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A Question of Birth
This is an honest question.
For many years, before we even heard about the LGBT movement (with increasing letters added), we heard from the gay community that being gay was a matter of birth. The reason a person is gay is because they were “born that way.” There was an assumption there is a genetic disposition to gay orientation, so it is wrong to even suggest that a gay person could change. California legislators came to believe it was necessary to pass laws against “conversion therapy” because it would be wrong to try to change how someone is “born.”
But now we hear that if a person is born physiologically male or female, and comes to feel that they were “born in the wrong body,” it is necessary to perform surgery to change their body to correspond to the way they feel. Even for adolescents (a time in life when feelings are extreme and transitory) should have access to procedures to change gender, if they feel uncomfortable in their bodies.
So the question: Why it is morally wrong to even suggest an adolescent (or an adult) should pursue therapy to “change the way they were born” but morally imperative for an adolescent (or adult) be provided with surgery to change the way they were born?
Published in Healthcare
I think the question answers itself.
They might argue that they are changing their bodies rather than their selves when trans children undergo a procedure, while conversion therapy tries to change their selves rather than their bodies.
I’m not 100% with children having sex change ops – actually – but I do see conversion therapy as the psychological equivalent of FGM.
I’m going to go a bit further on my earlier answer. There really is evidence of both genetic and epigenetic causes of homosexuality. They can measure physical differences in things like ear canal length and finger ratios. They have traced male gayness in families and found that while it seems to cut down on the offspring of the males, their sisters tend to also, um, like men more, and wind up having more children, so the genes are passed on.
I have not read nor heard of such with gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria seems to be no different than many other mind diseases, such as believing one is an amputee stuck in a whole body. (And, yes, there are people like that, who want limbs amputated to make them more comfortable in their delusion.)
Because the extreme Left bases its positions on feelings not thought or logic.
Feelings
Because SHUT UP!
I second this.
I have serious problems with trying to transition (especially including and/or surgery on children). By the way, so do most people, including professionals. Rushing to transition children seems to be a minority view.
And while I don’t think a ban is the solution, Zafar is absolutely right about conversion “therapy.”
It’s a matter of will. When a person’s will aligns with reality (or a perceived reality), reality is sacred. When a person’s will doesn’t align with reality, reality must bend.
. . .
Another problem is the way we frame the subject of sexual orientation. For some reason, sexual acts are considered manifestations of a person’s identity, rather than . . . well, mere acts — acts which could have an infinite number of possible motives. Yes, some people truly are “born that way” (see Arahant’s comment above), but some are not. Some might be seeking attention. Some merely want to experiment. Some may have serious psychological problems.
This is why the “nature versus nurture” debate never ends. Both sides are right, to some degree. But their premises are confused.
In other words, is someone who only has sex with animals “born that way”?
The other thing I don’t understand about the current political definition of transgender is whether being transgender is supposed to be itself a separate gender. Does someone cease to be transgender once they have a transition operation? That used to be the way people thought of it (e.g. Renee Richards ). But now it seems to be thought of as a permanent identity in and of itself. That definition is politically convenient of course, since that means you don’t lose members of the transgender minority when they transition.
Lack of logic has never slowed the left down from advancing their agenda. It’s the same way with the death penalty and abortion. The only time the left agrees there’s a right to life is when they demand we abolish the death penalty for murderous scum . . .
I’m a libertarian on this issue. If someone wants therapy to help overcome same-sex attraction, let them have it. The government shouldn’t be banning it.
You highlight one reason why the “LGB” is so vastly different from the “T.”
I would say there’s a slight case of apples vs. oranges here.
Conversion therapy is primarily focused on treating homosexuality. Sex reassignment is focused on treating transgendered individuals. But being homosexual and being “transgender” are quite distinct phenomena, despite being somewhat related both topically and in society.
There’s a more effective approach to homosexuality than conversion therapy: it’s called letting gay people be gay. There’s no evidence that homosexuals are overall happier after attempted conversion therapy than they are just following their innate attractions.
On the other hand, there seems to be no real widespread satisfactory approach to people who feel transgendered: their rates of dissatisfaction seem quite high regardless of whether they try to live as their biological sex, live as their perceived gender without any medical changes, or undergo some degree of sex reassignment.
