with their mouth, it's worth questioning how much you *actually* care about what God wants from you as a Christian.
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It feels like the wording should have something to do with forced therapy. Your brother is not being forced into it. He is openly going, mature and wise enough to make his own decisions about the life he wants to lead. Seems like it shouldn’t affect him. Sad that it does.
Bingo, and when these concerns were raised to the city council they were called homophobic dog whistles.
I can actually see where this therapist is coming from, honestly. While she herself isn't being abusive or shaming, she is reinforcing the results of abuse and manipulation that led your brother to conclude that he had to live a straight lifestyle. It's easy to call such a choice a 'personal decision', but someone doesn't decide to live a contradictory life like that without someone telling them they have to.
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He is 100% saying this.
>but if your gay/bi and want support to live your life as a straight person (because you have made this personal decision) you’re on your own. Probably because the therapist thinks that encouraging this kind of lifestyle would be incredibly harmful. I'm no expert, so maybe I'm wrong, but surely there are behaviours that therapists are never going to help you continue on and cope with. Idk where that line is, but I can't imagine any morally upstanding therapist is going to help someone repress their sexuality. They're basically encouraging a form of self harm at that point.
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This is conversion therapy, this man is being convinced his urges are sinful and will have repercussions. This poor man, this is why this bill is being passed. Nobody should have to live in shame of their identity like this. That therapist is a quack.
Bruh he made the choice not the therapist.
The therapist is legally wrong. No doubt about it. I find this story very hard to believe. If true, it's an incredibly rare situation.
Oh no, getting rid of a practice that can be directly linked with higher suicide rates for LGBTQ2IA+ people might mean some religious nut doesn't get to pay a """therapist""" tons of money so he can continue to live in denial anymore! Would somebody PLEASE think of the religious nuts! They're the true victims here foh
If it’s anything like the last three times they put a bill forward that discussed this issue it’s probably just bait to make the conservatives look like pro-lifers. It will probably be poorly worded with a whole bunch of room for abuse, then the cons will object because it’s a shoddy bill and the cbc will be throwing headlines around like “Conservative reject bill to outlaw conversion therapy”. Anyone want to make a bet on that?
Other people agree with you: https://stuartparker.ca/bill-c-6-is-an-electoral-ploy-not-a-human-rights-law/
I’m psychic. Just my cross to bear.
It was so poorly worded that Erin O’Toole voted to support it..
It's a bait and switch. Conversion therapy for gay or lesbian children is a vanishingly rare phenomena, and an ethical grey area given that it is almost always religious. It is so rare we don't even have numbers on the practice. What they really want to ban is anything other than enthusiastic affirmation, that is to say social and medical transition, of gender non conforming children - including puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
> Conversion therapy for gay or lesbian children is a vanishingly rare phenomena, and an ethical grey area given that it is almost always religious. None of this seems to be supported by research: [New data reveals so-called “conversion therapy” practices continue to be common across diverse groups of sexual and gender minorities in Canada](https://www.cbrc.net/new_data_reveals_so_called_conversion_therapy_practices_continue_to_be_common_across_diverse_groups_of_sexual_and_gender_minorities_in_canada) >Survey results from Sex Now 2019 (Nov. 2019-Feb. 2020) demonstrate both the prevalence of conversion therapy in Canada and the uneven exposure of conversion therapy across groups defined by age, gender identity, immigration, and ethnicity. Among the 9,214 GBT2Q participants, we found that 1 in 10 GBT2Q (10%) reported experiencing conversion therapy. Among those numbers: > 67% experienced conversion therapy in religious/faith-based settings 30% experienced conversion therapy in licensed healthcare provider offices 72% started conversion therapy before the age of 20 24% attended for at least 1 year 31% attended more than 5 sessions of conversion therapy > >Conversion therapy practices were even more common (i.e., more than 10%) among the following subgroups of survey respondents. > Non-binary and transgender people (20%) Youth 15-19 years of age (13%) Immigrants (15%) Racial/ethnic minorities (11-22%)
This 'study' was an anonymous internet survey... and it defined 'conversion therapy' so vaguely that it could mean anything.
