Right Wingnuttery - Creating Counter Lobby Groups

[Note]:I started writing this a week ago, and have been mulling over publishing it since. My decision was made for me this morning when I heard this on the news this morning.

Driving into work one morning, I was treated to a rather lengthy treatise on CBC about the Anglican Synod voting on blessing same sex unions. Let me be clear about one thing here - I don't in fact really care how any given church chooses to handle the notion of gays and lesbians being married. That's a matter for the church to decide based on their theology. Choose to be accepting, and the church opens its doors to a population that has been excluded - either explicitly or implicitly (but that is really more of a "marketing decision" IMO)

However, during the interview, there was mention made of "ex-gay" groups lobbying "to be heard" because they had been "excluded" by the gays.

This is an intriguing tactic. The first thing that you have to realize is that the majority of "ex-gay" groups are closely allied with a faith community of some sort. (Often they are hooked in with the fundamentalists)

In general, I have always felt that the "ex-gay" thing was primarily created in an effort to "disprove" the often claimed argument of gays and lesbians that they are "just that way", and don't ask them to "change". The ex-gay argument is that people can change, and they did it by "accepting God" (most often, or via religious conversion and some odd little notion called Reparative Therapy) As I've argued before, human sexuality is sufficiently diverse to encompass the existence of both "absolute" gays and ex-gays without either in fact invalidating the other.

However, here we have the 'ex-gays' claiming the same basic discrimination that the GLBT organizations have long asserted is levelled at them. Groups like PFOX argue that ex-gays face discrimination too. Intriguingly, in a maneuver straight out of the old Mad Magazine Spy Versus Spy cartoon, the ex-gay lobby works hand in hand with the evangelical lobby to claim that the GLBT narrative is invalid. It's an interesting political strategy - find a few people who struggle with their identity, often because of the proscriptions of society, convince them to act differently and then use their narrative to claim that someone else's narrative is invalid.

As if to confirm my position that the "ex-gay" movement is primarily focused on denying the legitimacy of the GLB narrative, today's update on the story had this lovely little quote:

The Rev. Don Alcock from Ontario once lived as a gay man, but then turned to the church to heal what he calls his "brokenness."

"Our argument is you were not born to be that way. You were born the way God created us to be, and that was man and woman."

This has been the ranting tirade of the ex-gay movement as well as anti-gay organizations such as Dobson's "Focus on the Family".

There are two problems I see with the 'ex-gay' narrative. First, is that it attempts to invalidate the story of many GLB people. It implies that because some have "changed", that all can change. (Anyone with a first year logics course under their belt can tell you the problem with that little induction!) The second problem it puts forth is one I addressed here, is that such claims are founded upon views of human experience that are unreasonably rigid when held up against the light of human variability.

This leads me to suspect that "ex-gay" groups are really little more than an extension of the militant "christian" anti-gay lobby. They form the second side of the militant "christian" argument, and adopt the cloak of persecution themselves in a way that seeks to undermine the validity of the GLB narrative.

Just to extend things a little further, the gender identity population is not left to one side of this hypocritical set of arguments. In recent years "Ex-Transgender" organizations have begun to appear, recycling much of the rubric of the "ex-gay" movement, only spinning it into the world of gender identity.

In reality, neither of these movements would particularly bother me, if it weren't for the fact that they ultimately boil down to attempting to deny others the legitimacy of their life experiences. However, that is precisely their goal, and it is yet another insight into the crude viciousness that the evangelical right-wing has brought into the political dialogue in both Canada and the United States.

PFOX - The Burning Stupid Edition

Via the religious wingnut crowd over at Lifesite, we learn of the latest gem of "wisdom" to fall out of PFOX. According to PFOX, this risk of suicide is higher in younger gay-identified people - therefore, having support groups for GLBT people in high schools is a bad idea:

Therefore, in order to reduce suicide risks, schools should not encourage teens to self-identify as “gay” during adolescence before they have matured. Sexual attractions are fluid and do not take on permanence until early adulthood.

I think I take more than a little bit of an exception to the claims in there. First of all, we shouldn't confuse attraction with the patterns of expression. We know well that teens experiment with their identity quite heavily. I'm cautious about saying that sexual attractions are "fluid" per se, when there is a great deal of narrative evidence that suggests that in fact such attributes are not fluid, but rather very broad for many people.

Similarly, I take exception to the idea that schools should not be affirming of their GLBT students. Consider the generally hostile messages that GLBT youth (or adults!) face on a daily basis, and then ask yourself what kind of despair someone who can't find a supportive voice to talk with is going to experience. It takes many youth years to overcome their internalization of these negative messages, only to face making dramatic and life altering decisions later in life when the potential disruption is even greater.

Lifesite spins it a bit harder, and quotes Griggs as saying the following:

Griggs also notes that schools with Gay Straight Alliance clubs are notorious for suppressing ex-gay organizations or individuals supporting tolerance for the ex-gay community. "GSA clubs and their teacher sponsors make schools unsafe for anyone who has rejected the 'gay' label in their lives or who believes in ex-gay equal rights. Our efforts to reach all students are typically met with hostility and violence. Time after time, we have faced hostile gay students and teachers ripping up our ex-gay materials or demanding that we be banned from distributing our materials on campuses."

The problem I have with the 'ex-gay' ministry thing where GLBT youth are concerned is the fact that ex-gay programs are predicated on conditional approval. Their approval is granted only so long as the person continues to act straight, and if someone changes course, they are shunned by the rest of that community. Considering how emotionally vulnerable GLBT youth often are, this is arguably predatory at the very least.

... and just to wrap this all up with a nice little bow, Truth Wins Out has the researcher who was an author of the paper that PFOX cites take them out to the woodshed for a beating:

Dr. Remafedi’s study was the one cited by PFOX to back their unfounded conclusions. Today, Dr. Reamafedi released the following comments to Truth Wins Out:

“My work has been cited by PFOX in response to a Washington Post article on gay-straight alliances (GSA),” wrote Dr. Remafedi. “PFOX misuses one of my studies on suicide attempts in gay youth to argue that people should not identify their sexual orientation at young ages. Our findings do not support the contention that young people choose their identity or the timing of events in identity formation. Nor is there any evidence that the availability of GSAs influences those developmental processes.”

The Cognitive Dissonance Must Be Crippling

PFOX must be collapsing under the cognitive dissonance of their positions.

On one hand, they want us all to think that being GLBT is "just a choice", and that those who are GLBT can "choose" not to be just as easily. In fact, they go to great lengths on their blog posting every gay sexuality denial piece they can find on their blog.

Then they post something whining about discrimination against ex-gays. The first thought that crosses my mind is 'what discrimination?'. Theoretically, if one was an 'ex-gay' (or ex-lesbian, I suppose), wouldn't you then be straight? ... and as such, not subject to a lot of the censure that society imposes on GLBT people?

So, just what is this 'discrimination'? Well, a little more digging turns up that PFOX is all upset that GLBT organizations won't have anything to do with them. Ah - I see - so the fact that the very people that PFOX wants to undermine and invalidate won't play nice with PFOX's agenda is somehow 'discriminating' against ex-gays.

But, if you are yourself an ex-gay, why would you want anything to do with the GLBT world in the first place? Weren't you trying to escape that "lifestyle"? Wouldn't you want to align your efforts with the straight population? As a supposedly straight person, don't you already enjoy all of the privileges that are denied to GLBT people in so much of the world?

Or, perhaps more likely, the whole ex-gay thing is nothing more than a front for anti-gay lobbying that is trying to co-opt the GLBT position so as to seem more legitimate.

How interesting...

For some random reason, my travels on the web this morning brought me to this little 'human interest' article on CNN.

After reading it, I sat back and mused to myself how utterly mundane the content of the article itself really is. Okay, a bunch of newlyweds are happily revelling in their new status as married. Small things, like checking off the 'married' box on a government form bring a certain novelty to them. This is all fine and dandy, I remember going through similar things when I got married. In fact, if it wasn't for the genders of the members of each couple, I don't think this article would have been written.

It's a nice little reminder to all of us that for all that we may not understand all of the people around us, and the emotional drives that lead them to various places in life, we are all human, and humanity is amazingly diverse.

I decided to do some more digging around on the subject of gay marriage - mostly out of curiousity given the outcome of several 'ballot initiatives' in the recent US federal elections.

For the most part, I found the usual collection of pro- and anti- sites, each brandishing their rhetoric like rusty swords. I won't even bother to reference them - largely because that's not what caught my real attention.

