Conservative justices signal openness to allowing conversion therapy
sfchronicle.com
sfchronicle.com
If you, your child, and your doctor all agree that taking hormones and puberty blockers is the best thing for them, it should be allowed.
If you, your child, and your doctor all agree that the best thing for them is to take conversion therapy, then that should be allowed.
If you have found a non-trained and never certified or licensed effectively voodoo practitioner willing to make that sort of utterly immoral and malign recommendation, then you’ve sought them out because you’re just as or more delusional than they are.
I’ll refer you to my comment that you’re replying to.
“If you, your child, and your doctor all agree…”
The counselor in the Supreme Court case is a certified Licensed Professional Counselor by the state of Colorado.
> Oh the better take is “my medically trained and board certified doctor says my kid needs a medical procedure but some 80 year old state congressman who needs his grandkids to unlock is iPhone says I shouldn’t, so I won’t”
I was specifically addressing the “medically trained and board certified doctor”, and you’re coming back at me with an LPC… an LPC is many things, but three things they almost never are are a) medically trained, b) certified by any medical board, or c) a medical doctor. Except in the most lunatic of states they are neither qualified to, nor legally allowed to, prescribe any medical treatment or intervention, they can only provide (in this case, bad and entirely unhelpful) psychotherapy.
Lastly, if you, your child, and your “doctor” all agree that “pray the gay away” is a good idea, you and your “doctor” are both completely delusional and guilty of child abuse, while your child is absolutely a victim of that abuse.
If in this hypothetical world where a trained and certified doctor recommends a lobotomy, then it should be your right as a human to take that medical advice and apply it as you see fit. Some legislator with nearly zero medical training and a political agenda should not decide what is or is not medically acceptable.
Bringing it back to the real world: the same legal framework that blocks conversion therapy is the same legal framework that blocks hormone treatment. Whether I like it or not, I don’t think the government should decide what treatments we are allowed to have. I should be able to choose my doctor (even if you think they’re a shitty doctor) and take their medical advice. You should be able to choose your doctor (even if I think they’re a shitty doctor) and take their medical advice.
Feel free to replace the word “doctor” with “counselor” or with “priest” or with “accountant”; then replace “medical advice” with “therapeutic treatment” or with “religious guidance” or with “financial advice”.
All these professions (except priest) have some credential requirement with a bar roughly equivalent to the amount of damage they can do. If we as a society have agreed to their credential, we should be free to take their advice.
the literature is relatively sparse on puberty blockers, though. i found a review [0] which is inconclusive, but points to better psychosocial outcomes at the expensive of factors such as bone density and emotional stability.
i do think it's crucial to point out that the dichotomy is not "puberty blockers vs. nothing", but "puberty blockers vs. gender dysphoria". i recently read a piece about the extremely poor treatment of an SRS patient, who reflected 10 years later and claimed she'd still go through the treatment to have had the surgery, as she would likely not be here otherwise. the description of the surgery frankly made me dizzy with unease (and i work in the surgical OR). it's a sensation i imagine is not at all unfamiliar to trans people. as i understand it, they are born with this unwanted operation performed in advance, and live through this, and eventually an unwanted puberty.
the issue is then, how do we alleviate this? conversion therapy is conclusively, not an answer. puberty blockers are inconclusive, from what i understand, but the research which has been performed points to lower suicide attempt rates among trans kids.
[0]: https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/camh....
I conjecture that conservative culture war topics are the hidden variable(s) and that the Roberts Court is forcing a conservative view on all these issues, whether there's a constitutional, logical, or precedent reason or not.