“Gay”, “conversion” and “therapy”: three words that don’t belong together

Yoooo

You know, my parents were once doing character assassinations on various members of the family and I said “Do me!” for shits n giggles and Mum said “Largely inoffensive except when you get on your soap box which can be really annoying.”

I have several soapboxes: feminism, obviously, and the environment (I went to a rather dull bar gathering this week and the only time I came to life was when someone mentioned Round Up and I did a spectacular rant on Monsanto, the Bayer merger, and McDonald’s potatoes, but that’s for another day), but also I carry a hefty torch for Christian LOVE = FOR EVERYONE go Christian gays and gay acceptance and hallelujah for LGBTQIA+ in the church because seriously I don’t know where the memo got lost for some folk but GOD LOVES EVERYONE and we should use Jesus as an example so…. What tf is everyone’s problem?!

So when my (actually liberal, kind, thoughtful) vicar shared an article on facebook as ‘thought-provoking’, which was at odds with every fibre of my being I wrote him an email. He shared an article by a Church of England higher-upper basically ‘why we shouldn’t ban gay conversion therapy’. And it grossly, massively missed the point of it, and who uses it, and misused hypothetical situations (which you can infer from my objections). I’m sure you can find it if you’re so inclined. I wrote (with pleasantries either end) the following email:

I don’t think it’s worth posting something because it’s ‘thought-provoking’ when it has such a negative impact – is it kind? Is it necessary? And is it helpful?

Another main issue is with the ‘gay conversion’ bit. You can have therapy. You can get sex therapy and counselling, and deal with the individual issues addressed there. But it doesn’t have to be solely about targeting one aspect of who you are and demonising it.

This article misses the point about why gay conversion ‘therapy’ exists and who is using it. It is a very biased opinion piece, and openly denies evidence (as a scientist, it hurt me a little bit inside purely on the ‘factual’ basis, where is the peer review haha). There is absolutely no analogue between choosing to have rhinoplasty because you don’t like your nose, and being forced to change who you are as a person because you are threatened with hell and the hatred of your own community and family.

The very existence of gay conversion therapy is because LGBTQ+ are seen as other and inferior, and the argument is basically entirely based on religion. If you say even we shouldn’t fix things that aren’t wrong, the article drew insulting and irrelevant comparisons between plastic surgery or weight loss.

These do not negate your existence as a person… But GCT does.

GCT does not exist because there was a market for it, it exists because some people believe gay people should not exist.

‘Love the sinner, hate the sin’ still leaves a huge void, because the love is not unconditional and still points out the LGBTQ+ person as a sinner. Aren’t we all. And the sins we choose to commit are not because we were born that way, unlike a gay person who has no choice. And then you may say this conversion ‘therapy’ gives them that choice. No it doesn’t. It categorically does not work. Just like the examples given in the article of homeopathy or AA. The difference is, homeopathy and AA do not generally cause more harm; they do not drive people to suicide. Gay conversion ‘therapy’ does, along with all the other barriers to the very right of existence placed in the way of the LGBTQ+ community.

Again, some stats – LGBTQ+ youth are 8x more likely to have tried to commit suicide, 6x more likely to be depressed, 3x more likely to use drugs (see the second link below). When the whole world is against you and there are data like these, do you think it’s helpful to even play devil’s advocate on issues like this? Just shut them down. Even vaguely supporting – or sharing – things like this is not showing Jesus’ love.

Here is some evidence that that article cheerfully ignored, that GCT does NOT work and DOES cause harm. (I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read that line ‘What is the evidence for that (the UK RCP doesn’t think that evidence exists)’ – are you kidding me?! Not harmful to tell a child every day that they’re going to hell for the way they were born, they’re an abomination, and their family would reject them? Can you imagine that pressure? Also, it’s not that the evidence doesn’t exist; that particular body said there wasn’t enough of it to draw a definitive conclusion (many, many other bodies disagree.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/opinion/gay-conversion-therapy-torture.html The story of a man who suffered psychological distress after years of this and now campaigns against it (yes, ‘anecdotal’, but so was everything in that article…. Well, anecdotal or literally imagined!!)

https://www.hrc.org/resources/the-lies-and-dangers-of-reparative-therapy there is no evidence of it working, to the point a provider of GCT was successfully sued for consumer fraud, even in the land of GCT, the US. The American Psychological Association found no evidence for any effectiveness and some evidence for it being harmful (gleefully glossed over in your article), in addition to societal pressures. The American Medical Association opposes its use. There is SO MUCH in here.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/realities-of-conversion-therapy_us_582b6cf2e4b01d8a014aea66?guccounter=1 Yep this really still happens.

