Have You Taken “The Cure?”

In New Jersey they have banded Ex-Gay Therapy or Reparative Therapy or Conversion Therapy for minors; well there are parents who are challenging the law in court. In the case the parents claim that the law violates their right to free speech and freedom of religion.

In an article on Care2 by Steve Williams who says that the case is no really about sexual orientation but is about gender identity,

When Ex-Gay Therapy is Actually Ex-Trans Therapy, and the Problems It Causes

You may have heard that a family is suing New Jersey to put their child through ex-gay therapy. What you might not have realized from the media reports on this story is that the child in question has gender identity issues and may in fact be trans.
[…]
Media reports have settled on the ex-gay therapy angle, and even within the LGBT news sphere there has been very little recognition of the fact of the child in question’s gender identity issues, even though the suit makes it quite clear that Doe wanted to transition genders and even mentioned gender identity disorder (now termed gender dysphoria under DSM-5).

Here we have an example of just how damaging sexual orientation change efforts can be to the entire LGBT community: if Doe is in fact a trans girl who is attracted to men, she is then a heterosexual female. As such, Doe is being subjected to sexual orientation change efforts in order to effectively suppress gender identity — something that will be completely useless and could be terribly damaging.

Whether it is for gender identity or sexual orientation I think is a minor point, I think the main point is that it does not work. And in fact it can cause more harm by creating stress and depression, while family support can create a positive outcome (i.e. reduced depression and suicidal thoughts). In the American Medical Association’s journal for pediatrics “Management of the Transgender Adolescent” said,

Given these difficulties, it is not surprising that many transgender youth face significant mental health issues including depression, suicidality, anxiety, body image issues, substance abuse, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Families play a key role in the lives of transgender youth. Supportive families protect and buffer youth from negative outcomes and promote positive health and well-being; rejecting and abusive families negatively affect youth and contribute to poor health and mental health outcomes. Family members go through their own process of adjusting to a child's transgender identity and typically experience the following stages: denial/shock, anger/fear, grief, self-discovery, acceptance, and pride/advocacy.

A family that is trying to force you into your birth gender is not a supportive family.


There are numerous studies that show that when intersex babies are assigned a gender at birth that is not their true gender they know it. In one study by Dr. Reiner found that the majority of intersex babies who were assigned “female” at birth and had “nominalizing” surgery knew their true gender.

"The most important sex organ is the brain," said Reiner, a psychiatrist and associate professor in the Department of Urology, Oklahoma University Health Science Center. "We have to let these children tell us their gender at the appropriate time."

In another case when one of male twins had an accident during circumcision, the doctors said don’t worry and give him “nominalizing” surgery to make him a girl, he knew his true gender (As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as A Girl).

Conversion Therapy does not work, all it does is create stress and depression and increases suicidal tendencies.