Malcolm Clark Profile picture
Apr 17, 2021 24 tweets 8 min read Read on X
1./ A thread about conversion therapy, gender identity and the elephant in the room : mental health. It's remarkable how in the debate on 'gender identity' there's such a stubborn refusal to consider the power and fragility of the human mind. Here's why that's dangerous.
2./ If you haven't read 'Sleeping Beauties' I can reccomend this extraordinary new book that explores how stress and cultural influence can trigger medical conditions which, on the surface, seem baffling; like 169 girls in Sweden falling into 'comas'.👇theguardian.com/books/2021/apr…
3./ Except coma isn't the right word. The girls were all from refugee families, and almost all from the ex-USSR or Iraq. Many were Yazidi. Some of the families had been through hell. For 2 decades girls fell asleep and didn't wake for months or years.👇bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-…
4./ Critics accused families of faking it which is why local doctors were keen for the author, Suzanne O'Sullivan, a neurologist, to study them. The evidence quickly suggested a 'functional neurological disorder' (FND) or something we used to call psychosomatic.
5./ Psychosomosis gets a bad rap; as if doctors are saying it isn't real. But psychosomatic symptoms ARE real. The girls were also an example of an MPI, a 'mass psychogenic illness' where groups of similar people suffer similar symptoms with no obvious physical basis.
6./ But don't run away with the idea conditions like these only happen to girls. In 2016 adult male diplomats in the US embassy in Havana began to fall ill from what they believed were mysterious attacks with a powerful sonic weapon.👇vanityfair.com/news/2019/01/t…
7./ It started when a guy heard a buzzing so strong he had to close the windows and doors and turn up the TV. Over the next few months dozens of others experienced the same, suffering chronic headaches, vomiting and stupor. So what was the truth? 👇theguardian.com/world/2019/nov…
8./ US diplomats were withdrawn, putting Cuban relations into the cold-freeze all because guys had become convinced they were being targetted. They weren't. The power of the mind had "spread" a condition through a peer group who became equally convinced they were suffering.
9./ Why does this matter? If we are to believe the proponents of gender identity the 4000+ % increase in girls being diagnosed with gender dysphoria has NOTHING to do with this sort of culturally influenced psychogenetic illness. Maybe they are right.👇 telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/…
10./ While it can't explain all of the rise, if you really cared about kids wouldn't you at least consider it could be an amplifying factor? Wouldn't you want research? Instead these activists are doubling down. Affirmation is the only answer, they say. 👇theguardian.com/us-news/2021/m…
11./ The confused campaign for a ban on so-called Conversion Therapy claims failure to affirm a child's 'gender identity' is somehow an attempt at conversion. This insightful interview by @darrengrimes_ of @JamesEsses explains why that's nonsense. audioboom.com/posts/7845908-…
12./ As James says no therapist nowadays would set out to change someone's sexual orientation or 'gender identity'. That's why affirmation shouldn't be compulsory or the only option. Therapists need to be able to explore the reasons why a child believes what he or she does.
13./ A factor in some outbreaks of 'mass psychogenetic illness' is severe stress that can lead individuals in a peer group subconsciously to view their condition as an escape or coping response. We know lots of school-age girls are under huge stress.👇 bbc.co.uk/news/uk-565664…
14./ Swedish refugee kids who were uncertain about their future and feared going back to appalling conditions in Iraq closed down their bodies. Couldn't some girls in highly sexualised school cultures respond by denying their female-ness? Who knows? Isn't it worth research?
15./ We're told a child's anxiety disappears when they are affirmed. But again this simplistic approach fails to take into consideration the power of the mind. What do you think happened when a very common form of knee surgery was tested against placebo? nytimes.com/2014/10/07/ups…
16./ The results for those who had placebo surgery (only an incision was made) were identical to those who got the popular surgery. It turns out we can sometimes will ourselves well if we're convinced a procedure (like puberty blockers?) or even surgery WILL transform our lives.
17./ The experiment on knee surgery was more recently extended to one of the most common surgical procedures in the Western world: keyhole surgery on 'impinged' shoulders. 21 000 are carried out every year in the UK. Turns out placebo surgery is as good.👇sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/…
18./ The human mind is complex and often baffling and the connection between the mind and the body still full of mysteries. The idea the state should march into the therapy room with simplistic rules about what therapists must say or do is not just philistine, it's dangerous.
19./ Once therapists are told they must affirm where will that end? It was my experience working on a BBC Horizon 20 years ago that convinced me we must be careful about the pressure to affirm identities. The show was about people who believed they were meant to be amputees.👇
20./ It was Britain's leading expert on transsexuality Russell Reid who argued it was ethical to remove healthy limbs from these people and a Scottish surgeon did just that, amputating a leg. Reid said the procedure would make him "happy". Like that shoulder surgery did?🤷‍♂️👇
21./ Waiting in the wings are other 'identities' that argue therapy should do nothing but affirm them. There are growing numbers of people who argue they are Plurals or multiple personalities, many with different genders. Must all their gender identities be affirmed?👇
22./ Once we start telling therapists how they must treat their patients, and threatening them with criminal sanctions if they don't affirm, what then? We might open them up to complaints (or even claims) from clients like this that felt they hadn't been affirmed enough.👇
23./ Of course this will be dismissed as exaggerated. But then if you'd told the average person 10 or even 5 years ago that in some school classes a third of girls would identify as trans or non-binary they would have dismissed that too. So what should we do?
24./ The human mind is extraordinary. Our policy towards therapy should reflect that. We should empower therapists to freely explore clients' experiences with respect and curiosity not enforce some mechanistic one size fits all approach backed by the power of the criminal law.