Following linkage from site to site, I eventually tripped across the website for a group called 'NARTH'. Perusing their website is possibly one of the most disturbing, alien experiences I have ever had. Here is an organization of 'Mental Health Professionals' that are claiming that they can make gay people straight.

More or less, their position seems to be largely religious in its foundations, and couched in secular pseudo-science. The usual "it isn't natural" kind of tones emenate forth from the various papers on the website, along with an assortment of assertions that no one would ever think of making towards the heterosexual population. (For example, I don't remember "choosing" my sexuality, so much as I became aware of it. If I didn't choose mine, why on earth would I believe that someone else _chose_ theirs?)

On the surface, much of what NARTH's site says almost sounds reasonable - unless you have a little bit of background in psychology. Reading their articles reminded me of the reactions to Erich von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods". Superficially much of what he asserts sounds reasonable, until you dig a bit deeper and find that he's got something completely wrong in an area. (Chariots of the Gods made quite a stir in Archeology circles when it came out, and it took a few years apparently for a bunch of specialists in various areas to point out the problems with his theory - it's still a fun read)

I found a few websites speaking "for and against" the ex-gay support groups/ministries whatever. The consensus seemed perfectly split - the ex-gay ministries all pointed to NARTH to provide secular, "scientific" justification for the direction; the sites critical of 'ex-gay' pointed to some of the American Psychological Association's commentary on so-called "reparative therapy" techniques - which more or less state that there is no evidence it works, and worse, it can do significant harm to the patient. (Which would make me very suspicious that any therapist who is a member of NARTH may well be operating in violation of a great many ethical standards - particularly those about doing harm to their patients.)

On the subject of families, NARTH makes the following blunt statement:

5. Same-Sex Marriage

Social science evidence supports the traditional model of man-woman marriage as the ideal family form for fostering a child's healthy development.

Okay - seems almost reasonable. Just for fun, I decided to see what the APA had on the subject:

Psychological research provides no evidence to justify discrimination against same-sex couples and families. Accordingly, it is the longstanding policy of the American Psychological Association (APA) to deplore “all public and private discrimination in such areas as employment, housing, public accommodation, and licensing” against gay men and lesbians, as stated in a 1975 policy resolution of the Council of Representatives. The Association more recently stated its support for the “provision to same-sex couples of the legal benefits that typically accrue as a result of marriage to same-sex couples who desire and seek the legal benefits” in a 1998 Council resolution. Psychological research and association policy are not consistent with legislation proposed at the federal and state levels that would amend the U.S. Constitution or state constitutions, respectively, to prohibit marriage between same-sex couples.

The document was much longer, and much more detailed than this conclusion - it's actually a rather enlightening read. Some of what it asserts is contrary to what I would call "common wisdom", but the APA does try to couch its assessment in terms of research findings which should substantiate their assertions with some degree of "concrete" information.

Perhaps most disturbing about the NARTH website were two things:

1. The President of NARTH's page

2. The absolute absence of e-mail addresses for contacting NARTH - except for one associated with the membership page - and it directed to an e-mail address kept on yahoo.com.

If NARTH was bona fide, and legitimate, I would expect that it would be possible to contact them through e-mail or other means. The cloak of anonymity they try to create leaves one suspicious that they are fully aware that they are skating on the dangerous edge of things, especially where their members are engaging in this kind of therapy.

However, tying back to what started this commentary, I find myself looking at the Massacheusetts experience with Gay Marriage, and asking - "did the world end?" No, it did not. Further, it seems that those who are now married under those laws are experiencing the same happiness and validation that I did when I got married. Why would I deny someone that experience?

As for people's issues with gay sexuality - remember the words of Pierre Elliott Trudeau:

"The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation."

Remember, the human race is infinitely variable, infinitely diverse. We are all different, and it does society no good to marginalize someone for being different.

"Religious Freedom" And Gay Marriage

As commenters have pointed out in yesterday's coverage of the SGM motion, "Public Safety" Minister Stockwell (Doris) Day is bleating away that:

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told the Commons that ``religious faith is being diminished'' in the wake of legalized gay marriage. For instance, marriage commissioners are being disciplined or losing their jobs for refusing to perform ceremonies, he said.

Of course, Day is distorting reality here. I'm not personally aware of any cases where marriage commissioners have been disciplined or dismissed for refusing to marry a gay couple, however, let us consider the possibility that it has happened.

The first point that I would like to bring forward is the fact that Marriage Commissioners are not religious leaders. We are not talking about ordained ministers of any recognized church here, but about secular people who are officiating the creation of secular (non-religious, but legal) marriages. In Alberta, anybody can be a "24 hour marriage commissioner" simply by purchasing a temporary license from the government. Marriage commissioners signed up to officiate legal marriages, not religious marriages.

Let me put it into a different context - let's assume that a commissioner is approached to marry two pagans. His religious beliefs tell him that pagans are apostate, and he should not do commerce with the apostate. If we allow the notion that he is permitted to not officiate a gay marriage because of his religious beliefs, we then must find similarly that a pagan marriage bears can also be refused on the grounds of 'religious belief'.

What Stockwell Day is suggesting is that marriage commissioners should enjoy the same "freedom to refuse" that an ordained member of the clergy enjoys. This is a little troubling though - in essence, Marriage Commissioners are government employees (or contractors to the government). The courts have been very, very clear since the Charter of Rights came into play - the Government does not have the right to discriminate on civil matters. What Mr. Day is proposing would open the door for other government employees to discriminate against GLBT citizens "on the basis of religious faith".

I do not wish to see people forced to officiate over ceremonies that they are uncomfortable with. I don't think this does either the commissioner or the couple being married any favours. In Alberta, Marriage Commissioners are in a "contractor" role, rather than an "employee" role with respect to the government. They have "licensed" the right from the government to officiate marriages. They do have some right to decide which couples they are going to marry on a given day (if nothing else, they can only do one or two ceremonies in a day). However, I don't think they have a right to refuse service entirely on the basis of "religious belief". Once an agreement for service has been reached, deal with it - you aren't a minister, and you aren't being asked to give "religious blessing" to the marriage.

In coming months we can expect to see a lot of "code phrases" being bandied about as the Conservatives build up their campaign for DORA. These code phrases will be carefully designed to sound reasonable, but still resonate with the evangelical crowd.

"Religious faith is being diminished" is one such phrase. It sounds almost reasonable, but what it really means is that the right to act like a bigot based on your religion is being eroded.

The "conservative" religious world doesn't want to believe that GLBT people are "real". They think of it purely as a matter of "moral choice", and ignore the rational evidence out there. They like to claim that the "Gay Lobby" has taken over organizations like the APA. They point to "ex gay" groups like "Exodus International" that claim that it is "possible" to change, and disregard the those whose experiences suggest otherwise. They look at those who have been through an "ex-gay" program and claim that they are changed, therefore..., instead of recognizing the rather high likelihood that the "success" cases were more likely bisexual to some degree or another.

The "Bill C-38" "documentary" that Stephanie pointed me to the other day is another example of "code phrasing". If one watches, it is easy to develop the impression (correct or otherwise) that it is quite "reasonable". It isn't until one steps back a bit and starts to ask a few questions - such as why it is that most of the "quoted authorities" are religious people? Where are the mental health professionals whose work takes them into the world of gay families?

Not unlike the constant whining from evangelicals about evolution, and any evidence that might call into question a literal interpretation of Genesis, there is a persistent denial of real facts and evidence - they're too messy and inconvenient.

C-38: The Search for Marriage

Stephanie sent me an e-mail about a "documentary" about Bill C-38 that has recently been posted on YouTube. (It's 77 odd minutes long, so it's in about 25 pieces or so since YouTube doesn't like long clips)

C38: The Search for Marriage is being bandied around the right wing-o-sphere as if it is some kind of wonderful "scholarly" work about SGM.

Stephanie pointed out several sections of the movie that were particularly suspicious:

However, by part 6 or 7 I started noticing that
the pro voices were becoming more rare. The whole segment on children
in marriage didn't present a single voice supportive of same sex
parenting. They even brought in, unrefuted, the "gays are pedophiles"
BS and when one "academic" quotes a statistic about it, they flash
Narth.com on the screen as the source.

Part 10 - "Personal Stories of Gays and Lesbians" has all the
interviewees talking about how a bad or missing relationship with a
parent is what made them gay. It turns out that every single one of
them is ex-gay except one, as we find out at the end of the segment,
who is an ex-ex-gay.