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/campaign-groups/conversion-therapy ‘In the UK, all major counselling and psychotherapy bodies, as well as the NHS, have concluded that conversion therapy is dangerous and have condemned it by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (PDF).’

A quick google will bring you HUNDREDS of these. And yet the (evidence-unencumbered) defences somehow all seem to come from one direction… Conservative religion.

You also cannot ignore the historical background to GCT. I refer you to Alan Turing as a famous example. People did die directly from it. People were imprisoned for who they are. It’s saying, well, women are equal now because we have the vote (i.e. you can no longer chemically castrate someone) and ignoring the ‘Me Too’ movement (as in, microaggresions of everyday life which added together create sometimes unbearable pressure). These are signs of aggression just beneath the surface. Imagine living your life in the fear of, well, if they would put me through behavioural therapy, will they put me through shock therapy? Or will they just beat me up on my way home? Or will they kill me, because apparently I deserve it? You never know when it’s going to stop.

Quote from Stonewall: ‘Yesterday, the Government also announced the launch of a public consultation to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to help further trans equality in Britain. The memorandum makes clear that conversion therapy in relation to both gender identity and sexual orientation is unethical, potentially harmful and is not supported by evidence…. It’s important to make clear that any attempt to change a person’s gender identity through therapy is unethical.’

The example of the three gay Christians going to a therapist is just not what happens. The Christians accessing these sorts of ‘therapies’ are not there by choice. They are usually teenagers who are forced into going – sometimes literally dropped off at a place where they stay for days or weeks until they ‘change their behaviour’, or return for periodic sessions for years – or they are effectively forced by blackmail by the threat of dislocation from their community and disownment by their family. It is not therapy, it is a threat and punishment and blackmail of vulnerable people.

People’s sexuality undoubtedly does change. That’s ok if it’s by choice not force, and that’s the thing here. GCT is force. And there are ways to get help that are not ‘conversion’ therapies.

So in reply to those three points: [Interjection: the article listed three main blows to common sense, and these are direct opposite replies)

• Because GCT not only doesn’t work, it is harmful, whereas those examples are not
• There is plenty of evidence for it causing harm and it is rejected by every medical association in the western world; the proportion of those harmed by, say, grief counselling are going to be a tiny, tiny proportion. NOT EVERY SINGLE ONE.
• How is a cosmetic procedure comparable to trying to prove that your existence is an abomination?

There is absolutely no conscionable defence of this. There is no ‘good argument’. It is all harmful, whatever level or method you think is better or worse. As for the government just shoving through knee-jerk legislation, the upskirting bill didn’t even pass because one old white man decided it hadn’t been done properly – they don’t pass these things for laughs.

And I know you don’t like this or anything. So I really want to say to you, is that helpful? When LGBTQ+ face so much pressure from elsewhere, just… is that helping? No. It’s harmful in itself to share this stuff, please… think about how it’s going to make someone feel if they’re gay and they see that the vicar they really like and respect and have a good personal relationship with… shares that and thinks it makes a valid argument. Ouch.

 

Okay well done if you stuck to the end, poor vicar eh. I didn’t finish it there, I said some nice things. I just want to present to a wider audience how much I think GCT should be illegal because it is FUCKED UP (no I didn’t say that to the vicar, either.)

And now, bonsoir.

Yours argumentatively,

Georgie.

 

In Other News, English is Bollocks

My lovely boyfriend’s first language is Arabic, and his English is astonishingly perfect. I will never get over it. I am in AWE. But he knows all of the words, and none of the sayings. So he said to me the other day, “I was on a train and there was a woman and she answered her phone and she said, ‘Oh, it’s you! I thought you were sleeping for England!’

