Re: ‘Conversion therapy’ bill is opposed, Letter April 5

‘Conversion therapy’ bill is opposed, Letter April 5

I was disappointed but not surprised to see Dr. Ray Blanchard’s letter opposing the banning of conversion therapy for gender-variant young people.

Dr. Blanchard is notorious in the trans community for his harsh “gatekeeping” stance, which has been found to be without therapeutic benefit especially in comparison to the harm resulting from lack of access to transition-related therapy, and for his attachment to the also discredited “autogynephilia” model of gender variance. Naturally, he would oppose a bill that bans his stock in trade.

Not coincidentally, the gender clinic with which he has been affiliated has recently been shut down by CAMH for review of this type of treatment, which has been disavowed by the CAMH administration.

He describes the bill as “ideological” in opposing conversion therapy, but in doing so, he ignores the scientific consensus on this type of therapy in trans adults and children.

The 7th edition of the Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender-Nonconforming People, a widely accepted guide drafted by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health based on a compilation of the best available evidence, firmly says, “Treatment aimed at trying to change a person’s gender identity and expression to become more congruent with sex assigned at birth has been attempted in the past without success . . . Such treatment is no longer considered ethical.”

It is true that people’s understanding of their gender identities can evolve over time. But, contrary to what Dr. Blanchard says, the role of the professional is not to force people toward gender conformity, but to follow and support them as they discover themselves, whatever path that may take.

This is especially true for the most vulnerable – trans and gender-variant children – who are over-pathologized, forced disproportionately often into psychotherapy by parents who fear and disapprove of their gender variance, as well as those who are brought in by well-meaning parents who trust the professional and may not understand the harm being done.

Preventing professionals from plying these children with painful and damaging “therapies” that push them into self-rejection is a step toward protecting them and offering them the safety in which to grow and discover who they may be. In a community with a horrifyingly high suicide rate, too often caused by such rejection and stigma, this is of capital importance.

Matthew McLauchlin, Montreal

It is no secret that Dr. Ray Blanchard is a controversial figure in the trans community and many letters could be written in response to his, among them a letter about Dr. Blanchard’s value judgment on medical transition.

Just one response here though: In the debate about MPP Cheri Di Novo’s bill, Dr. Blanchard thinks that the bill could “prohibit or penalize clinical interventions that are in the best interest of many gender-dysphoric patients.”

This means that he believes that clinicians/psychiatrists/psychologists/he/CAMH know what is best for a patient (this is possible) from their own experience and research (this starts to be about them more than about the patient) and, he thinks that the clinician’s knowledge is valid even if it goes against the wishes of the patient (this is not about the patient anymore).

This is simply abuse, at any age, and it has been internationally recognized as such (see Jake Pyne’s “Is CAMH trying to turn trans kids straight?” in the April 1 Now magazine). And let’s not forget that it is also fundamentally incompatible with the Ontario Human Rights Code that protects the right to self-identify one’s gender at any age.

So, I am now going to be the patient and speak to parents from my personal experience and long psychological journey now. If, as a parent, you embody Dr. Blanchard’s philosophy with your child and “mutate” him/her/them (I am using Dr. Blanchard’s idea that children’s gender identity is “mutable”) to express the gender you think that they are, this is what could happen: the child compensates invisibly in the face of a feeling a death inside; they wonderfully well listen to you, they do amazingly at school, they are sometimes a bit clumsy; you think they do not have much access to their imagination.

At adolescence, they tend to hang out with the rebellious kids. You are angry at them a lot. Then, they leave and everything looks good: university, work, love, finances. Marriage. But, then, something happens. The internal architecture becomes pure pain. Physical, emotional and psychological. There is a sensation of having only half a brain or of having two very different sides in the body. And this sensation is not an illusion, it is the perception of a twist in the spine and the head, which blocks neural pathways and flow and physically shifts balance to one side.

Ears and eyes know that. Healing seems impossible at it is feels like re/discovering something that the mind is fabricating or something that is dead and should better be dismissed (is that was Dr. Blanchard thinks is best dismissed?). Even food seems dangerous.

What is healing then? Long. And then, it becomes about seeing the evidence, something that a “mutated” mind cannot understand at first. The evidence is too deeply natural for this mind. Healing is about existing by accepting life instead of thinking that death is life. Mr. Blanchard, is that a good life?

Claude Wittmann, Toronto

Transgender people have existed for millennia throughout the world, long before options like hormone therapy and surgery became available for those who feel their identity might be enhanced through these further steps. These procedures do not create one’s transgender identity, of course, and they involve numerous risks and intrusions into the well-being, autonomy and privacy of a transgender citizen.

To require them as a necessary condition for gaining equal dignity under federal law is barbaric. It echoes a 1950s mindset that pathologized transsexuals specifically and rejected the existence of a wider transgender community.

By definition, Senator Don Plett’s amendment to bill C-279 withholds transgender rights, by demanding of law-abiding citizens that they undergo both medical intervention and physical risk as a prerequisite for equality before the state.

We should all think about that for a moment. Sober second-thought indeed.

Dee Sparling, Toronto