Why is gay conversion therapy illegal in California and New Jersey for minors, while sexual reassignment therapy legal for minors?
In essence, a therapy to resist a predisposition (homosexuality) is illegal. Gay conversion therapy is reversible. Sexual reassignment therapy that is irreversible and affects a child both physically and mentally is legal and protected. This doesn’t make any sense at all! See this California law that protects the rights of “transgendered” as early as kindergarten! I doubt most kindergarten age children even have a good idea what “gender” is!
Gay Conversion Therapy
I wrote this several weeks ago and have since learned some of the problems with gay conversion therapy. My main sources of knowledge are from a South Park episode where Butters is sent to a special “camp” when his parents think he is bi-curious and an article by a homosexual that compared his experience in a gay conversion camp to that of Josh Duggar’s camp therapy. I haven’t been able to find this article again in order to provide a cite.
Modern Psychology
I must admit, the results and the methods were horrifying. HOWEVER, while the methods of mainstream psychology are usually less horrifying, the results are often the same. I often say that psychology is the most important of all the health science fields, and the most primitive. Sadly, I have to agree with Tom Cruise and the Scientologists (as well as another South Park episode) when they protest the mindless prescribing of psychological drugs to children. Psychologists are often well intentioned, but their methods are simply not sound. They have created a touchy-feely soft science that convinces people that they will have their “illness” for life. Proof of the futility of modern psychology would be its utter failure within the area of addiction. All 12-step programs leave people with life-long addictions. Before there was ever a Passages Addiction Center in Malibu or a book written by its founders, I advocated therapy similar to what these people do.
Addictions and Predispositions
I re-programmed my brain to end my cigarette addiction and I have no cravings. My Doctor said I had more will power than others did. However, will power has absolutely nothing to do with it. Willpower will leave you with nothing but the frustration of being in Chinese handcuffs – just as there is a trick to getting out of these handcuffs, there is a trick to escaping addictions – I think. I have only ever used myself as a guinea pig, but the results were awesome.
A More Advanced Psychology
Since the first studies showed the power of fMRI in the study of the human brain, I have advocated for psychology to use a combination of fMRI or similar technology in conjunction with virtual reality along with a system of hard metrics in an effort to actually cure people. I know I am on a rant over my dissatisfaction with psychology. It is just sad that a science that could be so much more beneficial for people stays stuck within the dark ages.
With all these things considered, I would strongly recommend that anyone who thinks they need one, to make an appointment with a psychologist due to the fact that at this point in history, our current primitive psychology and psychiatry are the best choices available.
An Open-Minded Position on the Gay Issue
So, what is my position on gay conversion therapy? It is simple, if a person is gay and doesn’t want to be, they should have the option to change this predisposition. However, the methods need to be improved. I mentioned additions within the paragraph above because addictions, to some extent, are another type of “predisposition.” As a Christian, I believe God sets special challenges for all of us. Yet, I still have not presented my position on homosexuality! That is for another post. The real question is, “Is homosexuality a good, bad, or neutral predisposition?” It took me several years to reach a position on this issue and there were times when I flip-flopped on the issue. I will give thanks to the transgendered people for providing a method for me to understand homosexuality. If I were suddenly transformed into a female, I would have a VERY difficult time not being a lesbian.
Is It Currently Possible to Change Genders?
Apart from the aforementioned folly of protecting transgendered people while not protecting gays who do not want to be gay, my main problem with transgender therapy is that we do not have the technology to change a person’s gender! See this article for what we can change and what we can not. Even the parts we can change require lifelong treatment. Click here for an article showing that hormone therapy is a lifelong process in order to prevent a person’s real gender characteristics from reasserting itself. Alternatively, if sexual reassignment surgery has been performed, hormones must be prescribed for life or there will be no hormone production and this is unhealthy.
Potential Problems with Transgendered Therapy
Most humans are attracted to members of the opposite sex. So what happens when a transgendered person pursues a romantic interest with a member of the opposite sex that would have originally been a member of the same sex? It is only fair to the other person that the transgendered person let them know immediately that they are transgendered. How is this done? Sure, there are good transgendered people and bad transgendered people, but there is great potential for abuse of those who unknowingly enter into relationships with these people.
So now, my question is when a transgendered person has sex with a non-transgendered person and “forgets” to tell the other person that he/she is transgendered and the other person would not have had sex with them if they had known the person is transgendered, then wouldn’t this sex have been without informed consent? Sex without consent is rape. While some types of information are not necessary for “consent,” knowing the other parties gender IS necessary for consent as gender is absolutely essential to the function of sex! A similar issue would be a person that is infected with an STD, knows it, has sex with a person, and doesn’t tell the other person about the STD. The difference between the STD scenario and the transgendered scenario is that the person with the STD will often not know that they have the STD, but the transgendered person ALWAYS knows that they have had sexual conversion therapy.
As Christians, we should have compassion for everyone and this includes the transgendered. However, we need to provide better solutions for troubled persons, than sexual reassignment therapy.
Christ Thinker 