“And what the fuck,” he turned to me, very seriously, “Does that mean? I cannot work it out.”

IT’S SO TRUE, WHAT THE HELL ARE ANY OF US TALKING ABOUT?!!

Another one was hen do. He said, “Whoa, whoa. You have mentioned ‘hen do’ before. I googled it and seriously there was not one result.” (I find this very difficult to believe). ‘Knock up’ and ‘fag’ also caused him difficulties in that he learned American English…  He’s also learned ‘Come a cropper’, ‘do yourself a mischief’, and the myriad definitions of twat/twatted, and any form of Cockney rhyming slang is GREAT fun. Likewise, he nearly killed me when he asked about my ‘fanny pack’.

 

 

Semidulthood

Good evening all (or morning, for it’s so late it’s technically early)

Am I a grown up yet?

See, sometimes I think I am. I can budget and shop and cook and wash and clean and iron and I am proficient at all of these things. Right now I’m writing Christmas cards and sending them to as far flung places as New Zealand and Germany and nobody told me to; I bought them, and paid for stamps, and complained about the price of said stamps, commented on the weather to the check-out lady and everything. Adulting.

I go to the pub to catch up with friends and complain about the music being too loud. I had (up until today, technically, but there’s another story) a job, with wage slips and talking to strangers and travel expenses. I own a Nectar card AND  Morrison’s Match and More card. I have library membership and a pastry brush and de-icer and an OS map of Derbyshire. Grown up.

And then, bump, I come home and spend half my life sitting on my childhood bed watching Netflix and my parents buy me food and I don’t pay rent and when I go out with my mum she’s like ‘Oh I’ll buy you that, you haven’t got any money’ (which is amazing, thanks) and I realise I am effectively completely dependent on my parents, like a giant, overgrown leech with good hair and four limbs.

My good friend Katherine (Katherine With Words, check her out) is in a similar position and I went to her house the other day and her mum answered the door and chatted to me about life and then I went up to her childhood bedroom and made myself comfy on her bed and it was like being 12 again, minus the terrifying dance routines to songs from Horrible Histories.

I don’t mind; I’m just lucky I have parents and family who are in a position to still support me because not everyone has that, I know. Also there seems to be a lot of us semidults around at the moment so I’m not alone. It’s just sometimes I’m like ‘I CAN ADULT LOOK AT ME MOVE THIS SPIDER AND RENEW MY CAR INSURANCE’ and then other times I’m like ‘Mum do you wanna buy me some spot cream when you’re out.’

Yours childishly,

Georgie

Aged 22 and 11/12

In Other News, She Gets What She Wants

Honestly, my sister-in-law (to be) is quite the force to be reckoned with. If she has her eyes on the prize it might as well already be hers.

She and my brother were attending a posh do, black tie. They got in, sipped a cocktail or two, and then watched as one of my brother’s friends arrived and was turned away for informal dress (jeans). They went over to Friend, who was told ‘Go to the suit place round the corner and sort yourself out.’ S-in-L doubts they will be open at 8pm on a Sunday, and she is correct. Friend is distraught at not getting into the party. S-in-L rolls up her metaphorical sleeves.

Telling my brother to wait outside, she takes Friend by the hand and bursts into the nearest hotel (not even the one they were staying at). Turning on mega-stress, slight wobbly lip, watery eye, she gasps, “Please – you’re going to think this is such a weird question, but please, please will you help me?! My fiance -” she gives Friend a little prod, and shows the lady her engagement ring ”  – we just got engaged! – forgot his smart suit trousers and we’re due at this really posh place for his work party and he’s gonna get a bollocking if he can’t go, it’ll really affect how they see him and his commitment so I’m really worried but they wouldn’t let him in in these jeans and they’re the smartest things he had and I’m sorry but do you think, possibly, you might be able to help us find some trousers so we can get in? I’m sorry!”

The woman apparently looked rather touched at their predicament and, long story still quite long, actually got hold of a pair of trousers from a colleague who was so kindly he said they could keep them, and then they waved off the desperate and incredibly grateful couple feeling they’d done their good deed for the day.

