Attitude conversion

Here's a hypothetical for you.

There's a therapeutic practice being proposed for widespread use.  It has the following drawbacks:

• its use is strongly correlated with long-term PTSD, depression, and suicidal ideation.
• over half of the patients recommended for this practice are referred not by medical professionals, but by religious leaders.
• it has been denounced by every major medical organization.
• it has very close to a zero percent success rate.

Would you support the approval of this practice?

I devoutly hope the answer is "no," but unfortunately, this is no hypothetical or "proposed practice," it's already being used.  It's "conversion therapy" -- an attempt to "convert" LGBTQ+ people, many of them teenagers, into a straight cis identity.

And the word "convert" softens the impact of what the practice actually consists of.  Because its advocates don't want to use more accurate words like "bully" and "cajole" and "harass" and "subject to emotional abuse."

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Bojan Cvetanović, Rainbow flag ("Progress" variant by Daniel Quasar) at EuroPride 2019 (Vienna), CC BY-SA 4.0]

The topic comes up because of a paper this week in The Lancet Psychiatry, which lays out in no uncertain terms the dangers of this practice.  "Our study found an association between recall of conversion practices and symptoms of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide," said study lead author Nguyen Tran, of Stanford University.  "In particular, we saw the greatest harms in people who had been exposed to both types of conversion practices — those addressing sexual orientation and gender identity.  This study highlights the need for policy changes at a federal, state and local level, and an understanding of the lasting mental health impacts related to conversion practices."

The whole thing rests on the old idea that sexual identity and orientation are things you can change -- i.e., the ridiculous idea that "it's a choice."  With the tacit part being that queerness is a bad choice, or (to take the religious approach) a sin.  As a trans student of mine said some years ago, "How does that even make sense?  Who the hell would choose this?  To face ridicule and non-acceptance on a daily basis, and in some places, be in danger of injury, imprisonment, or death?  You have to be an idiot to believe that we're choosing this."

And, of course, the people who are straight never seem to be able to answer the question of when and how they decided on their sexual orientation.  I'd bet you cold hard cash you couldn't find a single one who sat down at age fourteen and thought, "Hmmm... guys or girls?  Guys or girls?  How will I ever decide?"

Speaking as a queer man, all I can say is believe me, I tried to change who I was.  I grew up in not only a devoutly Roman Catholic household, but one so uptight it almost beggars belief, and in one of the most conservative, homophobic areas of the United States.  When I was growing up I can barely remember my parents ever saying the word "sex."  Sex, and sexual desire (of any kind), were not something to be enjoyed and celebrated, but were nothing but an embarrassed necessity for procreating.  When it was time for The Talk I was handed a book that explained the mechanics (a book which, by the way, labeled queerness as "a mental illness").  The result: I tried like hell to erase from my brain all the same-sex attraction I felt.  Didn't work, of course, because it never does.  So I simply hid, in shame and fear and self-loathing.

For almost fifty years.

So even though I was never put through the hell of conversion therapy, the Tran et al. research is hardly a surprise to me.  And the fact that we don't have a nationwide ban on this practice is downright criminal -- and provides yet more evidence of the stranglehold religion has on the United States, to the point that religious considerations trump evidence, data, and the health and safety of American citizens.

"The preponderance of evidence indicates that conversion practices are related to negative mental health effects," Tran said.  "There is a greater need for mental health support among survivors of conversion practices.  Other studies that have explored this suggest that helping LGBTQIA+ people find supportive LGBTQIA+ networks, access affirming mental health care, and rebuild their self-esteem and embrace their gender identity or sexual orientation are important for addressing the negative mental health related to conversion practice."

It's attitudes that need to be converted, not people's sexual identity.

People are enraged about the non-issue of children being given sex-change operations on a whim -- like Donald Trump's idiotic lie, "The transgender thing is incredible.  Think of it.  Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation.  The school decides what’s going to happen with your child."  (I worked in a school for 32 years, and trust me, school nurses are not equipped to do surgery.  And nothing in a school happens apropos of a child's health without parental consent, unless it's a life-or-death emergency.  Nothing.)  

So if you want to be furious about something, how about choosing something real, something that actually does demonstrable and long-lasting harm?

And then take that fury and turn it into something useful -- working to ban forever a practice that does irreparable damage to the mental health of one of the most vulnerable minorities.