I watched a random sampling of sections myself and I agree with Stephanie's assessment that this "documentary" degrades into a recycling of the usual bogus talking points about the subject of gay marriage, and by implication it tends to devolve into a lot of the standard misconceptions about human sexuality that are behind the right wingnut opposition to SGM.

A quick bit of digging about with Google was moderately fruitful in determining some of the who and what is behind this movie. According to Lifesite, it was created by brothers Eric and Jerome Spoethe. I haven't found a lot about these two other than what's on the Spoeth.com website.

However, in it's glowing praise of the documentary, we find Lifesite gushing about the following:

“Experts” Interviewed in C-38:
- Rev. Charles Bidwell, professor of marriage and sexuality
- Murray Billet, director of Gay and Lesbian Awareness (GALA)
- Bishop Thomas Collins, Edmonton
- Fr. John Gallagher, author/historian
- Bishop Fred Henry, Calgary
- Julie Lloyd, human rights lawyer
- David Kilgour, former Liberal MP
- Dr. Ted Morton, MLA, co-author of Divorcing Marriage
- Councillor Michael Phair, co-founder of the AIDS Network of Edmonton
- Dr. Janet Smith, author of Humanae Vitae - a generation later
- Dr. Margaret Somerville, ethicist

Superficially, this might even seem to be a modestly balanced list of "authorities", until you start to think about this a bit. Is there a single person on this list that is a mental health professional? No. By far the vast majority are either religious "experts" or politicians with a known agenda. The only "authority" that they talk to that is "modestly" credible in my view is Dr. Margaret Somerville, who is quoted on the Movie's blog in this posting.

Of course, she has bought into the whole, highly questionable, idea that "gay couples can't raise families" and that such arrangements are "damaging to the children" talking point that the religious right have been bandying about for years. The short answer from the mental health profession is that the assertion is nonsense.

I might be more willing to accept some of the "objections" raised in the documentary - if they could actually back them up with credible science. (and no, quoting Dr. Paul Cameron is not my idea of "credible" research!

With Stephen Harper planning to put a motion forward to "reopen" the discussion in Parliament in the next day or so, it's worth noting that the SSM opponents are still blathering on about the same old talking points, which are for the most part outright falsehoods.

Wente Is Getting It Wrong ... Again

I suppose it should come as little or no surprise that Margaret Wente is getting things wrong again.  This time, she is expounding on the treatment of transgender children.

Suddenly transgender kids are everywhere – in the news, on Dr. Phil and in your neighbourhood. School boards have developed detailed transgender policies. Clinics to treat transgender kids have sprung up. A condition that used to be vanishingly rare, perhaps one in 10,000 children or less, now seems common. In a random sampling of 6th- to 8th-graders in San Francisco, kids were asked if they identified as male, female or transgendered – 1.3 per cent checked off the transgendered box. 

She concludes with:

It’s a mark of social progress that we are increasingly willing to accept people on their terms, for who they are. But maybe we’re manufacturing more problems than we’re solving. If we really want to help people, we should remember the old rule: First, do no harm. 

Through the entire article, she relies on two authorities - Dr. Kenneth Zucker and Alice Dreger.   Zucker, along with his colleague at CAMH Ray Blanchard, have long been seen by the transgender community as deeply problematic - for good reason.

Ken Zucker is a psychologist at the Clarke Institute (aka "Jurassic Clarke") in Toronto. Zucker is famous for forcing gender-variant children into reparative therapy to conform to his expectations for male and female behavior in children. He considers transsexual women a "bad outcome" for gay men. 

Zucker is a darling of the "ex-gay" movement because of his work "curing" gender-variant children. Here is a piece featuring his work via ex-gay group NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuals): 

http://www.narth.com/docs/gid.html 

Zucker promotes his NARTH-like notions of reparative therapy for kids with gender variance, reviewed here on another ex-gay site: 

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/narth/childhood.html

We already know that so-called "reparative therapy" doesn't work for homosexuality, what on earth makes Zucker, or anyone else, think that it has any validity for transgender people.

As for Ms. Dreger, anyone silly enough to get into bed with J. Michael Bailey and defend the atrocious work that he wrote called "The Man Who Would Be Queen" has a serious credibility problem in the first place.

Quoting from Ms. Dreger, Wente draws the following:

Here’s more unwelcome news from Ms. Dreger. A child’s gender issue may merely be a symptom of other family problems. “The dirty little secret is that many of these families have big dysfunctional issues. When you get the clinicians over a beer, they’ll tell you the truth. A lot of the parents aren’t well in terms of their mental health. They think that once the child transitions, all their problems will magically go away, but that’s not really where the stress is located.” Clinicians won’t say these things publicly, she says, because they don’t want to sound as if they’re blaming gender problems on screwed-up families. 

Can we dredge any more old tropes?  We used to blame the parents for their kids being gay, now we're replaying that same ridiculous script when someone's child turns out to be transgender?  Give me a break.  If Ms. Wente had bothered to even do a little bit more research, she would have found that Ms. Dreger is grossly distorting the picture.

The WPATH SOC V7 provides the following guidance to mental health professionals:

Provide family counseling and support- ive psychotherapy to assist children and adolescents with exploring their gender identity, alleviating distress related to their gender dysphoria, and ameliorating any other psychosocial difficulties. 

This is extremely important when examining what Dreger is saying.  Namely that she is implying that the treatment community has a mass conspiracy afoot to deny that there are "other problems" that are at the root of being transgender.  If that was the case, the WPATH SOC would not contain language like this.  Dreger's claims are very similar to those of Walt Heyer - whose misadventures negate his own claims of misdeeds and malice on the part of the treatment community.

Wente's argument also draws the following from Dreger:

For some people, including some adolescents, transgender treatment is lifesaving. But these treatments are neither simple nor benign. They may, among other things, retard maturation, suppress your growth or render you sterile. And in the end, medical science cannot create a body that makes you forget you were born the other sex. “Some kids need it, but for the kids who don’t, it’s dangerous,” she says. “All else being equal, it’s better to avoid long-term hormone therapy and major surgery that removes a lot of tissue.” 

Disturbingly, data on long-term outcomes for transgender kids are scarce. No one is tracking the evidence on puberty-blocking intervention either. “We are doing major interventions and we have shockingly little idea what the outcomes are,” Ms. Dreger says. You get the sense that what we have is not so much a rational approach to a psychosocial issue as a radical ideological experiment. 

Let's see ... the percentage of the population that is transgender is tiny to begin with.  It's going to be an even smaller percentage who are going to be able and willing to express those desires before they reach puberty.  Ironically, most transsexuals know that they are trans long before the age of puberty.  If the option not to go through "the wrong puberty" exists, dear god, but it would be a blessing for so many.

Dreger's claim that there is a lack of long term consequences data available is also highly questionable.  Given the fact that Dr. Spack has been been running his clinic in Boston since 2007, the criticism about "long term consequences" is debatable.  The fact is that just about every transsexual who has transitioned wishes that they had done so earlier than they did.  We already know the consequences of insisting that transsexuals go through puberty the wrong way, and then try to undo it through transition as adults - the psychological trauma is no small thing to deal with, and the cost of living life in the wrong body is impossible to calculate.

Quoting Zucker:

Gender dysphoria (formerly known as gender identity disorder) means being at odds with your biological sex. It’s not the same as being born with ambivalent genitalia, or being gay. The popular shorthand is “being born in the wrong body,” although that formulation probably does more harm than good. Sex-reassignment treatment is appropriate for some (although by no means all) adults who are unhappy with their gender identity, and some go on to live significantly happier lives. 

But for kids, especially younger ones, the issue is much more problematic. Gender confusion is often temporary. About three-quarters of little kids who have issues with their gender – boys who want to be princesses, girls who throw their dresses in the garbage – will be comfortable with it by adolescence, according to Dr. Zucker. (Many of them will grow up to be gay or bi.) Gender confusion can also be a handy label for whatever ails a child (or her family). That’s why Dr. Zucker takes a watch-and-wait approach. He even advises parents of princessy six-year-olds to say, “You’re not a girl. You’re a boy.” 

The point that needs to be made (again), is that the WPATH SOC is similarly clear about caution regarding the introduction of physical interventions:

Before any physical interventions are consid- ered for adolescents, extensive exploration of psychological, family, and social issues should be undertaken, as outlined above. The duration of this exploration may vary considerably de- pending on the complexity of the situation.  ...

