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8./ US diplomats were withdrawn, putting Cuban relations into the cold-freeze all because guys had become convinced they were being targetted.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

Jul 25
1./ If you need proof the LGBTQ+ lobby is a danger to children BBC presenter Ronx Ikharia has dispelled any doubt. She's fronting a campaign to encourage children to accompany cross-dressing men going into public toilets. What could possibly go wrong? 👉
telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/2…
2./ For years the BBC has given this deluded woman a platform to undermine the mental health of kids by telling them she wasn't female (which she is) and promoting breast binders. She even tried to stop medics discussing the risks of puberty blockers.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…
3./ This week she launched a campaign to urge school children to wear a badge assuring potential child abusers they would be " Safe With Me". You might think such a risky initiative had been given some thought. Let me tell you about the bozos behind it.👉
swlondoner.co.uk/news/23072025-…
Read 11 tweets
Jul 18
1./ Well done America!! Here's why everyone, whatever their politics, should applaud the closure of the Trevor Project's so-called "suicide hotline". This fraudulent organisation has wreaked havoc for too long. Let me tell you just some of their lies. 👉
thetrevorproject.org/blog/closed-tr…
2./ The Trevor Project has spent millions grifting for Big Pharma, advocating the medicalisation of confused kids using idiot celebrities like Daniel Radcliffe to promote their effective sterilisation using puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
3./ Yet just months before Radcliffe role-played as a mini-Mengele the CEO of the Trevor Project, Amit Paley, was fired after it was revealed he'd previously been a drug-pusher for oxycontin billionaires: the notorious Sackler family. It gets worse.👉
fastcompany.com/90810068/trevo…
Read 14 tweets
Jul 16
1./ 🧵Why are LGBTQ+ organisations so terrible at child safeguarding? My latest essay argues trans ideology is not the only reason. Worse is the historic refusal by gays to acknowledge our movement was started by men who saw paedophiles as brothers in arms. Fasten your seatbelts. Image
2./ The campaign for gay equality began in 1864 when Karl Ulrichs published the first of 12 short volumes arguing same-sex attraction was normal. The word homosexuality hadn't been invented yet so he coined the word 'Uranian'. Crazy name. Not as crazy as some of his ideas.👉Image
3./ Ulrichs' books electrified gay men and women in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Intellectuals from Oscar Wilde to André Gide now called themselves ...Uranian. So did Magnus Hirschfeld, favourite icon of the LGBTQ+ lobby, who based his research on Ulrichs' ideasImage
Read 23 tweets
Jul 2
1./ How captured is the BBC by the LGBTQ+ lobby and why does it matter? On Eastenders tonight, Albert Square was celebrating Pride. Of course it was. And as in every working class community in London’s East End absolutely everybody was dressing up for the local Pride party. 🤔
2./ The pecking order in Walford is now determined by how pro-LGBTQ+ characters are. So Kathy Beale silences her rival by pointing out she’s at the Pride event because her son is err… “part of the Queer community”. An everyday riposte in Whitechapel and Bethnal Green no doubt.
3./ It’s true East End life is more “diverse” today than the bad old days when the White Swan on Commercial Road was a rare gay oasis. But colour me skeptical there is any East End community with as many cross dressing blokes as appear in the background in Albert Square.
Read 8 tweets
Jun 20
1. Climate Change Hyperbole.
How should we respond to global warming? In my latest article I examine how last year's flood in Valencia was misrepresented and misused to argue we should decarbonise our economy more urgently than we are already doing.👉 Image
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2./ The climate change lobby ignored the fact Valencia had flooded 75 times before and the geology of the region could almost be designed to produce flash floods. Flooding in Valencia got so bad in 1957 the city decided to reroute the river that used to run through the centre. Image
3./ Coverage of the flood ignored all this and the fact rivers flowing into Valencia emerge 5500ft up a mountain range. This steep gradient means when extreme rainfall occurs water rushes to the city in a torrent. Nor can it escape because of almost vertical ravine river banks. Image
Image
Read 9 tweets
Jun 18
1./ 🧵The Lies of Sarah McBride: The Sequel.
This leading trans activist claims the trans lobby now faces hostility cos it failed to take the time to convince the public. Yet it was McBride himself who ruthlessly championed the most extreme positions. 👉
nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opi…
2./ After @HRC failed to stop a law in North Carolina protecting women's spaces McBride led its revenge campaign to ensure its Republican Governor was not re-elected. "It would send a really important message: if you come for us we're going to come for you", warned McBride.
3./ Invading women's restrooms was such a complusion for McBride that in a 2018 Google seminar he admitted HRC killed a non-discrimination bill in Philadelphia protecting gay and trans people from employment discrimination just because it had an exemption for women's restrooms.
Read 9 tweets

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