As more practitioners and members of the public become aware of the ideological capture of psychology, they realise the firm grip activists and lobbyists have on institutions and regulating bodies. In no other area has this been demonstrated more than in the thought-terminating and anti-therapeutic push to criminalise so-called conversion therapy (see some previous CTA posts here, here, and here).
Historically, conversion therapy, or sexual-orientation change efforts, were coercively applied to homosexual men, with deleterious psychological effects. These measures were extreme, their homosexual orientation persisted, and many suffered unnecessarily. The result has been a consensus that conversion attempts are futile at best and very harmful at worst. This did not exclude the usual psychoanalytic process of exploring and understanding the developmental pathway of homosexual orientation.
Unfortunately, due to the consensus around the futility of sexual-orientation change efforts, trans-activists who lobby for the innateness of trans-identification saw this as a golden opportunity to co-opt and exploit. Drawing false equivalences between sexual orientation and gender identification, and comparing conversion attempts to change homosexuality with exploratory work to understand trans-identification, these actors have waged a fierce campaign against ethical and responsible treatment of trans-identified patients. This is a classical example of concept creep with harmful consequences.
Fortunately, this co-opting of a noble cause for sinister agendas is being exposed. In a recent academic paper, Australian psychiatrist Roberto D’Angelo highlights the fallacious equivalences between conversion therapy for homosexuality and the ethical treatment of trans-identification. He also underscores the recklessness of ignoring the potentially devastating effects of medicalisation in gender-affirmative practices. He states the following:
“[C]ontemporary psychoanalytic theorising is colliding with emerging science which suggests that the benefits of these interventions do not outweigh the risks for young people. Yet psychoanalysts remain silent on the issue, or attack those who raise the alarm. These findings should give us pause to consider what this means for our patients and how can we help them to navigate their gendered experiences. Instead, we are witnessing a repetition of history: scientific ideas that challenge the psychoanalytic orthodoxy of the day are consistently discredited and dismissed. While analysts who challenged psychoanalytic orthodoxy in relation to homosexuality received hate mail, including from prominent educators, those who challenge the psychoanalytic hegemony on trans face accusations of right-wing bias, transphobia and even genocidal intent. Our refusal to seriously consider empirical data means that we are in serious danger of participating in a repetition of our history of harming sexual and gender minorities. If history has anything to teach us, it is that we avoid science at our own peril.”
The full article can be accessed here.
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