As you said, they are just unnecessary duplicate laws only with different wordings and somehow owned by selected identity groups.
The only exception I would take with your comparison of the banning of CT with existing laws regarding kidnap and brainwashing is often people voluntarily agree to various forms of CT. In fact, I believe, more often than not. Presumably to please parents, or a religious organisation, or because they genuinely believe they are ‘wrong’ and seek to be ‘cured’. So, the Canadian State is striving to protect people from themselves by banning CT. If the State can ban people from agreeing to something that other people disagree with, what next could people argue should be banned?
Anyway, CT was never an issue of mine, it was the wording of the additional transgender bit. yyy placed the emphasis on CT - which is fine, of course.
True, but AFAIK the fact that the victim consented to a crime (ie., an act that is already defined as a crime by existing law) is not a valid defence. It’s also possible they have no idea what they’re consenting to - and upon voicing their objections later, are coerced into continuing.
I’d also draw a distinction between people expressing a wish to be ‘cured’, and consenting to a specific ‘cure’. I see no harm in allowing people who are (for religious reasons, or whatever) distressed by their orientation to seek therapy from a qualified professional. A dialogue will then ensue which will determine if the patient wants something that’s achievable (in a minority of cases it might be) or whether he needs to change his life expectations … and if so, how that might be achieved.
Even when no overt violence or coercion is involved, unqualified people are forbidden from performing psychological treatments, under existing statutes and agreements which regulate the medical profession.
Depends on the country, I guess. Counselling is fairly narrowly defined as two people sitting in a room having a chat, and anyone is allowed to do it (for obvious reasons). Anything other than that is regulated by laws or regulations that apply to qualified psychiatrists and psychologists. In particular, if someone purports to be treating a condition identified in DSM-5 as a disorder, they’re essentially posing as a medical professional, whatever they call themselves.
Anything involving unorthodox methods would be policed by a professional body of some sort, and their say-so can often carry legal or quasi-legal implications. Google Dr Gary Fettke for an example.
Even psychologists can usually operate with a degree. Maybe a certificate as well.
I think governments have generally avoided getting involved with regulation because there is so much pseudoscience involved. It’s easier to leave it to professional bodies.
Because most people don’t want to go to jail, pay fines, etc. Also, it tends to be good for business if you can say, convincingly, that what you’re selling is legal. Even better if you’re certified by the Better Whatever Bureau.
This is one of those things that will not simply disappear in a puff of smoke, but as more and more jurisdictions ban it, and more horror stories are publicized, it will become less popular and harder to find.
For example, these days in western countries, if you want to have your daughter infibulated (you probably know what that means, but for those who don’t), you may be able to find someone within the country who will do it, but the illegality of it will scare away X% of customers. You may be able to go overseas for it, but international travel is 麻煩 even in good times, it costs money, and even if you’re backward enough to want it in the first place, you might still be turned off by the backward state of medicine in whichever country, plus it may be illegal to take a child out the country you’re already in for the purpose of having her infibulated (as for example with Canada’s proposed CT ban)… and so on.
If you show me statistics indicating that infibulation is on the rise worldwide, I will reconsider what I just wrote. It probably has risen over the last X decades in western countries, due to immigration, but then among those immigrants it will of course go down the longer they stay. If it were legal, that decline would most likely be slower.
Then what are we arguing about?
Strictly speaking, the law – the Criminal Code – already exists, and C-8 proposes an amendment to address a shortcoming in this existing law.
Maybe you wouldn’t care. I would. That girl in Taipei who got decapitated by a maniac on the street, we can say there was a reason for it (the guy was insane), but we can also say it was a random event, and while it does remind us all to be vigilant in general and perhaps inspires people to change the public policy on mental health, it’s not indicative of a movement of maniacs setting out to decapitate as many children as they possibly can.
In contrast, there are known to be organized groups that want to assault and/or murder as many X, Y or Z as they possibly can, and once you notice a pattern like that, it may be prudent to try something other than business as usual.
I think it’s here and there. Without an explicit ban, people will use concepts like freedom of religion and the sanctity of the family in their defense, and while the Better Whatever Bureau may refuse to certify anyone who does it, the Better Whichever Bureau can fill the gap.