In order for adolescents to receive puberty- suppressing hormones, the following minimum criteria must be met: 

1. The adolescent has demonstrated a long- lasting and intense pattern of gender non- conformity or gender dysphoria (whether suppressed or expressed);
2. Gender dysphoria emerged or worsened with the onset of puberty;
3. Any coexisting psychological, medical, or social problems that could interfere with treatment (e.g., that may compromise treatment adherence) have been addressed, such that the adolescent’s situation and functioning are stable enough to start treatment;
4. The adolescent has given informed consent and, particularly when the adolescent has not reached the age of medical consent, the parents or other caretakers or guardians have consented to the treatment and are involved in supporting the adolescent throughout the treatment process. 

These are not trivial claims, and an ethical practitioner is going to be very careful in making this kind of assessment and recommendation ... and that is for a reversible intervention.

Here is where Ms. Wente makes me quite annoyed.  Her article makes it sound like there is a sudden epidemic of children who are transgender springing up, and that these children are being "exploited" by greedy treatment providers.

Of course, she engages with Zucker and Dreger, two people who are going to validate her assumptions.  Does she expand her research to include Dr. Spack?  No.  Does she even take the time to review the WPATH SOC?  No.

Ms. Wente should be ashamed of doing such sloppy research, and the Globe and Mail should be embarrassed for publishing such tripe.

The Peter On Sexual Identity

It's a sad statement when wingnuts like Peter LaBarbera are among the more articulate of their peers.

Today, we have him pontificating on sexual identity.

We disagree on the morality of homosexual acts — plain and simple. I’m a sinner in need of God’s grace, but redefining my sins as part of my “proud” identity would be wrong. That’s how we view the “gay” movement.

This is pretty standard anti-gay rhetoric. In short, LaBarbera is trying to recap the usual "love the sinner, hate the sin" line - and is setting himself up to reveal the innate hypocrisy of his position - which we will come to in a moment.

I’ve known and interviewed too many FORMER “gays” like Charlene Cothran and Yvette Schneider to believe that homosexuality is some fixed, innate identity.

More standardized tripe. But here is also where his argument begins to fall apart. What LaBarbera fails to recognize here is the very distinct likelihood that those who are "successful" ex-gays (e.g. manage to live an apparently heterosexual life) are bisexual.

What LaBarbera is ignoring is that while a handful of GLBT people do manage to live as heterosexuals, the vast majority do not. There is very little evidence that suggests that the ex-gay concept applies to any but a small subset.

As for how your (new) “rights” affect me and those who agree with me, there is ample and growing evidence now that “gay rights” and historic American religious/moral freedoms cannot co-exist. Look at the case of the Christian photographer in New Mexico, who did not want to shoot a [lesbian couples’] wedding and was sued — and lost her case (it’s now on appeal). What about HER right to live by her beliefs? What about the right of an Orthodox Jewish small businessman NOT to subsidize homosexual employees’ relationships if he believes those relationships are based on (an egregious) sin?

The first of these cases falls into the same basic category of law as the case of Scott Brockie in Canada. Once you make an agreement to provide services to somebody, revoking that based on the fact that the client is associated with the GLBT movement is discrimination - pure and simple.

The second case quickly degenerates into an anti-tax argument. Taxes, like all matters relating to money in general, has no moral underpinnings. Money is devoid of either morals or ethics. My tax dollars go to a lot of things I disagree with - that doesn't give me any right to refuse to pay taxes. Period. That principle has been consistent in both Canada and the United States.

I always do interviews with the gay press. If a truly feared or hated homosexuals, I couldn’t do my job as I feel called to do: responding to the many PRO-GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender] groups.

Yeah. Sure. What a condescending piece of garbage that is. That's no better than usual bigot's line "some of my best friends are ...". The fact, is that Mr. LaBarbera is working day and night to delegate an entire population to second class status based entirely upon your moralizing, which utterly disrespects the freedom of religion as it applies to the population as a whole.

Toying With Theoretical Models - Part V: Beauty and The Beast

This is part V of a series of essays:

Part I Motivations

Part II Obvious Problems

Part III What Evidence Must Be Addressed

Part IV Towards A Layered View

Part V Beauty and the Beast

Part VI The Critical Thoughts


Of course, as both Freud and Jung's work shows, the real ugly problem arises when you start trying to apply the real data to the theoretical model. Freud's conceptual model of Id, Ego, Super Ego etc. became gradually more and more twisted as he clung to an extremely male-physiology-centered interpretation of things. (hardly surprising, Freud was a man, in an era where feminine behaviours were seen as nearly otherworldly by most men)

So let me step back to some of the evidence issues I raised here, and explore how they fit into the proposed model:

1. Mutability of Sexual Orientation

Where strongly "polar" heterosexual and homosexual individuals are concerned, their expressed sense of core orientation is reportedly constant. For these individuals, the "elastic" that ties their behaviour back to their core identity is fairly short and does not permit a great deal of variation in behaviour.

But, we have ex-gay groups claiming that they have clear evidence of members that have changed their orientation. Criticisms of Spitzer's study raise the prospect that many of the "successful ex-gays" were either bisexual to begin with, and had simply adjusted their behaviour, or had become celibate homosexuals.

So...how to reconcile two seemingly incompatible sets of evidence? The first observation is that people's sexuality is highly variable, and in many different degrees. So, an individual may well be "extremely" heterosexual, or "extremely" homosexual, but similarly, there are all sorts of shadings in between which individuals may or may not have acknowledged in themselves. It is quite conceivable that the successful ex-gays have been bisexual in the first place, and simply hadn't understood that aspect of themselves fully as adults.

If we then apply the "veneer" of public behaviour (which is often shaped by societal pressures and other factors), and allow it to drift somewhat relative to the underlying core attributes, it is quite reasonable to find that there will be those who believe that their orientation has in fact changed. Whether the core identity has changed is open to some debate - and is much more difficult to prove, but we have a model which describes the experiences of both camps relatively well. It also happens to conveniently bring into the discussion the bisexual population that is often ignored in these discussions.

Similarly, the "ex-ex-Gays" (ex-Gays who have returned to their gay identity) may well be individuals who "overstretched" their public behaviour relative to where there core identity is, and eventually the core identity asserted itself strongly enough to cause the individual to step away from the public construct of being 'straight'.

I do not claim that this is absolutely the case, but it does provide what I believe is a reasoned view of the experiences described by all parties, without telling any individual that their life experience is invalid. (In my view, any model which tries to tell someone that their life experience is somehow less than valid is not only flawed, but dangerously incorrect)

2. Fluidity of Behaviour

Human beings are capable of a vast range of behaviours, and some people seem to change almost day by day.

The ability of individuals to morph their behaviour varies considerably (there are reasons I can't act to save my life), and again, this model provides a means to rationally understand the differences between someone's core personality attributes and the behaviours they exhibit publicly. Some people will possess a greater degree of elasticity in their behaviours than others (explaining, for example, the difference between a great actor who can vanish in their characters and most of the world whose acting ability ends at playing nice with wierd aunt Martha that we see once a year)

3. Persistence of Behaviour

Just as humanity is able to express a huge range of behaviours, it is striking how persistent behaviours can be, even in the face of proscription both in law and socially.

Again, this model seems to work in a wide variety of situations. If one takes the case of an alcoholic, who is physically addicted to the alcohol, it is essential for them to develop specific coping and avoidance behaviours to keep them away from liquor.

Similar approaches are being tried in situations involving certain types of criminal behaviour (e.g. pedophilia - see Karl Toft's release conditions - where he agrees to a large number of avoidance strategies manage his condition.) The success of such tactics is limited by the willingness and motivation of the patient, as evidenced by the high rate of recidivism among such offenders.

(* NB: Please note that I am not equating or linking homosexuality with pedophilia - by far the majority of pedophiles present as heterosexual - the only similarity is with respect to the notion of persistence of behaviour)

In both cases, the model I have proposed actually seems to hold together - there is behaviour that is engaged in by the individual, but that behaviour does not imply that the person has changed their underlying core attributes. At best, they have developed management strategies that allow them to function more or less normally.

In relative terms, the behaviour has changed, but core attributes remain much more constant - evolving at a very slow rate - if at all - in adulthood. Individuals will find a "comfort zone" of behaviour that isn't too far removed from their core attributes. This provides reasonable explanation of the claim that something has changed on the part of the ex-gays, as well as the strong persistence of behaviour experienced by "ex-ex-gays", and most heterosexual individuals.