So while it’s accurate to point out the contradiction in arguments by people who are rabidly pro-transgender activism, I don’t think conflating it 1:1 with homosexuality is the right approach. Better to view them as separate conditions, one of which has a fairly simple solution in most cases, the other of which seems to be quite intractable so far.
I’m essentially ignorant on this, but, since that rarely stops me, would like to pursue it. I’m not contesting that “evidence” exists, but what is the limit of that evidence? It’s my impression that many, many dollars and many, many hours of research have been spent in attempts to identify a “gay gene”–to no conclusive avail. Also, I’d suggest that the fact that there may be genetic evidence in some circumstances is not the same as saying it’s present in every instance, which has led me to answer the nature or nurture question by saying “both?”
I don’t think this is answerable as asked. It isn’t really one question, as there are a handful of issues wrapped up in it: individual freedom, consent laws, socialized medicine (“be provided”), not to mention a lot of scientific assertions that I don’t know enough about to evaluate. The only way I can approach these types of complicated issues is to begin with the principles of individual freedom and responsibility and proceed from there, hopefully with a fair amount of humility.
But to take your question as posed, it’s because the issues are being addressed politically rather than morally, scientifically, or philosophically. People tend to make (and dismiss) whatever argument suits their agenda at in the moment. As you point out, for years we’ve been told that “being gay is a matter of birth.” But I’m old enough to remember the years before that when we were told it was a simply a “lifestyle choice.”
It’s all about winning, not intellectual consistency.
I don’t think there’s much research going into identifying a “gay gene” anymore. The subject of epigenetics has expanded our understanding of biology immensely by adding a new category somewhere between “nature” and “nurture”, and as a result many phenomena once postulated to be controlled by the actual DNA sequence are now thought or known to be controlled by a much more murky and complex “quasi-genetic” (hence “epigenetic”) mechanisms.
In the case of the finger ratios described above, there is robust evidence from animal models that the ratios of the index finger to the ring finger are determined by levels of androgenous hormones produced by the mother during pregnancy. These prenatal hormones affect many aspects of sexual development in male offspring, including the notorious finger ratios, but also several other, more subjective personality traits (like aggression). The effects of these hormones are more-or-less permanent on the individual offspring, yet they’re not directly tied to any genetic sequence. Thus, such an offspring could legitimately claim to be “born that way” (and have no power over its effects) even without the existence of a specific genetic allele.
To the best of my knowledge, the correlation between finger ratios and homosexuality is at the level of “intriguing” (and perhaps even “fabulous”), but not “airtight case”. IIRC, there is a statistically higher incidence of a “female-like” finger ratio among homosexuals, but of course not all gay men have feminine finger ratios, nor are all men with feminine finger ratios homosexuals.
Short version, yes, both. There is not “a” gay gene. There may be several. So, isolating one is not all of the story.
I mentioned epigenetic factors earlier. One involves birth order, birth timing and sex of previous siblings. This article starts talking about the Fraternal Birth Order Effect about six paragraphs in.
I recall a comedian years ago – I want to say it was Colin Quinn but I may be wrong – describing his upbringing in a large Irish family as “The boy that was bad at sports was sent off to be a Priest… or a Florist if that didn’t work out” (Florist being said as the comedian made a feminine motion).
Interesting that there may be a biological basis for that scenario.
A book recently came out in which the author used Google search terms to study different aspects of Americans’ behavior, which is a quite rich source of information since Google apparently provides not only the terms queried but also in many cases demographic data about the searcher (rather spooky if you ask me).
One of the author’s approaches was to look at which types of pornography people were searching Google for, based on the premise that most people consider Google searches to be private so their searches would reveal fairly genuine preferences. Apparently the percentage of men who search for gay porn is pretty consistent throughout all regions of the US, despite large fluctuations between the same regions in the percentages of men who report being gay. I haven’t read the book and don’t know the robustness of the precise methodology used, but even if remotely true it would certainly be a big check in the “mostly nature and very little nurture” category.
In any case, it also shows that there are multiple definitions of “being gay”: feeling attracted to people of the same sex, having romantic relations with people of the same sex, or reporting being attracted to people of the same sex. There are probably some regions where quite a few people report being gay while (almost) never having a same-sex partner.