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More from @TwisterFilm

Mar 31
1./ 🧵Incest and White Lotus. The creator of Netflix's hit series wrote his thesis about Judith Butler. In my latest article I explore whether the show's incest theme was inspired by the incest-obsessed Queen of Queer Theory.
Click on the link in my bio or end of 🧵to read more. Image
2./ Mike White wrote his thesis about Butler two years after Gender Trouble was published. The book even got an airing in Season 1, when the deeply annoying Paula was seen packing it into her bag. How big a role does incest play in Butler's book? It has a starring role. 👉 Image
3./ Here are some of the references to incest in Gender Trouble. Butler became obsessed with incest after studying the work of fellow lesbian, Gayle Rubin. This sadomasochist aficionado of S&M porn and defender of paedophilia had come up a crazy Foucault influenced notion. 👉 Image
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Read 12 tweets
Mar 27
1./ 🧵The LGBTQ+ lobby, Epstein and hating mothers.
My latest article is about Jes Staley, ex-CEO of Barclays & champion of the LGBTQ+ lobby. 2 weeks ago he went to court to appeal fines for lying about his links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Click on the link in my bio to read more.☝️ Image
2./ In 2023, the UK's finance regulator @TheFCA fined Staley £1.8m and banned him from senior positions after he signed off a letter from Barclays claiming he had a strictly business relationship with the notorious sex trafficker who conveniently committed suicide in 2019. Image
3./ In fact, their business relationship began in 1999 when Epstein became a client of Staley's at JP Morgan. It blossomed in 2002 when Epstein brought $1Bn into Staley's division. Money he'd mysteriously been given power of attorney over by the reclusive billionaire Les Wexner. Image
Read 15 tweets
Mar 24
1./ 🧵The Sissy Fantasy. My latest article asks why the mainstream media was so shocked by Sam Rockwell's monologue in White Lotus? Did defenders of the trans agenda not realise his love of sissification is the erotic core of most trans identification in men?
Click on the link in my bio to read the full story. 👆👆👆Image
2./ That matters because if you don't understand "dressing like a woman" gets some men sexually aroused you will fail to appreciate the importance of policing single sex spaces. A good example of this ignorance was the baffled discussion of Rockwell's monologue in the @latimes. Image
3./ Greg Braxton and Mary McNamara considered the sexual behaviour under discussion so dark and extreme they wondered if it had been included merely for shock value. Yet exhibitionist autogynephilia like this is far from uncommon. They should know that from their own paper. Image
Read 16 tweets
Mar 17
1./🧵 In my latest article I show why the LGBTQ+ activist and child rapist Stephen Ireland is only the tip of the iceberg. The LGBTQ+ lobby is riddled with predatory men and its agenda is a front for depraved sexual fantasies.
Click on the link in my bio to read more. 🔼
1/of 17 Image
2./ Ireland didn't just start @PrideInSurrey. He ran UK Pride Network. Here he is on stage in 2018 at the national Pride he organised. He led a campaign to shut down the first @ChickfilA diner in the UK, he signed petitions by @LGBTConsortium and was on the Pride Power List. Image
3./ It's no accident Ireland fantasised about mutilating boys or abducting them from playgrounds. The LGBTQ+ lobby's number one demand is puberty blockers that sterilise children. It also demands schools socially transition kids without parental consent. A first step in grooming. Image
Read 17 tweets
Mar 13
1./ Today we got a glimpse of the depravity behind much of the LGBTQ+ lobby's support for transitioning children. Surrey Pride's founder has been convicted of raping a 12 year old boy. He also fantasised about castrating boys. Is he an outlier? Not at all.
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
2./ Stephen Ireland was a crystal meth addict with a chaotic personal life. How many other LGBTQ+ groups hide men just as evil who don't leave such obvious evidence as text messages fantasising about kidnapping kids or cutting their vocal chords as he did? The majority, I bet.
3./ Ireland and his @PrideInSurrey were fierce critics of @AllianceLGB and picketed the conference of what was then the ONLY gay group to oppose transitioning kids. Creepy men like India Willoughby joined them there. Of course he did. Birds of a feather. Image
Read 6 tweets
Mar 11
1./ Mister McBride.
Some people are uncomfortable Sarah McBride was introduced as MISTER. They want us to be polite. The truth tho is he has a decade long record of undermining women's rights and attacking free speech. He doesn't get to police our speech.
2./ I recently explored in detail his deliberate sabotage of the safety of women and girls. McBride claims now it's Republicans that are obsessed with restrooms despite the fact he worked relentlessly in LGBTQ+ groups like @HRC to invade women's privacy. Image
3./ McBride was enabled by Joe Biden and worked hand in glove with the tiny and incestuous Biden circle in Delaware, the most egregiously corrupt state in America. There he tried to censor social media and worked to deprive parents of their rights in schools. Image
Read 5 tweets

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