4. Validity of Personal Experience

I have been very troubled by the dismissiveness with which the right wing treats human diversity:

In this article, we find the following paragraph at the end:

Landolt said, “The same thing happened in Ontario with the so-called ‘transgendered.’ They were refused OHIP coverage for their surgeries and they went to the Human Rights Tribunals.

The use of quotes around the term transgendered is a clue to a general dismissiveness of someone, you can almost hear the sneer in the speaker's voice (no doubt the intention on the writer's part). Similar writing permeates the "reporting" that you find on sites like LifeSite and other "religious news sites".

Looking at the picture more realistically, we need to recognize that individual experience is very important. To dismiss someone's experience because we do not fully understand it is simply flawed logic and exceedingly disrespectful of the people claiming those experiences. It also is the first step in marginalizing someone.

The model that I have proposed allows for a rational understanding of the experiences reported persistently by many members of minority groups who barely register as statistical blips in the overall population (but who exist, nontheless).

Why PFOX is Clueless

Apparently, according to PFOX, a picture of RuPaul wearing a suit implies that he's gone straight, or at the very least, given up drag.

Those of us with a more grounded understanding of reality know that neither is true. RuPaul's online biography is pretty clear - he's a gay man that happens to do drag.

Let me be abundantly clear here - drag itself is performance art. It tells us nothing about the performer's personal gender identity or sexual identity. Above all, it should not be confused with the broad range of identities that are called transgender. A drag performer may be transgender to some degree or another, but it is not a given; and not all transgender people engage in drag.

The fact that RuPaul continues to host a couple of shows on television - presumably in drag - is a good clue that drag is still very much a part of his life.

The unfortunate part of PFOX's apparent assumptions is that they are incorrectly associating drag with someone's gender and/or sexual identity. No doubt, they then infer that because someone is a "former drag queen", that they have "accepted their god-given body" (or whatever rubric is in fashion among the ex-gay industry when it comes to talking about gender variant people). They will, inevitably extrapolate this same logic to the transgender community as a whole, and in doing so will get it horribly wrong - quite possibly at the risk of causing some unfortunate souls some serious harm in the process.

PFOX, along with the rest of the "ex-Gay" industry would like us to all believe that we can "overcome" and "be heterosexual" (sadly missing the point entirely where transsexuals are concerned). They see someone in a suit that they only ever saw in performance costume, and they assume that he's "gone straight". It's a sad statement about how little they truly understand about those that they claim to be trying to help.

Toying With Theoretical Models - Part VI: The Critical Thoughts

This is part VI of a series of essays:

Part I Motivations

Part II Obvious Problems

Part III What Evidence Must Be Addressed

Part IV Towards A Layered View

Part V Beauty and the Beast

Part VI The Critical Thoughts


To this point, I've put forward a hypothetical model, and then made an effort (imperfect as it is) to examine whether the model is able to accomodate the data and claims that are available. My list is far from absolutely complete - I could spend many hours poring over data, and tossing things around with statistics. It is not my intention to "prove" something, but rather to put forward a rational model that works with respect to the data available, and does not make moral or ethical judgements about the people involved.

Like any model, there are aspects that can be - and should - be criticized. A few have come to my mind as I have written this series, and I will try to address them here.

Criticism #1: The "Core Attributes" are invisible and untestable

Not quite. I can't tell by looking a piece of ground whether there is a pool of oil underneath it either. We find those pools of oil mostly by indirect techniques such as seismic analysis - and eventually prove it by drilling a hole in the ground which we hope will provide that gusher of oil that we can put a well on top of. Even then, I will never know the precise shape of the reservoir, instead I will only be able to deduce an approximation of it.

A skilled psychoanalyst can get a sense of the form of someone's personality attributes through the various techniques of psychoanalysis that are available. Certainly, the analysis is not going to have the mathematical elegance of a geologist's analysis, but it will become reasonably complete over time. A good therapist will be able to see when a patient is 'stringing them along' or trying to manipulate things.

Psychology is still a discipline with few absolutes, and those few attempts at creating "concrete" measures have turned out to be quite limited in their accuracy and clarity. (please see my comments back here where I addressed the realities of the domain.

Criticism #2: This Opens Everything Up For Inclusion - an interest in feathers could be seen as a sexual orientation

Perhaps it does - I certainly haven't made any rules about what is "core" and what is "behaviour". To borrow from the movie "Shrek" - Ogres are like onions - made of layers. So are people - there may well be layers of behaviour wrapped around our basic personality attributes that are nearly as difficult to change. As I stated earlier, in many ways our understanding of the human mind's workings is like Galen's understanding of the human body - imperfect, and likely deeply flawed.

Nevertheless, a model that encompasses the known data reasonably is better than no model at all.

Criticism #3: Where's the data that backs this model up?

I can't give you statistical data that reinforces this, it's a model that I have derived from reading, and thought on my part. In some respects, it could form the basis for a long, happy career on my part trying to substantiate it and flesh out with empirical data.

At best, my data is anecdotal - based on what I have read and observed over the years I have been aware of such issues in life. Some of the books I have read are written by people with far more depth in the issues of psychology and psychotherapy than I have, and I take their bibliographies as a clue to what seems to be reasonable research and conclusions drawn from it.

Criticism #4: Aha! So you accept that orientation may change!

No. I accept the possibility that behaviour may change. I am much more skeptical about the underlying impetus for those behaviours. There is simply too much evidence that contradicts that precept. In particular two key areas of evidence trouble me with the assertion of orientation changing:

1) The 'failed ex-gay' issue is very troublesome. The reports from former 'ex-gay's suggest to me that for all of their efforts, some core driver brought them back to where they were.

2) The persistence of feeling that has been reported by both homosexual and heterosexual people. Whatever the roots of one's sexual orientation, it seems that once it is set, it is very unlikely to change dramatically. (Try interesting most heterosexual people in a homosexual relationship, and they get very uncomfortable, and the converse is also true overall)

These two areas in particular make me very suspicious of the claim that "change is possible". Behaviour modification, certainly, but core attribute change seems less likely. I am familiar with Spitzer's study, and the criticisms of it. Until a more objective study emerges that confirms the claims Spitzer is making, I personally remain skeptical.

Criticism #5: No Explanation of Origins

I am playing on some of what we do understand of human behavioural development, and modification of behaviour. Newton's physics didn't try to explain the origins of the world - it merely describes the observed behaviour in the world. So it is with my model.

I don't even begin to claim that I believe that we have a good understanding of the roots from which the human psyche develops. Certainly, we do understand that environment and experiences play a big role, but we don't fully understand that role yet, nor do we understand the basic behaviours that children exhibit early in life.

While no "gay gene" has been found to date, all that means is that we haven't established an understanding yet of the base development of the human psyche. The human genome is huge, and we only understand a small fraction of how it fits together, much less how it influences the brain, and the higher level functions of the brain. Among other things, hormones affect the brain, as do exercise and stimuli.

The absence of absolute data explaining human psychological development is simply that - an absence of data. In such a situation, the field is quite open to a variety of explanatory models. My guess is that the long range explanation of human psyche development will be firmly rooted in multiple disciplines - developmental psychology, biology, biochemistry and genetics - just name a few - bringing together such disparate disciplines will be a long time in coming.

The model I have presented isn't about origins, it's about trying to frame the available data in some kind of reasonable fashion.

On Bill C-6 - Conversion Therapy

 Bill C-6's next step is on to the Senate once the House of Commons holds a third reading vote.  I expect the usual suspects like Senator Plett will do their level best to muddy the waters and confuse things.  Let's take a closer look at what the uproar is really about.  

Catching LifeSite In A Lie

Actually, not so much Lifesite as PFOX.

Last week, PFOX posted this press release claiming that volunteers at their booth had been assaulted by gay activists, and Lifesite dutifully parrotted the story.

Since Lifesite has a history of lies and distortion, I spent some time trying to find corroborating stories that would substantiate the PFOX claims - I came up empty-handed, which I thought to be a little strange. Normally something like this at a county fair would at least have been picked up by the Arlington media - especially since PFOX claims that police were involved, but since I couldn't substantiate the story from a second source, I chose to leave it alone.

