The Empirical Case against “Conversion-Therapy” Bans
by Paul Dirks, Public Discourse:
Research over the last decade has solidified the finding that sexual minorities are far more likely to have faced adverse experiences during childhood—experiences that they ought to be able to explore in therapy.
Currently a bill to ban “conversion therapy” is being considered in the Canadian Senate (Bill C-8), as well as in multiple states in the US. Unfortunately, in most cases there is tremendous ambiguity about which practices and services are being prohibited which obfuscates a multitude of problems: the endangerment of previously established legal rights for individuals to choose health treatments, the removal of the professional autonomy of doctors in providing treatment according to their expertise, the question of whether “sexual orientation” includes pedophilia, and the controversy surrounding medical transition for gender identity.
This last concern relates to the irony that helping children become comfortable with their natal sex would be banned in favor of experimental drug treatments and surgeries that lead to sterilization and have not been shown to alleviate psychological distress long-term. More ironic yet, and tragically so, is the fact that the studies indicate that for the majority of children for which their gender dysphoria remits, roughly half are same-sex attracted. This fact leads to the stunning conclusion that a ban on conversion therapy for transgender youth assures the worst kind of conversion therapy for same-sex attracted youth—a kind of gay eugenics. Sadly, few politicians have read the primary research and the prevailing narrative in the mass media is that it is social “justice” to ban conversion therapy.
Although it is the disastrous consequences of a conversion therapy ban for gender identity that have generated the most concern, there is also an important argument to be made against bans from the standpoint of compassionate counseling for those who have faced childhood trauma. Research over the last decade has solidified the finding that sexual minorities are far more likely to have faced adverse experiences during childhood. This is not a completely new finding, as researchers have known for some time that gay men, in particular, are far more likely than heterosexual men to have been sexually assaulted as children or adolescents. Two theories have been put forward to explain this finding. It has been suggested, firstly, that proto-homosexual children may be particularly vulnerable to predators because of their gender non-conformity. This non-conformity may mark children as outsiders among their peers or family members and may be noticed by abusers who would take advantage of it. The second theory, one that is held by a minority of therapists and researchers, is that sexual abuse may at times be a confusing or causal mechanism in same-sex attraction, behavior, or identity.
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