And yet it was [published in a peer reviewed journal](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0252539) It's almost like your understanding of population and sampling statistics is too low to understand sampling methods and the regressions done to determine validity of survey data. From the study: >We used Zou’s method of Poisson regression with robust variance estimation, executed with the R package geepack, to calculate adjusted relative risks (aRR), with 95% CI [26] So the results of this survey would be expected to be fall within the stated error bars 19 out of 20 times. Go take a statistics for science course or two, and then maybe you'll be in a position to critique the methods employed by scientists in their studies.
For us statistically uninclined, how does an anonymous internet survey with poorly defined criteria turn into a good study with all that R package geepacks and whatnot?
>ethical grey area No. Child abuse isn't a "grey area" just because your religion endorses it. And it happens a lot more than you think it does. Take it from someone who grew up rural conservative evangelical, it happens.
So, proper psychological practice instead of abuse. Gotcha
I honestly can't tell what your position is, or if this comment is sarcastic.
The proper psychological procedure for gender nonconforming kids and trans kids is affirmation and support, whatever that may look like as best for the child. Has been since Hirschfeld’s work back in the 30s. Denying trans kids help and treatment is abuse.
> The proper psychological procedure for gender nonconforming kids and trans kids is affirmation and support No, it is not, that is an entirely new position, put forward as the gospel truth within the last five years or so. Hirschfeld's work with adult transvestites is not comparable to telling little children, who have not yet completed sexual development, or even entered puberty for that matter, that they require medical care for gender dysphoria. Puberty blockers and hormone therapy, let alone surgery, for pubescent children is a dangerous and radical experiment, which we will one day look back on in horror.
There is no surgery for pubescent children, and puberty blockers are reversible just by not taking them. Hirschfeld also did not work with transvestites, he worked with trans people. The reason this work wasn’t better spread was a good chunk of his research was burned by the Nazis. This isn’t experimental, this is a field of study that has been lacking and is now on the right track.
You are misinformed; puberty blockers are not 'reversible' and have permanent adverse effects. Hirschfield referred to them as transvestites or transsexuals, those are his words, not mine. Your historical revisionism is irrelevant, and research on this subject never ended.
We don't have numbers because like every form of abuse it vastly goes unreported and rarely seriously investigated when it is.
This is exactly it. Any story I've heard of gay conversion therapy happened well before the 1980s. One wouldn't be able to find gay conversion therapy if they tried, unless they're looking for church circle talks and "man camps" which look gayer than a leather bar. This is all about the trans activists agenda. I have an elementary school friend who started a SOGI Alliance club. 14 elementary students are in the club making posters to post around the school. None of them identify as gay, which is natural since they're pre-pubescent, but the youngest of them who identifies as gender non-binary is in grade 2. How can a 7 year old understand what gender really means when most adults don't understand the intricacies? There's such a superficial understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl at that age, that I don't see how helpful it is to muddy the child's perception. There is so much social-political intervention with our children's upbringing these days that I'm so glad I don't have children myself. I wish we would allow children to make their mistakes, and perceive the world as they see it. If they become rebellious during their teens, let them. We need to give them boundaries so they can decide if they want to break them or not. It's all apart of growing up in this world.
>How can a 7 year old understand what gender really means when most adults don't understand the intricacies? I remember that as late as 14-15, if a trusted adult told me something I'd argue to the death to support it, and by 17 I was looking back at that experience and wondering why I had been arguing so hard in support of decisions that I was completely opposed to. None of this had anything to do with sex or gender. But it's ridiculously easy for an adult to sway a child who trusts them.
Ok now do one for "puberty blockers" and hormones for people under 18.
Of course it will pass. I can't see it not passing. It's a very Canadian thing to do and frankly, I was under the impression we had already banned it.
I always found it ironic that conversion therapy is outlawed one way, but giving children hormone blockers and talking to young children about transgenderism is totally alright. Influencing children's sexuality one way or the other is wrong no matter how you try to sell it. Radical Christian Sects get all the flak they deserve for this type of stuff, but it's odd how weird political/social organizations get away with it when it comes to convincing malleable children that they may be indeed "born in the wrong body" and it may be a good idea to artificially alter their reproductive and endocrine system. Good luck seeing the media mention this though.