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Involuntary conversions

New from the "They Needed A Grant To Figure This Out?" department, we have: a study showing that LGBTQ individuals who have undergone "conversion therapy" or other attempts to change their sexual orientation have a higher incidence of depression.

Whodathunkit, ya know?  Amazing what happens when you take a person and tell them in no uncertain terms that a part of their personality over which they have zero control is bad and they have to fix it, and woe be unto them if they don't.

A study done at the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University tracked the outcomes for LGBTQ students, comparing ones who had experienced attempts to alter their sexual orientation with ones who hadn't.  The results were unequivocal.  Students who had been through "conversion therapy" or some equivalent had:

• over twice the likelihood of a suicide attempt;
• over twice the likelihood of depression (if the student had experienced these attempts both by parents and also external agencies, that number rose to triple the likelihood);
• lower socioeconomic status five years after leaving college;
• lower educational attainment;
• and lower average weekly wages.

Honestly, I get why the study was done.  If you have hard data behind an argument, it's a lot more difficult to refute it.  But here's the problem; the people who are arguing for conversion therapy are not, by and large, arguing from a standpoint of evidence.  The vast majority are basing their stance on religion, or the simple fact that thinking about gay sex makes them feel squinky.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Benson Kua, Rainbow flag breeze, CC BY-SA 2.0]

As far as the first one goes, people need to wrap their brains around the fact that their religion tells them what they are supposed to do, not what I am supposed to do.  As my mom used to put it, my rights end where your nose begins.  As long as what you are doing is in no way harming me -- such as what gender(s) you are attracted to -- I should have no right whatsoever to dictate your actions.

As far as the second, my response is: grow up and get over it.  I detest cooked carrots, to the point that I can barely stand to look at someone eating them.  (It is just about the only food I really dislike.  As my dad once quipped, my favorite two kinds of food are "plenty" and "often.")  But if I started telling people they couldn't eat cooked carrots because I can't stand the thought of it, my guess is that they would (quite rightly) tell me to go to hell.

Same thing here.  Maybe you find same-gender relationships disgusting.  Then don't have one.  Which is what I do when someone offers me carrots.

What's more, don't spend your time thinking about it.  Is it just me, or do these rabid evangelical types ever think about anything else?  Seems odd to me that people who claim to be so completely repulsed by the thought of a same-sex relationship talk about them to the exclusion of every other topic, with the possible exception of "Trump is the messiah," and if you don't do whatever Trump wants, you will be on the receiving end of a divine smite.

So this is in truth a huge problem, and I don't want anyone to interpret my first paragraph as dismissive.  I began that way because I have such a difficult time imagining how it's not so self-evident that it would appear obvious to everyone in the world.  If you have a child, and you set out to systematically destroy a fundamental part of their being, it's going to do horrific damage, and in the end, very likely be unsuccessful.  You might convince these poor young people not to seek out a relationship, which is bad enough; it's dooming them to a future in which they're alone, in which to fall in love is seen as succumbing to evil.  But you're not going to change their sexual orientation, because that's hardwired into our brains.

No one asks a heterosexual when they "chose to be straight."  Why should the situation be any different for LGBTQ individuals?

In short, conversion therapy is child abuse, and it inflicts permanent harm.  How it is not illegal, I have no idea.

But maybe this study will bolster the case that it should be.

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If you are one of those people who thinks that science books are dry and boring, I'll give you a recommendation that will put that misconception to rest within the first few pages: Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of Elements.

Kean undertook to explain, from a human perspective, that most iconic of all images from the realm of chemistry -- the Periodic Table, the organized chart of elements from the simplest (hydrogen, atomic number 1) to largest and most complex (oganesson, atomic number 118).  Kean's sparkling prose shows us the personalities behind the science, including the notoriously cranky Dmitri Mendeleev; tragic, brilliant Henry Moseley, a victim of World War I; and shy, self-effacing Glenn T. Seaborg, one of only two individuals to have an element named after them while they were still alive.

It's a fun read, even if you're not a science geek -- maybe especially if you're not a science geek.  Because it allows you to peer behind the curtain, and see that the scientists are just like the rest of us, with rivalries, jealousies, odd and misplaced loyalty, and all the rest of the faults the human race is subject to.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]