Mental Health Curriculum Framework for Undergraduate Health Degrees
LGB Alliance Australia took part in the Australian Government’s “Public Consultation on an Emerging Mental Health Curriculum Framework for Undergraduate Health Degrees”.
The substance of our representative’s remarks was as follows:
Currently in Australia, any child attending a clinic that deals with gender dysphoria is offered only one treatment method - the “affirmative model”. This means a child who claims they “feel trans” will be met with agreement and told that this feeling reflects the truth of who they are. Psychological exploration and examination of these feelings is seen as parents and doctors “denying”, or refusing to accept, who the child really is. For this reason the child’s claim to feeling trans is never questioned. Methods of treatment other than the affirmative model exist, but many clinicians are too afraid to use them in the current “affirmative model only” climate.
The “affirmative model only” treatment is of particular concern to the LGB Alliance, because the Cass Review found that up to 90% of children attending the UK's largest gender clinic, The Tavistock, were homosexual. Given homosexuals only make up approximately 3-4% of the general population, this is an astronomically high over representation. If medical professionals using the affirmative method automatically agree with a distressed LGB patient that the patient has indeed been "born in the wrong body" this immediately raises the question of what, then, is the "right" body. The answer, according to current practice, is a simulacrum of a heterosexual body achieved through drugs and surgery. This attitude reflects the belief that the homosexual body is inherently wrong and that homosexuals are really heterosexuals trapped in the "wrong body".
The Cass Review also highlighted the fact that of these LGB patients who present with gender distress, 90% of them will "grow out" of it as they go through puberty. Given that, in the vast majority of children, puberty is the cure (and there is currently no method for ascertaining which small percentage of children’s distress will not resolve with puberty) intervening in any way to prevent their natural development would, in fact, be to prevent a cure from occurring.
Because of this gross over representation of homosexual children in gender clinics, it is essential any treatment program dealing with gender dysphoria address the role implicit and explicit homophobia can have on a child’s sense of gender. It should also raise the idea that this distress might not be gender dysphoria but, rather, the process of the child coming to realise they are homosexual.
If a child is offered exploratory therapy instead, they can be reassured that gender non-conformity, and feeling like they are not quite "fitting in", is common in young homosexual people and in no way means there is anything wrong with their body. It means a child can be told their distress will naturally go away and they can develop into a happy and content adult.
Society once condemned homosexuals, demanded we deny the truth of who we are, and engage in heterosexual relationships. Now society is demanding that, instead of changing our behaviour in order to appear heterosexual, homosexuals should change their bodies so they appear to be heterosexuals. In both cases the result is to eradicate homosexuality. As sexual orientation cannot be changed, and there is absolutely no reason to change it, the result of this attempt to convert homosexuals results in deeply damaged and unhappy people. This is not an ethical practice. For all these reasons, the LGB Alliance believes gender affirming care is Gay Conversion Therapy 2.0.