Well, the people over at Ex-Gay Watch (an organization that tracks...and calls out...the lies and distortions from groups like PFOX and Lifesite) have tried to do the same kind of research I was doing - only they went further:

We contacted the Arlington PD and ended up speaking with John Lisle of the Media Relations/Legislative Affairs Office. He had no initial knowledge of such an incident. After checking briefly, he again said that no one was aware of such an incident. So we sent a copy of the PFOX statement to him at which time he agreed to check more thoroughly. After over two days of research, there was nothing he could add to his statement; no report exists and no one recalls such an incident.

So...if there was an altercation, it appears that either Arlington police weren't involved, or PFOX is lying through their proverbial teeth about involving them.

Of course, the right-wing anti-gay rights crowd thinks little of resorting to blatant lies and distortion to justify their narrow minded stance.

Set Theory: Which of these is not like the others?

So, according to a letter authored by Bishop Fred Henry, and read to Catholic Parishoners across southern Alberta at the end of Sunday Mass, Catholics are supposed to take up arms (figuratively) against gay marriage.

Okay, Bishop Henry is perfectly entitled to his opinions - just as I am entitled to disagree with him. Personally, I found Henry's letter rather revealing - both in the line of reasoning applied, but also in terms of what it ultimately represents.

The most glaring error is a classical grouping of words which implies a non-existant relationship between the issues:

Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family,...

Allow me to dissect this, a piece at a time:

1. Pornography - first and foremost is a choice. A person _chooses_ to partake of smut. Just as a person chooses to smoke. There are lines of reasoning that discuss the harm that pornography can do in the context of a family, but that is another topic for another day. The creation of pornographic material is arguably abusive to the people involved, but again, there are clearly issues of consent and adulthood involved.

2. Prostitution - called the oldest profession in the world. The reality of prostitution is once again one of choices. The "johns" who purchase a prostitute's services are, again, making a choice. The impact of that choice on their families is highly subjective - it can range anything from emotional trauma to STDs. The "john" is the consumer here, and is making a distinct choice. Nothing is compelling them. (I won't go into the plight of the prostitutes themselves - that's another story, and like pornography, filled with many complex tales that I can't do justice to here).

3. Adultery - okay - you got married, so now you're screwing around. Brilliant move. And again, a choice. Your marriage may not be happy, but you made some choices, and something went awry. Is there impact on families - absolutely. Again, a matter of choices.

4. Homosexuality. First and foremost, sexual orientation is _not_ a choice. No credible research has ever turned up even the slightest glimmer of the notion that sexual orientation is a matter of choice. Whether homosexual or heterosexual, that seems to be immutable, and stubbornly resistant to any attempt to "change" it on the part of the individual. The so-called "ex-gay" movements (such as Exodus International) claim that orientation is mutable. I have yet to see a paper that backs up these claims without resorting to specious argument.

Bishop Henry's points on the issues of pornography, adultery and prostitution are well taken. They all represent poor choices, especially for someone who is a member of a family. However, to lump homosexuality into that same list is to make the false assumption that homosexuals choose their status. Of course, by claiming that homosexuality is a "choice", the Christian Conservative (and others of similar mind) can then argue that it is a matter of self discipline that results in someone acting on those feelings. (Nothing a good dose of "The Fear of God (tm)" can't cure...)

The second assumption on Bishop Henry's part is that homosexuals do not form families. That is simply false. There are plenty of Gay and Lesbian people who are active parents. How they got to be parents is irrelevant to this discussion. The underlying point is that they are parents, and therefore, unquestionably part of a family unit of some kind. It is incorrect - even dangerous - logic indeed to immediately exclude someone from the pool of "family members" based on their sexual orientation. Further, the psychological evidence does not suggest that children of homosexual parents have any increased incidence of psychological problems. (Validly, prostitutes and pornographers also have families - but that isn't key to my point here)

Not only has the good bishop mangled matters of personal choice (and actions that can do serious harm to the participants) with matters that are not of personal choice, he has further muddied the waters by claiming that homosexuals who are parents are not in fact participating in the concept of family.

The Bishop's argument, when put before a figurative mirror is rather interesting. Bishop Henry further argues:

The principal objective in seeking same-sex “marriage”is not really even about equality rights. The goal is to acquire a powerful psychological weapon to change society’s rejection of homosexual activity and lifestyle into gradual, even if reluctant, acceptance.

So, putting this in front of the "mirror", and staring at it, it becomes painfully clear that the Bishop is not in fact worried about legal same-sex marriage as such, but rather he is worried that his "right" to discriminate against people for their sexual and romantic orientation might be eroded further. In other words, the Church - with it's long history of sodomy and pedophilia (has anyone else forgotten about the "Pedophile Priests" a few years ago, or the various orphanage and residential school scandals????) wishes to continue its right to marginalize people at their moral whim.

Just as the Church spent most of its time in the middle ages hunting "witches" - marginalizing old women, and those who were visibly weak in society, it has turned its sights on homosexuals, demonizing them by falsely associating them with pornography, adultery and other social issues. It is sad to see Bishop Henry making such foolish associations in his arguments. He is an intelligent man capable of a great deal of insight and compassion. I remain disappointed at his obdurate inflexibility to see beyond his own dearly held right to persecute people on this matter.

In Canada, we have a Charter of Rights embedded in our Constitution that makes the notion of equality very, very clear. Just as I will support the Church's right to speak it's mind on these matters - I would never advocate taking away Bishop Henry's voice, I must also stand in opposition to what that voice represents in this matter. So far, the arguments have all boiled down to one thing - the Church wants to keep it's right to continue marginalizing people in society.

If the notion of same-sex marriage is so intractable to the Churches, then I suggest that they propose a legal construct that would permit a same-sex couple the same rights and protections under law that a married couple has. The word marriage is sprinkled throughout our body of laws in this land, and the result is that in many circumstances, life partners of people are shut out from protections that would be provided to any heterosexual spouse simply on the basis of their relative gender to their partner's. (This affects taxes, pensions, insurance coverage, medical treatment (although doctors have come a huge distance in recent years))

PFOX - Je T'Accuse

I've always been a little suspicious of PFOX, an ex-gay support organization. Part of me has suspected for a long time that this is nothing more than the anti-GBLT lobby trying to make itself look "compassionate".

This news release confirms my suspicions, and proves just how unpleasant these people can be.

“Homosexuals and their transgender activist allies hope to use this hearing as a way of forcing the imposition of gender confusion upon all Americans,” said Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) Executive Director Regina Griggs today. “Instead of treating transsexualism and cross-dressing behaviors as Gender Identity Disorders (GID) as defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Democrats seem determined to make these behaviors into federally-protected minorities.”

“Why should Congress force Americans to provide workplace accommodations for people who are confused about whether they’re male or female? How can Congress force us to make believe that a man is really a woman or a woman is really a man?”

“If Democrats were truly concerned about these gender confused individuals, they’d push for expanded mental health services for GID. A person can’t change his or her sex – and many of these individuals think they’re a woman one day and a man the next day. Why is Congress catering to such insanity?”

This snippet shows us the extent of PFOX's ignorance and hostility towards transsexuals. Allow me to take a few moments to make my point, by dissecting the arguments they are putting forward one at a time.

Instead of treating transsexualism and cross-dressing behaviors as Gender Identity Disorders (GID) as defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

For those unfamiliar with the DSM-IV, it is essentially a lexicon used by mental health professionals to describe their client's symptoms and narrative to other professionals. The DSM-IV describes Gender Identity Disorder in fairly broad terms, with a bit of a narrative rooted in "classic" patterns for GID. It most clearly DOES NOT describe treatment.

The second point is that although each individual is unique, in the most severe of cases, the only real treatment available is ultimately gender transition. There will be some who only transition part-way, and a certain number who attempt transition and back away for a variety of reasons.

Why should Congress force Americans to provide workplace accommodations for people who are confused about whether they’re male or female?

By the time someone who is considering transition is talking to their workplace about their intentions, any sense of "confusion" should be long dispelled. By that point, they are taking concrete steps to make their lives congruent with their identity. (A dual-role existence is extremely hard to maintain)

There is a second insinuation here that I find particularly noxious - and that is the absolutist notion that someone who is transsexual is "confused" because their identity is at odds with their body. The insinuation is that the person is delusional in some capacity. Yet, there is no psychiatric evidence that the individual is in fact delusional. Transsexuals are typically quite coherently aware of their status - both physical and mental. To infer that someone who is in the midst of gender transition is somehow "confused" is deeply insulting to someone who has already looked dysphoria in the face and chosen to act constructively against it.