I think there’s enough anecdata that I’m willing to say that some people are born homosexual and is incapable of a satisfactory response to someone of the opposite whatever-in-heck-you-want-to-call-it-today, that a somewhat larger percentage of the population is born heterosexual, and that the rest of the population lies on a spectrum of innate affinity and forms its orientation by a combination of nature and nurture. The fact that we have not identified a classic Mendelian heredity for homosexual attraction despite a lot of looking provides some support for the last proposition.
Anecdata also supports the assertion that once formed and reinforced by social and sexual interaction, this identification can become quite fixed and resistant to change.
But what do you do for someone who is on that bisexual spectrum who decides that for religious or other reasons, s/he has decided to identify one way or the other? In some social circles there is a lot of social pressure for such a person to fully come out of the closet as gay. Why is this choice supported and the decision to choose exclusively pursue heterosexual relationships condemned? In both cases, someone who is in a social circle which supports the previous choice may well benefit from therapy in, er, transitioning to his or her newly chosen orientation.
I don’t see why someone capable of a satisfactory sexual response to male and female partners should be arbitrarily deprived of therapy if, for example, s/he has married, wants to be faithful to the spouse, and wants support in managing attraction to all men and all other women or vice versa as the case may be.
As to “happiness” or after therapy, Freud once said that the goal of therapy is to transform neurotic suffering into ordinary suffering. He was not so ambitious as to claim to produce happiness by therapy.
What you then do with your ordinary suffering is more the province of philosophy and religion than it is with psychotherapy, but happiness is generally a byproduct of appropriately changing ones behavior – generally as a result of changing ones thinking. Cognitive and behavioral.
Nice!
The conversion therapy issue is about a person’t right to choose whatever healthcare he or she wants to pursue.
Capitalism is based on the belief that human beings are intelligent and can sort things out for themselves.
This issue is not about homosexuality. It is about a person’s right to accept or reject healthcare.
There seems to be fairly good evidence that vanishingly few men are actually bisexual – most seem to be homosexuals who report also being attracted to women. I really don’t know either way, but it wouldn’t surprise me if your hypothetical really only pertains to a very small (read: almost irrelevant) slice of society.
That being said, I have no problem with anybody – bisexual or “fully” homosexual – seeking conversion therapy for reasons of personal faith or conviction. It’s not a permanent change (like sex reassignment), so if somebody wants to give a try, they should.
However, I would not want to be part of any community that pressures homosexuals (or people who think they may be homosexual) into conversion therapy as a price for social acceptance; I also would be upset if my friends were pressuring their adolescent children into conversion therapy. It should be a choice made by the individual himself with little fear of rejection by family or community should he decide not to undergo the therapy or should the therapy not “work”.
That may well be true. As does biologically based rather than socially determined “gender dysphoria.”
I think that there are a lot of people with OCD (which has biological predispositions and exacerbating factors) and related disorders. It’s been my observation that at any given time it may be socially acceptable in a given circle to obsess about some things but not others, though the real problem for a pathologically obsessed individual is not the object or process of the obsession (which may but need not be a truly consequential thing) but the underlying disorder.
In the end, isn’t it just a waste of time and energy trying to argue logic with our modern social engineers?
They will always soon move on to their next “big thing.”
I do find it fascinating that the “You can be any of the 73 genders you want to be!” people are the same ones who, when it comes to conversion therapy, insist that you can’t actually change.
And the difference would be what?
This is correct. It is the political influences that work to destroy concepts like normal/abnormal and try to prevent any recognition of differences that display in humans. Science and moral standards are set aside by saying differences don’t matter. Where will we be when all criminal acts get considered as normal?
It’s not that either.
All the gay conversion “therapy” bans i. The United States deal with “treating” minors.
And it shouldn’t be treated as “therapy” since it doesn’t actually work.
Poorly phrased on my part, I should have said: “most seem to be homosexuals who claim to be attracted to women as well.”
It’s been about 10 years since I had to do a report on this topic for my biology studies, but I vaguely recall a study back then in which men had electronic sensors hooked up to their genitalia and were then made to smell handkerchiefs which had been rubbed under the armpits of either men or women. Sounds perverse and vile, but thanks to the magic of pheromones it turned out that straight men became measurably aroused when sniffing the stench of women (but not of other men), while gay men became aroused when sniffing scents from men (but not from women).
And bisexuals? Aroused by the smell of men only.
That’s only one study, of course, and I haven’t followed much of the research on this topic since then. So perhaps it’s an outlier or a complete crock. Either way, it still gave me a little chuckle.