Among those who believe in CT, most will not say please take my money and do obviously illegal things to my child. Instead they’ll say things like it’s not obviously illegal – in fact maybe it’s not illegal at all – I mean how can it be kidnapping when there’s parental consent? and so on. If you close the curtains but leave the window open, you still have an open window, and every now and then a storm will remind you of that fact.
What’s next? Gee, idunno. Ban crack and fentanyl? Taxes and warning labels on cigarettes and alcohol? Oops, already happened, and the world didn’t end. The state (in the broad sense) has always banned this thing and made that thing difficult. If you want absolute freedom, you’ll never find it, because you need anarchy for that, and true anarchy doesn’t exist.
Under the proposed ban, you can still perform CT on a consenting adult if you only advertise by word of mouth and do it for free. Yes, that will have a chilling effect. Yes, it’s intentional (like taxes on cigarettes and alcohol).
It’s still CT whether the thing to be converted is sexual orientation or gender identity.
You know those psychic hotline ads that come with the for entertainment purposes only disclaimer?
Of course, but when 80/90% of your words are about sexual orientation it’s understandable that a casual reader could assume that’s the topic being discussed. If anything, the only post I recall making about banning CT is supportive of such a legal change.
I wouldn’t want people thinking I’m a horrid homophobe on top of being a transphobe.
Perhaps something like psychotherapy for a teen who is confused about their gender identity because it is argued that gender dysphoria cannot be a mental disorder?
I think you seriously underestimate the motivations of the people who do this sort of thing. They’re fanatics. They don’t care about going to jail. I know this for sure because, as I said, it’s already illegal.
Well … this is an interesting one. It’s generally covered by a professional code of conduct (“thou shalt not perform unnecessary and/or disfiguring medical procedures”) but I agree there’s a lot of leeway there. Infant circumcision, for example, is still legal in most of the world despite the fact that many men (10-40%, depending on who you believe) feel that they’ve been violated by having it done, and occasionally it can cause serious medical problems.
In these cases it’s a lot easier to demonstrate actual harm if you wish to outlaw the practice … and yet circumcision hasn’t been outlawed. You’ve so far given me no evidence that psychotherapy aimed at ‘conversion’ (either gender dysphoria or sexual orientation) causes serious and intractable harm comparable to (say) infibulation. Can you produce some research showing a high rate of psychological problems which can be directly traced to therapy (as opposed to the patient’s original problem as he/she perceives it)?
Correlation is not causation. FGM is declining (although not nearly quickly enough) for all sorts of reasons. Mostly, the women who perform the procedures (yes, it’s usually women) are:
Getting old and dying. This is the usual way backward ideas die out.
Noticing that the entire planet considers them to be backward and barbaric.
Concluding for themselves that it’s not a good idea.
FIFY. The law tracks public opinion. That’s why infibulation etc is legal in backward countries.
I’m arguing that the amendment
a) Addresses a problem that was never there (the law covers it already)
b) It doesn’t even do what you think it does. It outlaws something that is either innocuous or useful, and legitimizes backstreet ‘therapists’.
Maybe so, but the Law in most countries considers motivation in only one context: sentencing. It is not used to define the nature of the crime or to establish guilt.
Well yes. But the amendment actually legitimizes those groups, like I said. “Word of mouth” blah blah is the way all shady underground organisations operate. Professionals put out their shingle, because they have nothing to hide. The law will now create a whole new industry - qualified gender therapists - operating in the shadows, like abortion doctors in 1960s England.
In these recent posts, for convenience I’ve been using queer in the broad sense, i.e. including genderqueer. (I know, it’s hard to keep up with all these new words and concepts. I feel your pain, no sarcasm.)
You mean like
services that provide acceptance, support or understanding of a person or the facilitation of a person’s coping, social support or identity exploration or development;
as in the Ontario law or
a person’s exploration of their identity or to its development
as in the federal bill? Right, they’re going to go out of their way to state something is legal and then turn around and ban it. Like US prohibition, in reverse. (Yes sarcasm this time.)
Fundamentalists are not fundamentalists are not fundamentalists. They come in different shapes, sizes and flavors. If you haven’t personally observed that, take it from me as someone who has.