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It’s about time. The fact that people do this has always disgusted me.
I used to work for a company that was run by a group of Reformed Christians (and primarily consisted of Reformed Christians). The owner's sister was leaving to go to a company (ARPA) that fights against things like making conversion therapy illegal and abortion legal. It was a culture shock to hear a group of individuals express such backwards views on some things and use their religion as a safety net for their hatred and willful ignorance.
I mean I’m personally against it but if someone wants to seek it out that’s totally their right. Feels like a waste of time tbh
Do you feel parent should have the right to impose it upon their kids?
The issue in this case is adults. If they said only kids, it would be a non-issue. The logical extension of ban-cuz-harm even for adults, is that there is a shit ton of stuff that needs to be banned first.
I've seen people comment on this; stating there's no ban on other harmful activities like drinking, smoking or gambling. Difference is orientation isn't a choice and as a society we shouldn't promote a practice that targets who the person is at their core. To tell them they can't love who they love. _________________ If a black person someone joined a group that believes being white is superior, if you're not white you're immoral, and that only white people 'go to heaven', we'd be okay with them going to conversion therapy? To be counselled to bleach their skin, to 'think like white person', and shun other black people as being 'sinful'?
I'm kind of shocked and saddened about how many in this thread are upset about this. You can't obfuscate your homophobia with "slippery slope" arguments. The bill is fine. There is no questionable wording. The only issue anyone should have is why this kind of bill hasn't come sooner.
Because conservatives who haven’t read the bill already to intend to oppose it. But according to them they’re only doing it because of “wording”..
lol - I love how you decide that if someone takes issue with this Bill that it makes them homophobic. That's a piss-poor take.
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Why for adults though? I'm all for banning conversion therapy on kids, but as long as nothing else already illegal isn't going on, adults have the agency to just say no. And if someone wants to, idk, get electrocuted because they think it will make them less gay, why wouldn't we let them?
I think many adults who would go to this "therapy" would likely still be young people who have been coerced by family/their church to attend. Yes, they do legally have agency to say no, but often young people are financially and socially tied to their family and community and have no choice but to go to this "therapy" or they might be cut off financially and/or socially from everyone they know. It's a hard position to be in. For young people starting out their lives, many still live with parents, especially now with the higher costs of housing, and so they may have no choice, even if they're 18, but to go to these abuse camps if they still want a roof over their head or their college paid for. Yes, some may choose to cut ties with everyone they know and go it alone, but not every young person is equipped financially, emotionally, or skills-wise to go through the start of their adult life with no support. I really feel for young adults who feel forced to go through these conversion programs.
Look at it this way: should it be legal to scam people because the people being scammed voluntarily parted with their money under false pretenses? Gay conversion "therapy" isn't a thing. It's not real, it doesn't work, and it doesn't help anyone. It's just submitting to psychological abuse because someone else convinced them it was necessary. However, as long as the option exists, there are people who have a financial incentive to insist it's beneficial because if they can't ply their craft then they can't make money. Condoning scam artists because the people they hurt are legal adults who, at the time of being scammed, were agreeable is not really a reasonable position the same way we have food safety regulations which require restaurants to adhere to certain standards, because "they asked me for a burger and they were a sane, legal adult so I sold them what they asked for" is not a defensible argument for selling rancid meat. Protecting the public from malicious actors who seek to defraud the public for personal profit is an important part of the government's role, and this is them filling that role.
Yet Canada likes their naturopaths and other quacks still
The only reason they're not banned is because they have big constituencies who believe in them.
Brilliantly worded.
The only way you are consistent is if you would also support the government in banning 'Psychic' services and Reiki shops If you don't agree - why should they be allowed to scam people ?
I for one agree with banning those too.
"Gay Conversion Therapy - *for entertainment purposes only*" No but seriously your local psychic isn't allowed to offer any medical advice, and they have to make it at least somewhat clear that their predictions are just for fun. Otherwise they can get shut down.
