Pretentious Pseudo-Scientific Gibberish in Favor of Conversion "Therapy" – The Slowly Boiled Frog

The coronavirus has done nothing to diminish the presence of anti-LGBTQ whackjobs and their utterances.

Dirks' works were published to an anonymous anti-transgender site. I am certain that the peer review was impressively robust. The methodology relied on Google searches and, needless to say, Dirks does not understand what a longitudinal study is.

Undaunted, our fearless investigator tackles conversion therapy

There is a grain of truth to Dirks' subtitle:

LGBTQ kids often experience adversity due to their sexuality. It might take place in school or at home. People like Mr. Dirks create that adversity due to their religious beliefs and certainties.

Dirks would have people believe that people become gay or transgender because of their adverse experiences. There is no empirical evidence to support that ridiculous theory.

That is because Dirks' approach is backwards. He did not start with an hypothesis which he carefully subjected to tests.

In contrast, Mr. Dirks starts with a conclusion based upon ancient texts. He is then determined to prove that the scripture is true irrespective of the intellectual honesty (or lack thereof) involved in the effort.

Somehow, in the quest to demonstrate that conversion therapy bans are unwarranted, we get this drivel (emphasis added):

Sexual orientation change efforts (i) means any practice by a mental health professional that seeks to change an individual's sexual orientation, including, but not limited to, efforts to change behaviors, gender identity, or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings towards individuals of the same sex and (ii) shall not include counseling for a person seeking to transition from one gender to another, or psychotherapies that: (a) provide acceptance, support and understanding of patients or the facilitation of patients' coping, social support and identity exploration and development, including sexual orientation-neutral interventions to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices; and (b) do not seek to change sexual orientation.

Yes, I know that Canadian psychologist Kenneth Zucker claims some success at gender identity conversion but he also advocates for puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. A recent study out of Harvard Medical School, published to JAMA Psychiatry, concludes that gender identity conversion efforts are exceptionally toxic.

Pending Canadian law doesn't present any ambiguity either:

conversion therapy means a practice, treatment or service designed to change a persons sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour.

Lacking in erudition:

The presentation of a false choice articulates intellectual dishonesty. The suggested choice is conversion therapy or radical interventions.

That is a false narrative. Prior to entering puberty, gender incongruent children receive no drug treatments and certainly not surgery. Even then, they might receive puberty blockers which the Pediatric Endocrine Society has concluded are fully reversible.

Dirks is confusing medications with transitioning and he has no clue what he is talking about. At least two recent studies demonstrate that transgender youth who are allowed to socially transition have mental health (anxiety and depression) comparable to their cisgender peers.

Yes, gender dysphoria does go away in most children. However, persistence is directly linked to the severity of the condition and only the most acutely affected youth actually transition. Among those kids, desistance is extremely rare.

It is Dirks' final sentence in that paragraph that is truly pathetic: Sadly, few politicians have read the primary research

Rev. Dirks doesn't seem to have read any of the peer-reviewed research regarding gender identity. His wisdom comes from anonymous websites with names like: Woman Means Something.

From this point forward, text is substantially edited to alleviate painful verbosity as if weight=substance:

Even with the contention that a link exists, the prevailing majority opinion is that gay children are more vulnerable to abuse than their heterosexual peers.

But even if childhood abuse does cause people to become gay (as unlikely as that is to be so), there is no evidence that conversion therapy works. There is substantial evidence that it is harmful. Quoting (at length) from that same New York law banning juvenile conversion therapy:

The American Psychological Association convened a Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation. The task force conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed journal literature on sexual orientation change efforts, and issued a report in 2009. The task force concluded that sexual orientation change efforts can pose critical health risks to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people, including confusion, depression, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, shame, social withdrawal, suicidality, substance abuse, stress, disappointment, self- blame, decreased self-esteem and authenticity to others, increased self- hatred, hostility and blame toward parents, feelings of anger and betrayal, loss of friends and potential romantic partners, problems in sexual and emotional intimacy, sexual dysfunction, high-risk sexual behaviors, a feeling of being dehumanized and untrue to self, a loss of faith, and a sense of having wasted time and resources.

Sexual minority individuals have increased exposure to multiple developmental risk factors beyond physical, sexual and emotional abuse. We recommend the use of the Adverse Childhood Experiences scale in future research examining health disparities among this minority population.

Furthermore, banning conversion therapy does not ban conventional therapy to address these issues. It is not the intent of psychotherapy to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of patients.

Bloviation

Even if we dismiss minority stress as causative, that does not mean that some form of conversion therapy will improve the mental health or quality of life of LGBTQ individuals. The evidence is quite the contrary.

The American Psychiatric Association published a position statement in March of 2000 in which it stated: Psychotherapeutic modalities to convert or 'repair' homosexuality are based on developmental theories whose scientific validity is questionable.

Therapy is not banned for children. Conversion therapy is banned. The intent of professional therapy is not to change someone's sexual orientation of gender identity. The underling question is: What is the intent of the parent? Make him straight is very different from find out why he is unhappy.

Using 6-year longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and multiple measures of puberty as it occurs and of sexual orientation (romantic attraction, sexual identity), the present study attempted to replicate previous research which reported that homosexuals and heterosexuals differed in their age of pubertal onset.

The only significant findings regarding homosexual males indicated that they were more likely to report having a later rather than an earlier onset of puberty, and the significant findings regarding homosexual females were contradictorythey tended to have an earlier onset of puberty.

Within this large sample of girls, several distinct sexuality trajectories emerged. Trajectories are relatively stable from adolescence to young adulthood.

I have no idea what his point is or what the following has to do with conversion therapy:

They claim that youth are confused in order to attempt to make a case that a therapist can un-confuse the kids. It is Paul Dirks who is profoundly confused.

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Pretentious Pseudo-Scientific Gibberish in Favor of Conversion "Therapy" - The Slowly Boiled Frog