WHY GENDER-AFFIRMING THERAPY IS NOT CONVERSION THERAPY.

I remember my father worked with a woman whose brother thought he knew more than he did, and being a fencer with welding equipment, he removed the catalytic converter from his 4WD and welded a piece of piping on there and ran the 4WD on leaded petrol. That was in 1991. What he didn’t seem to care about was that an engine that runs on unleaded petrol is different inside as well as out, which is why it’s counterintuitive and dangerous to do the reverse of what her brother did. If you run an engine designed for leaded petrol on unleaded petrol, you can cause valve seat recession.

Unlike how a catalytic converter is intended to reduce harmful emissions, conversion therapy is intended to make a person into a cisgender, heterosexual person and frequently is as counterproductive as what the woman’s brother did to his 4WD. And just like his engine would have said, “No way!” after a period of time, conversion therapy can result in serious negative consequences.

In the 1970s, when homosexuality was illegal in many jurisdictions, many men coming forward to gender transition were gay. While it’s true that some gender confused kids may find that their confusion resolves if they accept that they’re same sex attracted, sexual orientation and gender orientation are NOT the same thing. There are also people who would have identified as heterosexual males who have gender transitioned and are transgender lesbians.

The real conversion therapy is if someone is certain that they are in the wrong sex or gender being forced to accept that. While my mother didn’t ever send me to conversion therapy, she practised her own version of it with me. For example, when I expressed interest in doing Home Economics (a boy in my class in Year Six asked me about it and expressed interest and of all things, he trained to be a chef) before attending high school, my mother said, in a harsh undertone, when we were taking a tour of the high school I attended, “Don’t you dare talk about wanting to do Home Economics unless you want to have an operation to be a girl.” Then, she forced me to play cricket and football with my brother, which he loved, and I hated. Yet, of all things, recently my mother said, “If transitioning makes you more content, I’m happy for you.”

What many people forget is that the conversion therapy practiced by psychiatrists in the 1960s, aside from electric shocks and aversion therapy, was telling a gay man to find a good woman, have a good sex life and become a father, and your homosexuality will disappear. But then you find that there are men in their 70s or 80s who said that they married at 20 and had kids, and the marriages ended in divorce and they’re living as homosexual couples in their older years. Some of those men may have had more than one heterosexual marriage.

Gender affirming therapy does not examine sexual orientation and nor does modern gender affirming therapy done by a reputable therapist, aim to make a person heterosexual. It aims to examine the person’s reasons and say that they’re valid. And let’s not forget that many people who have transitioned, when their friends see them after however many years, they often report that they are the happiest they’ve ever been.

I can say, for myself, that not having to follow interests and gender stereotypes and norms have made me happy, too.