As soon as they were out of sight, she switched back to being my brother’s fiancee, wrapped Friend’s jeans round her arm under her bag and used flirty diversion tactics on the jeans-hating security man on the way in. Job done, Friend got in, and when they got back to their own hotel later she also used the engagement ring to blag some free champagne and an upgrade.

Honestly, we all need one like her.

Secrets and the Internet

Hello dear readers,

Apologies, I’m a little behind the week mark, I appear to have lost track of time. This week: The Internet. And its myriad possibilities.

So, I’m spilling my secrets. Because online, one has a strange anonymity – one which can be used, or abused; one which can empower, or diminish; one of comfort in a camouflaged mask to strive to protect, or one to reveal in the pixelated daylight of honesty.

I feel that the anonymity provided by an online persona can be innocently exploited; I exploit it myself. But used nefariously, its far-reaching tendrils can creep into the lightest home and darken a mindset, can destroy and ruin and decay. But in the shady corners of cyberspace, uncontrolled and unlit, who is stopping this? Can it be stopped? Should it be stopped – for one user of facelessness for protective purposes may be unmasked and endangered, scrutinised for falsifying, while measures for prevention of internet crimes are a step behind those perpetrators they truly seek? Are we entitled to obscurity, or are we threatened by it?

How strange it is to me, when perusing my site stats, to find 90% of my readers live in North America. How strange that people I’ve never met will read these thoughts cast adrift into the ether by a little woman thousands of miles away in a small village in England. My readers will never see my face, they will never hear my voice or shake my hand, but they are able to read my deepest thoughts, my secrets, things I haven’t told some of my closest friends. Frightening, and liberating. Refreshing, and startling.

You might not know the colour of my eyes, but you know that I had my first kiss when I was nineteen.

You don’t know what my laugh sounds like, but you can know that I am in love with a man who lives over two hundred miles away and who has no idea.

You don’t know how tall I am, but you hear that I have doubts about my career choices which I have never really voiced; I am passionate about biology and nature and conservation, but I realised very recently that I’ve only come this far academically because I was blessed with an impressive memory. I’m not built for science. Analytic thinking is not natural for me. I am artistic, not analytic. And sometimes I wonder where I will end up and whether I will do well, by chance, or whether I will be stuck somewhere in perpetual uncertainty.

Anyone could pass me in the street and not know that I have probed and questioned myself for a long time now, and only recently come to the conclusion that I’m about 70-80% straight (it fluctuates), and I’m finally comfortable with that. And you wouldn’t know that I’ve never told anyone that, and you wouldn’t know I felt that way. You wouldn’t know how I first started questioning and doubting myself at secondary school when my friends would discuss which cute teachers they fancied and I thought I was a complete freak because inwardly I thought a few of the female teachers were hot. But sitting thousands of miles away, with a different time on your clock and different weather pressing against your windows, a little screen in front of you is telling you that about a stranger.

I don’t know whether to be creeped out or exhilarated, liberated. Although right now I’m a bit too numbly tired to feel either, and instead write as I’d write to myself, because through this medium we can connect with like-minds as far away as opposite poles. I like the feeling that there are other people I could meet no other way, who can share my stories as I read theirs, a long-distance exchange which is the other, brighter side of anonymity; that of kinship with strangers and the removal of isolating barriers, and acceptance, and the exchange of opinions and broadening horizons and mutual support.

And, of course, cat videos. Lots and lots of cat videos.

Yours honestly, but not entirely,

Georgie.

In Other News, Vehicular Access Issues

My friend P has made a couple of appearances here before, and no doubt will again. This week’s escapade involves her and a friend going out for coffee. P’s friend drove them there. And when they wandered out of the coffee shop afterwards, and meandered across the car park to come home, P took her eye off the ball for a split second. She opened the car door and was halfway inside it before she looked up – and spotted her friend getting into a different car a few spaces away. Her friend was just looking at her, agape. P was clambering into some random stranger’s car! Apparently they made a quick getaway after that. In their own car, thankfully.