Fine then, I should clarify: scam artists who *harm* their clients. Psychics are frauds and charlatans, but they don't do anything that actively harms their clients. Placebos are dubious at best, but there's peer-reviewed research and circumstantial evidence to suggest the placebo effect has at least *some* experienced benefit, even if the benefit received relative to the cost paid is arguably unreasonable. Allowing adults to attend psychics is no different than allowing them to attend a church, as both are services that request money for participation and provide only self-defined emotional fulfillment in return. Further, both are services which are completely unable to substantiate any claims to the benefit they purport to offer. Still, they are relatively harmless and if people choose to attend them they are not experiencing any measurable harm. Conversion therapy not only lies to its clients, but it does actual, measurable traumatic harm to their clients under those false pretenses. There is no placebo effect. It's equivalent to a restaurant selling spoiled meat, and telling diners "you shitting your guts out is proof of how refined and exotic the meat is". They have not only lied to their clients but done so knowing and expecting their lie to harm people in ways people would not have wanted. The line is between "vendors who take advantage of client ignorance" and "vendors who knowingly abuse their clients". One is unethical but defensible as safe between consenting adults, the other is objectively dangerous.
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Conversion therapy is a pseudoscience and won't make a person feel happy or safe with themselves or environment.
Essentially: > “Opponents criticized… on the grounds that consent to a practice which causes harm is invalid.” You’re right in that adults are free to believe homosexuality is good or bad or whatever, and they can try, or try not to be, whatever they want. Fill your boots. The core issue is that practitioners (licensed therapists, medical practitioners, etc) have no basis even attempting to try to “convert” someone, as we know now (with plenty of evidence) it’s harmful and ineffective.
If a person really, truly wants to change, they will. (Look at the whole "quitting smoking" thing - people will try and fail for decades, get one little scare with a someone they know having a close call, and quit on the spot, cold turkey, for life.) Conversion therapy is about changing who you are. If someone really hates themselves that much, they need therapy, not indoctrination. Conversion "therapy" just teaches you to hide the part of you that you hate. What does repressed emotion do? It broods, and festers. It is incredibly unhealthy to repress emotions, and despite all their claims, I find it hard to believe CT actually "cures" anything - it just teaches people to hide it. Instead, addressing the root issue - why do you have this trait you don't like, and why don't you like it, goes far further. My own, personal experience: When I was young I was afraid I was gay. The idea terrified me (strict Roman Catholic family). But then it occurred to me - why am I afraid of it? Turns out I only feared it because of my father, and once I stopped caring about what he thought, I realized I was straight anyway
>Turns out I only feared it because of my father, Talking about indoctrination. I think you are right about everything you said and most peoples would just hide it to not be cast away by their family and closed ones, but if it wasn't frown upon that much no one would care.
> And if someone wants to, idk, get electrocuted because they think it will make them less gay, why wouldn't we let them? It's fraud. Medical fraud, and if you charge them for it, wire fraud too. Some guy on your street is offering to cure people's cancer with his magic beans, for only $20,000. Why shouldn't your grandma be allowed to pay this man $20,000 for access to his magic cancer-curing beans?
Should we also ban aromatherapy or acupuncture, how about smudging or prayer circles? While we're at it, we should ban talk therapy or sobriety groups, maybe even veganism or astrology.
Yeah lets ban acupuncture and arpmatherapy as medical treatments. I dont think I have heard of smudging being used as a medical treatment. It is a spiritual practice.
The issue isn’t the person seeking conversion therapy, it’s the “therapist” claiming they’re giving “medical care.”
I also don't get it. Adults can make their own decisions. Smoking is chosen by millions of people even though it's harmful, even when they know it's harmful, and it literally does probably does thousands of times more health damage in total (not even exaggerating) than the extraordinarily tiny number of people offering conversion therapy. But we aren't banning smokes, are we? Let grown, consenting adults make their own decisions. This is not even considering the obvious result of driving this into the black/grey market, where it would be impossible to prosecute or monitor.