Even among potential CT customers, not everyone is a (religious) fundamentalist.
Since you’ve brought up circumcision, ask parents why they sign their sons up for it (or tolerate hospitals that sign them up for it without asking), and in most cases you will not get an answer along the lines of because God wills it. Instead you’ll get a variety of answers, some based on actual medical research, most probably just based on vaguely remembered claims, some not medically relevant (I don’t want my son to look different from me, or from other boys)… plus some theological arguments, and even among those you won’t find total consistency. If you search far enough, you will even find observant Jews who oppose it for theological reasons.
The fact that it’s legal (for parents to choose) means they’re free to choose it for all kinds of reasons or for no reason at all. If you banned it, there would be protests for sure, and some customers would go underground, but suddenly the people who didn’t care about it enough to break the law for it would be removed from the equation. Also, anyone in the habit of choosing it for them (“negative option billing” or “inertia selling”) would have a good incentive to stop doing so.
If reducing and eventually eliminating the practice is the goal, the ban moves society towards that goal. (I’m speaking hypothetically; don’t ask me to take a side on this one, because I won’t, in public.)
I wasn’t making the argument that they were equivalent. I was talking about whether or not a ban makes a difference.
If you wanted to make a solid comparison, how would you do it anyway? One is (mostly) a psychological practice, the other physical.
Why would one need to be equivalent to the other? Anything less harmful than infibulation isn’t worth banning? Like, mere clitoridectomy for example?
If you want horror stories and statistics, they’re out there. Giyf as they used to say.
True, never said it was.
True, never said it wasn’t.
See 2 and 3. Banning something helps the people who are into it to notice that you think they’re backward. Banning something (with a credible threat of enforcement) helps the people who are into it to conclude that it’s not a good idea. It’s not a magic bullet, but it is a bullet.
So, we’re back to laws don’t matter because people just do whatever tf they want anyway, is that it?
Right, tell all the English teachers who turned down this job and that job for work permit reasons that they should have just done it!
And in case you never read the threads where we talk about that, yes, yes yes yes, I do know the banned behavior is bloody common. If it were legal, it would be bloody commoner. And if the work permit system actually made sense (i.e. if there were convincing justification for the way the system is designed), people (overall) would both understand and respect it more than they do, ergo the banned behavior would be less bloody common.
We’re going in circles here, but briefly, (a) the existing law isn’t broad enough to deal adequately with the reality that has been observed, (b-1) the useful part is still allowed, while the innocuous part is still allowed with limitations, and (b-2) if as you say real therapists would never do such things, the ones who do it weren’t legitimate in the first place, so once a minority of them migrate to the black market they’ll be what they already were anyway.
That’s pretty off topic, I think, but consider the difference between mere murder (or murder + conspiracy) and terrorism. Is there no justification for making the latter a distinct crime?
Emphasis added. If you still think no true therapist would do it, why are you suddenly calling them qualified?
Can someone move the last 100 or so replies about the merits and shortcomings of overly broad and unnecessary laws to a new thread that isn’t about JP? Every day I see new replies in here I think there might be some discussion about JP, his ideas, or his current status, and there is nothing.
I don’t see why what yyy, finley and I were discussing is off topic in terms of JP’s ideas. Is a split required because our discussion is of particularly special interest? I believe that must be the case.
If this thread is only about JP himself - he’s all fucked up.
It’s not necessarily, but it’s gotten a bit afield. @Mithrandir makes a fair point that people might come looking for something more specifically JP related. Anyway, it’s not like the discussion won’t be able to go on.
for those who don’t), you may be able to find someone within the country who will do it, but the illegality of it will scare away X% of customers. You may be able to go overseas for it, but international travel is 麻煩 even in good times, it costs money, and even if you’re backward enough to want it in the first place, you might still be turned off by the backward state of medicine in whichever country, plus it may be illegal to take a child out the country you’re already in for the purpose of having her infibulated (as for example with Canada’s proposed CT ban)… and so on.
Oops, already happened, and the world didn’t end. The state (in the broad sense) has always banned this thing and made that thing difficult. If you want absolute freedom, you’ll never find it, because you need anarchy for that, and true anarchy doesn’t exist.
(Yes sarcasm this time.)
