#Stormont, we are asking you to #presspause on the Ban on Conversion Therapy Bill in Northern Ireland. Wait until the findings of #thecassreview have been released and considered.
Conversion Therapy, as we traditionally understand it, is about sexuality and the pressure on lesbians, gay men and bisexuals to confirm to and convert to heterosexuality. Sexuality is cited as being based on biological sex and same sex or opposite sex attraction.
Conversion Therapy is a long condemned practice and much has been done to further the rights and protections of LGB people to love who they want, live how they please, and define how they like, just the same as heterosexual people.
The new proposed ban on conversion therapy focuses on the idea that identities can also be converted, just like people historically tried to convert sexualities. The problem is identity is a fluid concept, it's very hard to define and very easy to change, just like pronoun use.
The risk of including identity in this bill means that when treating gender dysphoria in people like myself, there is a call to ban talking therapies by labelling them as conversion therapy tools. They are not.
There is a call also to medicalise people like me who suffer from dysphoria, a mental health condition defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, for which the UK and NI currently refer to for mental health treatment. Other conditions may be affected too.
Without first getting proper definitions in place, defining what we even mean by conversion therapy in the modern context, we could be walking into a nightmare where we are actually removing valuable treatment options for those people who do not wish to medicalise dysphoria.
I am one of those people. I have dysphoria and I reject medicalising my condition. I am able to maintain good mental health through talking therapy and I find transition to be a conversion in&of itself. I would ask you not to limit the options of young people with this condition.
I would ask you to look to the evidence of Sandinavian countries that have already taken these decisions&after reviewing their findings, reversed those decisions in favour of non invasion, therapy based approaches *first*.
Please consider who bares the cost. Please #presspause
Please consider who bares the cost. Please #presspause
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