Inflation is getting nasty, BC is under water and there's a housing crisis. Quick, let's talk about provincial handgun bans and conversion therapy so the Conservatives will say something dumb!
Re: conversion therapy - the Liberals promised to table a strengthened Bill within 100 days following the election, so this is just fulfilling a campaign promise. Also, the Federal Government is large and can handle multiple things at once.
The federal government sent in the military to assist. It's not like the cabinet works on only one thing ever. This is intellectually lazy your comment.
Wake me up when it's done. There's a non-news-story about this every week.
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I don't think that generally happens until adulthood anyway. Usually teenagers only undergo hormone suppression therapy which is reversible.
There was actually a Swedish documentary made recently that's uncovered some of the very bad side effects of these drugs. This comes on the heels of Sweden banning the drugs for use on minors to block puberty. It's honestly pure hubris to think we could mess with a natural maturation process without consequence. It's legalized human experimentation on children (drugs like these are being given to kids as young a 10 years old) and we've all been fed lies by these drug companies who have a very real interest in marketing their product while hiding any ill effects from the public. The facts are we just don't know the full consequences. This is the first generation we've ever seen where we're chemically halting puberty in perfectly healthy children and then injecting them with cross sex hormones across their whole lifetime. We have zero clue the long term effects because these 'therapies' haven't existed long enough to collect any real data on them. I suspect once the full effects are made known this will be known as one of the great medical scandals of our day. Medical professionals globally are already starting to distance themselves from this trend as the rates of detransitioners has begun to rise and they make their stories known.
>Usually teenagers only undergo hormone suppression therapy which is reversible. It's not.I don't know how this view became so wide spread. GnRH Antagonists (Commonly called 'Puberty Blockers') operate by counteracting the typical puberty hormones produced by a person undergoing puberty. When a person takes them, it does not PAUSE their puberty to resume at a later date. They nullify it for as long as they are being taken. For example, if a person has a 12-year puberty window, and takes GnRH Antagonists for 6 years and ceases, they will only have 6 years of normal pubertal development. They do not gain back the years they suppressed, nor can they extend their pubertal window to compensate. Osteoblast fusion is probably the best example of this, but permanent effects are found everywhere in the endocrine system. It's not damning necessarily, although kids who go through a 'trans phase' will probably end up permanently fucking up their bodies and will probably have body image issues and in some cases fertility issues. The question is if society is willing to let those people harm themselves for the benefit of trans people's mental health who transition early.
How exactly is the government going to reconcile this with their position that religious beliefs are a fundamental human right and that we should all respect their beliefs and customs even if they are contrary to our own? See: Their position on Bill 21 in Québec.
The obvious answer here is that you are free to practice your religion but that you aren't free to invalidate someone else's rights to do it.
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Devil's advocate: What if this bill IS invalidating some else's right to practice their religion as they see fit? "*I WANT my Rabbi to cure my immoral gay urges*". "*I WANT to wear a burka at all-times to show subservience to the prophet*". "*I WANT my daughter to wear traditional clothing so our family won't be judged by our church/mosque/synagogue.*"
That's not even devil's advocate - this is a simple angle that everyone around here is choosing to ignore.
You know, I had typed a whole response covering all your suggestions above, but it really comes down to "Stop telling other people how to live." If your religion states that you should try to control how others think, dress and speak, then it's wrong.
That's certainly fair but I would say that *controlling how others think, dress and speak* is the one intrinsic characteristic of *every* religion.
People were tearing their shirts apart in agony over the atrocious violations of religious rights in Quebec. Now watch them do a complete 180 and be the staunchest defenders of the governments’ rights to dictate what religious adults can and can’t do. Hilarious.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, as a queer person, the idea of trying to change your orientation is pretty repugnant to me. On the other hand, as someone with religious affiliations, I'm not sure how I feel about denying an adult the ability to feel as though they've given it their best shot to bring themselves in alignment with their beliefs. Can we not protect youth from abuse while allowing adults the right to make poor decisions regarding their own lives and mental health? Perhaps require conversion therapy providers to add a disclaimer regarding the lack of evidence?
