Thread by @pauldirks

How can we trust lawmakers to get *anything* right and avoid child harm on #BillC8 when they are so incredibly wrong about basic facts of sexual orientation and gender identity. Thread follows on what the literature says about immutability, an expressed part of the bill.

The Bill clearly states that it is a myth that sexual orientation or gender identity can change. This statement is at least 13 years behind the medical literature, if not more. It is virtually academic consensus that orientation/attraction/behavior/identity can change.

I think the harms of this Bill will be grievous, although much more so in regard to gender identity than sexual orientation. Nevertheless, the following literature review will focus on orientation and attraction changes among sexual minorities.

Berona 2018, Trajectories ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30060858
In a longitudinal urban cohort of girls, the authors found that 63.2% reported at least one change in sexual orientation. The lesbian class averaged three orientation changes over eight years (14-22yrs).

Diamond 2017 Stability
link.springer.com/article/10.100…
Retrospectively, “majority... had undergone multiple changes in sexual identity: 82% of the [L/B] women and 78% of the [G/B] men reported having switched their sexual identity label at least once" after minority status.

Diamond 2017 Stability cont.
"... 45% of women and 34% of men reported two or more identity changes.” Also reported was significant day-to-day attraction fluidity, especially among women.

Katz-Wise, 2015 Sexual Fluidity
psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-01…
“Sexual fluidity in attractions was reported for 64% of [w] and 52% of [m], with 49% of [w] and 36% of [m] reporting subsequent sexual fluidity in sexual identity." 23% of [w]and 22% of [m] experienced" >1 attraction changes

Dickson 2013 Stability
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23430085
In New Zealand cohort of young adulthood, “among the men, any change in sexual attraction was reported by 4.2, 3.3, and 2.9 % in the age periods 21–26, 26–32, and 32–38 years... women were 16.1, 16.3, and 11.8 %”.

Ott 2011, Stability and Change in Self-Reported Sexual Orientation Identity in Young People
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
In a longitudinal cohort study, the authors found significant sexual orientation fluidity in both males and females in both adolescence and young adulthood.

Herek 2010, Demographic, Psychological and Social Characteristics
link.springer.com/article/10.100…
5.2% of gay men, 16.4% of lesbian women, 39.3% of bisexual men, and 44.3% of bisexual women reported a fair (or greater) amount of choice about their sexual orientation.

Savin-Williams 2007 Prevalence
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17195103
In large, pop.-based longitudinal study of adolescents, 87.7% of bi males, 88.7% of bi females, 71.6% of homo males, and 76.8% of homo females moved from same-sex sexual behavior to completely heterosexual b within 6 years.

Savin-Williams 2007 Prevalence cont.
As a fascinating footnote, Savin-Williams believes this data is flawed even though (as obvious above) many other studies have found similarly large levels of adolescent change. See also Fish 2017: link.springer.com/article/10.100…

Sandfort 1997 “Sampling Male Homosexuality” in Bancroft, Researching Sexual Behavior
amazon.ca/Researching-Se…
“Of these 5 men who reported feelings of sexual attraction for the same sex, 51.0% said that these feelings disappeared in a later stage of their lives.”

There are a number of other studies that could also be cited, including more by Lisa Diamond, who is probably the leading researcher on the topic of sexual fluidity and orientation/attraction/identity change. But this should suffice to establish how far wrong are our legislators

Diamond 2016 Sexual Fluidity
link.springer.com/article/10.100…
"The existing body of international research assessing sexual attractions, behaviors, and identities among representative samples of adolescents and adults shows that sexual orientation is not a static and categorical trait."

It is truly unbelievable and shocking that a statement so evidentially and scientifically wrong ("orientation change is a myth") could make it into #BillC8 .

I have dealt only with orientation change here, even though, as stated, the greater harms of this bill will be related to gender identity. If asked, "do you support conversion therapy", my short answer would be ...

No, I do not support the conversion of vulnerable, autistic, or same-sex attracted children to the opposite gender via experimental puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or medically unnecessary surgeries.