A person can’t change his or her sex – and many of these individuals think they’re a woman one day and a man the next day. Why is Congress catering to such insanity?

While in early stages of grappling with whatever coping mechanisms someone has created in order to survive their inner gender conflict that there may be periods of ambiguous behaviour and fluctuating identity, that is understandable in light of the often dramatic differences between the social roles that men and women face, not to mention the often severe social penalties for those who violate the "expected" role. Gender transition is a high stress process, and not one undertaken lightly.

The next ugly wart in this paragraph is the classic "biology is destiny" argument. This overlooks a key part of the transgender narrative - namely that their feelings of "not rightness" predate the age when most people become gender aware, and significantly predate any awareness of sexual identity. While it is impossible to change someone's chromosomal sex, there is no guarantee that a male body gets a 'male brain' associated with it - as most MTF transsexuals will attest.

While I am all in favour of making better treatment available to all transgender people, that will be for naught if the legal and social frameworks continue to discriminate against transgender people. Even more unfortunate is the fact that PFOX chooses to attempt to declare invalid the stories of those who have transitioned, and some five decades of background science that has shown gender transition to be a successful treatment in its own right - even in light the challenges that transsexuals face post transition. (and that's ignoring the kinds of obstacles that PFOX would create.)

Attempting To Defend The Indefensible

The Internet is a wonderful tool sometimes. This afternoon, I was doing a little follow-up on the Boissoin case to see if anything of interest had come up. I didn't find anything hugely significant, but I did find Stephen Boissoin's personal website. Between the wording on the site, and a quick check of the registration of the domain, I'm pretty sure it's legitimately his.

There isn't much real content for the site, but there's a few gems. I'll start with his "about me" page, which turns out to be an amazingly predictable bunch of whining about "media bias" and some incredibly dishonest attempts at claiming that "he doesn't really hate GLBT people", just their lifestyle:

Instead of reporting accurately they relied on unsworn statements of individuals outside of the hearing. They printed as fact information that was demonstrably not true. They blended different answers from my testimony and took one liners from the letter to the editor that is being debated and made it look like I was bashing every and any homosexual. ...
To conclude, hate my views even hate me if you like but at least be responsible enough to have weighed the facts. I do not hate anyone that claims that they are homosexual, bisexual or transgendered. I obviously disagree with the lifestyle and specifically hate the propagation of that lifestyle to impressionable children and teenagers,

Really? The classic line of "Love the sinner, hate the sin" - unfortunately, anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty would have admitted that his position is outright hostile to the lives of otherwise peaceful members of society.

Let's take a look at Boissoin's letter - which has been available on the Internet in some form or another for ages:

My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume.

Now, let's examine the inferences in this statement:

1) He is declaring war. It's not hard to get from a declaration like that to a 'call to arms' against GLBT people in general.
2) GLBT people are implied as preying upon children and youth. Anyone who has done even the slightest bit of study on the subject has long ago figured out that GLBT people are not doing any such thing. Normalizing the idea of being GLB or T is all about helping the next generation make it into adulthood without going through the obstacle course the previous generation experienced.

He repeats the "preying on children" theme a second time in his letter:

From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Newsflash for you Mr. Boissoin, but GLBT people know who they are - long before others do. There is no such thing as "recruiting" someone to be GLBT - one either is or is not.

Further, Boissoin's letter goes on to complain that *gasp* GLBT people might actually desire legal and social equality in the world:

Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn't rooted in protecting homosexuals from "gay bashing." The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world.

This is a pretty broad-based attack - apparently somewhere in Boissoin's slightly damaged logic, there's a validity in keeping a "lower class" of people suppressed when those people don't align with his particular sense of morality.

It is only a matter of time before some of these morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.

Let's be absolutely clear about one basic fact - GLBT people are NOT necessarily pedophiles, any more than heterosexuals are necessarily not pedophiles. The insinuation that there is any connection between GLBT folk in general and something as vile as NAMBLA (which is essential a pedophile lobby) is a distortion worthy of the worst of WWII's propagandists.

Having read the ruling itself in considerable detail, as well as much of the media stories on the hearings themselves, I find it hard to accept the rather flimsy "I was misquoted" defense that Boissoin puts forth. It seems to me that it is quite clear that the man's opinions are pretty absolute, and have no room for acknowledging the validity of others.

Boissoin talks of "hating the lifestyle". What is this "lifestyle" he talks of? Does he know? Or does he merely suppose that lifestyle? The Bible-beating crowd loves to throw about their criticisms in terms of "the lifestyle", as if GLBT people live deeply immoral, salacious lives steeped in licentious behaviour. However, implying something doesn't make it true. The "hate the lifestyle" routine is little more than a thin veil around the evil of human behaviour - hatred, violence and bullying.

The rest of his site is pretty vacant - except for his links page, which links to "Exodus" (an "ex-gay" ministry program based on "reparative therapy"), and NARTH - an organization full of utter bigots with PhDs who claim that sexual identity is malleable. (and to judge from the utterly horrendous attempts at logic trying to explain away transsexuals, amazingly ignorant of the current state of legitimate research in the domain).

Sorry, Mr. Boissoin, but you can do better than that. Just as your letter was little more than recycled talking points and jingoism that has been vomited forth by various nut case lobbyists in the United States like Dobson, Cameron and LaBarbera before you. The false "compassion" for GLBT people you express persuades nobody except yourself.

Wandering Around The Swamps

I went for a wander through the swamps of 'Christian News' this morning and found a few choice gems for consideration:

1. Regina Family Activist Refuses To Pay Fine

Wherein we find the latest ravings from Bill Whatcott after losing his case with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal:

The Regina Leader Post reports that Bill Whatcott has said he would not pay, even if the Regina Court of Queen’s Bench rules he must. The court heard the case on Thursday and Justice Fred Kovach reserved his decision.

Whatcott, an evangelical Christian and a licensed practical nurse, was instructed to pay the money to the four persons who complained when, in 2001 and 2002, Whatcott distributed flyers that denounced the teaching of acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle in schools.

Of course, there's more to the picture than this. I haven't seen Whatcott's "flyers", but I think this paragraph gives us a pretty good idea what they contain:

But Whatcott responded that only facts, not hurt feelings, ought to count in law. “If you can find factual inaccuracies in my flyers or if you can find that I said something in bad faith, at that point there should be civil penalties,” he said. “I’d be the first one to agree with that.”

The Leader Post quotes Whatcott: “If I’m lying by saying that homosexuals are predisposed to sexually transmitted diseases at a rate greater than the general population, by all means find me liable for slander. If I’m wrong in saying….that there is a predisposition in homosexuality towards the sexual abuse of children, if that can be factually proven to be wrong, find me guilty of libel. But don’t tell me that I can’t say something that is true.”

Ah yes, the usual "homosexuals are all disease ridden" routine. It's well enough known that promiscuity increases the odds of contracting an STI. I'd put pretty good odds that the rates of STIs among heterosexuals that are promiscuous are similar to those for promiscuous homosexuals. Of course, when we treat homosexuals as though they should be ashamed of themselves, we get horrifying cases like Ted Haggard popping up. You've got to suspect that cases like Haggard aren't all that unusual simply because of the social pariah status that guys like Whatcott would impose.

If I’m wrong in saying….that there is a predisposition in homosexuality towards the sexual abuse of children, if that can be factually proven to be wrong, find me guilty of libel.

Ummm...this one is factually wrong. There is no credible evidence that links homosexuals to pedophilia. In fact, if we must turn that on its ear, the vast majority of pedophiles consider themselves to be quite heterosexual - outside of the proclivity for young children.

2. Catholic Medical Professionals Criticize New US Bishops Document on Homosexuality

Continuing in the campaign of misinformation about sexuality, we find this little gem in which we find some "Catholic medical professionals" group complaining that the Bishops' latest paper on ministering to homosexuals is "omitting good science".

According to WorldNetDaily, one of the memos sent to select bishops attending the November 13-16 conference in Baltimore objected that "the health risks inherent in the lifestyle and the real grounds for hope of recovery and healing are never mentioned in the [proposed] document."

Yeah, well, when you source from Wingnut Daily, you might as well get your news from the National Enquirer or Weekly World News - you'd have a better chance of finding real journalism.

However, let's take a look at their claims, and who they seem to be citing, shall we?