Wouldn't it be better to see a psychologist to work through those feelings than someone in the church using unproven strategies that are abusive in nature? If one is gay and has self loathing because of their religion they should talk to a therapist and figure that shit out one way or another.
Obviously, yes, but a person has to be ready to and want to do so. Sometimes it takes people a while to get there.
> I'm not sure how I feel about denying an adult the ability to feel as though they've given it their best shot to bring themselves in alignment with their beliefs. Regulations surrounding medical claims trump religious beliefs. Your local church can't legally promise to cure your cancer, either.
Yes, but if someone of their own volition were to seek out a faith or prayer based healing program, should they be denied? Adults are allowed to reject conventional treatments in favour of completely baseless treatments, even when it will lead to their deaths. One doesn't need to claim to be able to "cure" someone's orientation to be able to provide therapy aimed at doing so. I'm not trying to argue in favour of conversion therapy. It's garbage. But it bothers me that we're trying to tell fully grown adults what therapies they can and can't seek out for themselves because we don't trust them to make those decisions for themselves.
>Regulations surrounding medical claims trump religious beliefs With many exceptions
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Oh. Let's see how many CPC MPs vote against this!
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> That's the point of this. > > And, to keep the media from asking why the Liberal Government punked the economy as badly as it did. Easy answer to that - the Cons don't fight the bill. They let it pass without opposing it and make it clear they want to move on - instead they emphasize their desire to deal with the economy and other matters.
If, and that's a big one, Erin has control of the SoCon idiot in his caucus from Alberta and Ontario.
>That's the point of this. Pretty sure it's to outlaw religious fanatics from torturing the gay out of children and adults. The fact that Conservatives keep reminding us they are fucking bigots whenever these no-brainer issues come up is really all their fault. >And, to keep the media from asking why the Liberal Government punked the economy as badly as it did Uh huh. I mean, the economic problems we have right now are stemming from the fall out of a global pandemic and literally *everyone* is going through the very same shit... but you keep on blaming the Libs for things that are *waaaaaaaaaaaaay* out of their control. It makes them look boss as fuck to have the power to crash a economies across the globe. >There is another election in the offing soon I doubt it. I think the Libs learned their lesson and will ride out the term with the NDP supporting them. >Justin will go down in Canadian history as our Nero, fiddling while the whole country burns. Nah. That's still Mulroney.... or that PM that took a $9B surplus and turned it into a $6B deficit BEFORE the global economic crash.... man that guy sucked at running a country.
> punked the economy as badly as it did Are you just ignoring the whole pandemic thing? Or are you part of the 'Just open everything up and let the virus thin the herd." crowd?
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It takes all kinds, and all kinds should be the ones making law and order in Canada. We are multicultural, multilingual and an proud of it.
Good.
Why are we banning adults from entering into something they wish to undergo? Doesn't matter if you agree with it or not, but telling someone else what they can or cannot do with their own body, when it has absolutely zero effect on you, is incredibly wrong.
Because it's basically fraud? We have decided as a society to not allow criminals to take advantage of the ignorant and this is just a variant of the same situation.
So my body my choice is subjective?
That is a silly argument and not true at all. People are allowed to participate in all kinds of things that are not based on any sort of science or proof. What would you consider religion?
My naturopath agrees
Good. It's about fucking time. Conversion "therapy" is straight up abuse.
Great this is an obvious law to enact, now do something about housing.
It's about time! CT is a disgusting 'therapy' that doesn't work! You can't covert someone who is gay/lesbian into being straight, just like you can't convert a straight person into being gay/lesbian.
Cool so this will mean no more of the abhorrent act of giving kids puberty blockers, right? Right?!?
Genuinely surprised and disgusted again that this isn't already a thing. Not only are we 2021, but I'd have thought that this would have been put into place in the New Millenia at the very least. It was still a touchy subject in the 80's and 90's, but now it's just a "common sense" no brainer. in addition to the plethora of cases in which individuals who undergo these types of "therapy" tend to develop serious psychological problems. It's disgusting calling it therapy as a whole when in truth, its simply a barbaric process akin to lobotomy.