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think- ago

Massachusetts lawmakers are considering a therapy ban that would not only make it illegal to counsel children about unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion, but also punish parents who allow it by taking custody of their children.

This sucks. Because many survivors who have been raped/abused by someone of the same sex are confused by same sex attractions. They don't know whether it's due to the abuse experience that they feel attracted to the same sex.

So if this would be made illegal, it would be a huge pushback.

And it's self-evident that gender dysphoria needs to be addressed in therapy if it bothers a child.

In Texas, a divorced father and mother are fighting over medical treatment for their 6-year-old son. The mother says he identifies as a girl and wants to pursue medical treatments to help him change.

A six-year-old. It's child abuse to even consider medical treatment in a case like this.

@gamepwn @shadow332 @kestrel9

Otto- ago

Yeah, especially if the "medical treatment" amounts to reassignment surgery, which I personally find contemptible at any age.

Are there any instances where conversion therapy has actually worked? Is this even testable? Forgive my ignorance, as everyone else seems solidly dogmatic on the issue with their collective gay-bashing, but wouldn't regular psychological or psychoanalytical therapy be more appropriate at getting to the core of this? What exactly does conversion therapy offer that these others don't? And is it collectively agreed here that all gender dysphoria, homosexuality & paraphilia are caused by child abuse, neglect or subliminal brainwashing? If not, is conversion therapy proposed to work for all cases regardless?

In case it needs to be said, I'm not trolling, homosexual or advocating anything to the contrary, just asking for info.

3141592653 ago

Conversion Therapy is evil

think- ago

As far as I know, conversion therapy isn't working, it only leads to self-hatred. But I wasn't talking about conversion therapy anyway, I was talking about offering therapy for teenagers who might have been abused, and feel confusion about their sexual orientation.

Counselling them wouldn't be 'conversion therapy', but might become illegal, although it would be a normal therapy.

Personally, I don't think that homosexuality is always caused by sexual abuse, but there seems to be a strong correlation (and I am basically gay friendly).

Pedophilia (= people who are only attracted to children) has a strong correlation to sexual abuse; most pedophiles who are only attracted to children have been abused when they were children.

Gender dysphoria seems to have a correlation to child abuse too, although nobody dares to do studies about it (only my impression), and to mental illness.

....or subliminal brainwashing

It's not even subliminal anymore.

Otto- ago

Hey, thanks so much for clearing that up. Pretty much my own sense of the issue, although my attempts to learn further have been difficult, as the literature is highly saturated with personal & political ideologies.

I don't know if it's so much what you'd classify as "child abuse" as it is neglect. Not that parenting has always been great, but perhaps there's instability in other areas, like emotional or self identification. My sister is well read and highly critical of postmodernism, feminism, etc; she believes the lack of or substitute for breastmilk, of all things, is a large reason why people are growing up less mentally developed. On top of everything else, food & health, pollution, tech, economy, generational differences & existential confusion, societies seem to cyclically push the boundaries of their class or egalitarian structure to an eventual collapse and (hopefully) rebirth.