"Persons with SSA (Same-Sex Attraction) suffer real physical and emotional physical illness in this lifestyle. There is no mention [in the document] of the deleterious effects of homosexual behavior on the person; the abuse, the diseases and the psychological pain that accompanies that lifestyle," said Richard Fitzgibbons, M.D., a contributor to the Catholic Medical Association's statement on "Homosexuality and Hope."

Wow, that's quite a mouthful. Last I checked, the rational research out there shows quite clearly that any emotional problems that homosexuals experience is due not to their homosexuality (which they are usually quite comfortable with), but the hostility and bigotry of the world around them.

A quick google search turns up quite a bit about Richard Fitzgibbons. Let's see, he shows up with associations to a "marital healing" organization, Leader U (a group that names Stephen Harper and several other prominent CPoC members among its alumni) and NARTH.

If one thing leaps out at me, it was this little piece of tripe, which once again raises the utterly bogus link between effeminate behaviour and homosexuality. For crying out sideways, how long does it take these clowns to pick up on the real world research that long ago debunked the stereotype of the "mincing queer"?

Reading further in the article, we find them citing Dutch Psychologist Dr. Gerard J. M. van den Aardweg

"Among psychotherapists there indeed is consensus that the key factor in the development of homosexual feelings is a defective gender-identification in childhood and adolescence," writes van den Aardweg, who added that many experts also agree that "diverse forms of therapy, counseling, and guidance can help change a homosexual orientation -- at least in part in most cases, and in a minority of cases, deeply and radically."

Again, a little bit of digging on Google turns up a few tidbits about van den Aardweg - and none of it particularly promising.

First off, he is citing a consensus that I've never been able to find - and certainly none of the psych. material I've read over the years has ever asserted that homosexuality has roots in "defective gender-identification in childhood and adolescence". I've some evidence that suggests that there is a higher probability that an effeminate boy will be gay, but it's far from conclusive - nor does it explain any more than a handful of cases.

Of course, digging through Google's results, we again find van den Aardweg associated with NARTH, and a couple of obscure books that he has published here and here. A quick search on Amazon suggests that these books are no longer in print.

A quick dig through a number of psychology journal indexes doesn't turn up either of these people as regular participants in the research world. Both of van den Aardweg's books are the "gays can change" type of material, with all of the credibility that the "ex-gay" movement possesses. (Slightly less credibility than the phrase "honest politician").

In other words, when they can't find credible researchers to corroborate their idiocy, the religious "family values" movement turns to people willing to prostitute their names in order to lend a false legitimacy to their arguments.

The Dishonesty of "Ex-Gay" Therapy

I've ranted about the notion of so-called Reparative Therapy techniques as applied to GLBT people by various religious and pseudo-religious organizations.

Just before Christmas last year, Ted Haggard was forced to step down from his position as pastor for an evangelical congregation after it became newsworthy that he had carried on multi-year affair with Mike Jones.

At the time, the usual list of suspects rallied around Haggard and said they would work to "help him through" his "struggle with homosexuality".

Today, we see Mr. Haggard claiming that he is entirely straight now.

Were his dalliances with Mike Jones a one time thing, I'd almost be inclined to believe Haggard had done little more than "an exploration". I'm sorry to say that a three plus year long affair doesn't exactly sound like a "one time dalliance" to me - it sounds rather like a persistent pattern.

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is "completely heterosexual" and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.

Now, I'm not saying that there aren't people who benefit from "reparative therapy", or the kind of "intensive" program Haggard has been subjected to, but I suspect that there is more to this picture than meets the eye.

First, I can't imagine how a three week long course of therapy (or even 3 month) is going to significantly change a pattern that has been ongoing for many years. I'm more than a little suspicious of the claim that Haggard's "only" dalliances were with Jones - I would have to guess that he has been "checking out" the guys for a long time, whether he wanted to admit that he found them attractive or not.

Second, if I look at Haggard's past behaviour, his actions are clearly someone who is bisexual - even if his attraction to men is "secondary" (or relatively weak). While he may be able to live primarily a heterosexual life, that does not change the reality. Were he but a teenager, I'd be inclined to guess that it was the fleeting experimentation of youth. Haggard is no teenager, which leads me to suspect that the pattern of behaviour is in fact well-entrenched. Okay, so he only got caught once. If I use the "shoplifter rule", he's probably been at it for quite a while.

I would be much more comfortable if the claim that he felt he "could life in an exclusively heterosexual" relationship. Just because he is attracted to men doesn't make him a homosexual - in fact, the reality that he is also (apparently) happily married to a woman suggests clearly that he is bisexual. (Big deal!).

Instead, the dishonest twits that cook this crap up claim that he is "cured" and has somehow mystically shed his attraction to men.

In Outer Wingnuttia ... The Howling Begins

I wrote about the APA's report on "change therapy" for sexual orientation yesterday.

Today, we have the loons in Outer Wingnuttia squawking about it - and they aren't happy at all.

I'll let Mr. Hooper over at the Good As You blog take apart the pathetic attempt at spin from Exodus.

NARTH, on the other hand delivered some whoppers in their press release.

Unfortunately, however, the report reflects a very strong confirmation bias; that is, the task force reflected virtually no ideological diversity. No APA member who offers reorientation therapy was allowed to join the task force.

Oh dear, apparently NARTH's all upset because nobody "from their team" was on the task force. I think this tells us a great deal about NARTH's approach to research. Good research is impartial. That is to say, it is evidence based, not rooted in political ideology.

The APA report doesn't make any statements without citing what research those statements are based on. There's a lot of a research that they reviewed from NARTH's Nicolosi, Byrd and others - in addition to all the other material they reviewed.

They selected and interpreted studies that fit within their innate and immutable view. For example, they omitted the Jones and Yarhouse study, the Karten study, and only gave cursory attention to the Spitzer study.

Ummm...bullfeathers. Spitzer's work is cited multiple times through the document, as is work by E. Karten. Similarly, the Jones & Yarhouse study from 2007 is in fact cited in the bibliography. NARTH can't even be bothered to read the documents they are criticizing!

In a fit of complete irony, Mark Yarhouse served as one of the scholarly reviewers of this study.

Further, the APA report actually takes the time to explain the problems with reports like Jones & Yarhouse, or Spitzer come to that:

65 A published study that appeared in the grey literature in 2007 (Jones & Yarhouse, 2007) has been described by SOCE advocates and its authors as having successfully addressed many of the methodological problems that affect other recent studies, specifically the lack of prospective research. The study is a convenience sample of self-referred populations from religious self-help groups. The authors claim to have found a positive effect for some study respondents in different goals such as decreasing same-sex sexual attractions, increasing other-sex attractions, and maintaining celibacy. However, upon close examination, the methodological problems described in Chapter 3 (our critique of recent studies) are characteristic of this work, most notably the absence of a control or comparison group and the threats to internal, external, construct, and statistical validity. Best-practice analytical techniques were not performed in the study, and there are significant deficiencies in the analysis of longitudinal data, use of statistical measures, and choice of assessment measures. The authors’ claim of finding change in sexual orientation is unpersuasive due to their study’s methodological problems.

Then NARTH goes on to try and spin the issue of Reparative Therapy causing serious harm to clients:

We believe the report indirectly supports the findings published in the current Journal of Human Sexuality that reveal no significant ill-effects of therapy. Further, if some clients are dissatisfied with the therapeutic outcome, as in therapy for other issues, the possibility for dissatisfaction appears to be outweighed by the potential gains.

The Journal of Human Sexuality? Oh NARTH's Journal of Human Sexuality - their in-house vanity journal. Somehow, I'm not thinking that this is exactly seen as a high value journal outside of NARTH's membership. As Ex Gay Watch points out, the study NARTH is referring to is flawed from the start - and its authors have admitted as much.

I find it deeply troubling that NARTH simply tries to dismiss the prospect of psychological harm experienced by clients of Reparative Therapy dismissively as "dissatisfaction".

The APA report is much more honest about the issue, and state the following:

We concluded that research on SOCE (psychotherapy, mutual self-help groups, religious techniques) has not answered basic questions of whether it is safe or effective and for whom. Any future research should conform to best-practice standards for the design of efficacy research. Additionally, research into harm and safety is essential.

In short, the APA is saying that the research done into various attempts to change one's sexual orientation is so limited, and flawed, that it neither refutes nor substantiates claims of harm.

The problem that groups like NARTH face is that their "research" is simply not credible when you hold it up to scrutiny.