This headline may shock you.

Canada has now banned conversion therapy and Steinbach has played an odd role in the resolution of this issue. But not the role you might think. After three tries the government of  Canada formally banned conversion therapy by amending the Criminal Code of Canada.

Those techniques can range from talk and behavioral therapy to medical treatments. These treatments though widely endorsed by conservatives have been discredited by major medical associations in many countries as well as the United Nations, World Health Organization, Amnesty International and other groups. Critics  of this so-called therapy, say it causes harm to its victims and is based on the faulty assumption that sexual orientation and gender identity can or should be “cured.”

Many conservatives believe that people really are cisgender and should be left that way. Cisgender is a term used to describe a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth. In other words, God never makes mistakes so humans should not intervene. Except that humans can intervene to keep people heterosexual. After years of debate, Canada has entered the fray with legislation.

As Christine Hauser reported in the New York Times:

“This is an incredibly important step to making sure queer and trans people in Canada feel valid and deserving of full protection,” said Michael Kwag, a policy director at the Community-Based Research Center in Toronto, which researches the health of people of diverse sexualities and genders.

“It also sends a strong message to the entire country that any attempt to change, deny or suppress the identity of queer and trans people is wrong,” he said in an interview.

 

The Code has a very specific and  interesting definition of conversion therapy as follows:

Definition of conversion therapy

320.101 In sections 320.102 to 320.104, conversion therapy means a practice, treatment or service designed to

• (a)change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual;
• (b)change a person’s gender identity to cisgender;
• (c)change a person’s gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth;
• (d)repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behaviour;
• (e)repress a person’s non-cisgender gender identity; or
• (f)repress or reduce a person’s gender expression that does not conform to the sex assigned to the person at birth.

For greater certainty, this definition does not include a practice, treatment or service that relates to the exploration or development of an integrated personal identity — such as a practice, treatment or service that relates to a person’s gender transition — and that is not based on an assumption that a particular sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression is to be preferred over another.

It is noteworthy that consent of the patient is no defence! In other words, the government of Canada considers that it should be an offence to commit any acts that are “designed” to make such changes in gender. Everyone who knowingly causes another person to undergo such “therapy” is guilty of the offence. As well everyone who knowingly promotes or advertises such “therapy” is guilty of the offence as well. Finally, everyone who receives a financial or material benefit from the provision of such services is also guilty of the offence.

The bill that enacted the new law said such “therapy” harms society because “it is based on and propagates myths and stereotypes about sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, including the myth that heterosexuality, cisgender gender identity, and gender expression that conforms to the sex assigned to a person at birth are to be preferred over other sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions.” Wow! Canada has come a long way!

But the most amazing thing was this new law received unanimous consent in Parliament! How was that possible? Where was Steinbach’s Member of Parliament Ted Falk? It turns out he was asleep.

Falk was concerned about the effects of this legislation on religious freedom, such as whether a pastor could be charged if asked to speak to a person about gender identity. I don’t complain about such concerns, I just wish Falk also showed some concern about the long history of discrimination against trans people by members of the religious community. On that he had little to say. Frankly, I think that is much more relevant.

Falk knows where his voters come from in the Bible belt of Manitoba.  I was surprised by the international attention shown to this as evidenced by reporting of National Public Radio and the New York Times in the US. The Times even mentioned Steinbach’s Member of Parliament Ted Falk. Wow! The Times noted that the bill was passed through a unanimous consent motion in the House of Commons on December 1, 2021 followed by the Senate on December 7^th.

Amazingly Conservatives who had opposed previous versions of the bill then embraced the 3^rd version. Yet “our” Ted Falk was not happy about what happened. This is how the New York Times reported on Falk’s activities:

“But some legislators were dismayed. Ted Falk, a Conservative member of Parliament from Manitoba, said he and other conservatives were “blindsided” by the fast-tracked bill that disregarded written viewpoints and concerns.

In a Facebook post on Dec. 17, he said there was no sign of a consensus or final decision had been reached before the motion was unexpectedly presented just as everyone was rising, giving no time for objections.”

“There were about four seconds in which any one of us could have voiced an objection and, in all honesty, before I could process what was happening, the motion had been passed,” he wrote on Facebook.

I am not so sure that Falk and the other Conservatives were blind-sided. Perhaps Falk was just trying hard to spin a narrative that his supporters in our Bible Belt might accept. Perhaps Conservatives voted for the motion thinking it would be passed anyway and wanted to rush home for Christmas. How could both the House of Commons and the Senate give unanimous consent with Ted Falk as our representative? Personally, I found this aspect of the case highly amusing. I would like to know what really went on.

In any event, thanks to the conservatives napping on the job, Canada joined at least a dozen countries banning this heinous practice much loved by evangelicals. Those countries included France, Germany, Malta, Ecuador, India, and 20 American states!

I love it.

In the conservative communities around North America it is common to claim that many people who undergo transitioning surgery later regret their choice. It is true that some people later regret the choices they have made, but the numbers are very low. According to Dr. Darren Reimer, who courageously works with Trans patients in Steinbach, about 1-2% of people who underwent gender transitioning surgery regretted it.  The only thing surprising about that number is how low that percentage is. People are complex with complex desires. People make mistakes.

Some critics of gender-affirming treatments have argued that children are too young to make such decisions and often later regret their decisions when they become adults.

According to Samantha Schmidt of the Washington Post:

“A new study…  researchers from the Fenway Institute and Harvard Medical School found that 13.1 percent of currently identified transgender people have “detransitioned” at some point in their lives but that 82.5 percent of those people attributed their decision to external factors such as pressure from family, school environments and vulnerability to violence.”

In other words, they did not really regret an informed decision they had made, they did regret that their decision had not been made freely and voluntarily with all of the necessary facts free from undue influence of others.

People often regret surgeries. In fact, most surgeries have a much higher rate of regret. I know a number of people who have regretted their knee or hip surgeries. Apparently, according to Dr. Reimer, 15% regret having had knee surgery. 12% regret having giving birth! I am also surprised that this is so low.  No one makes all major decisions well.

Some conservatives also claim large numbers of people who have transitioned later regret it, but according to Vox “an average of about 2 percent of respondents express regret… ”  and “… the vast majority of TGD people who opted to detransition did so…not because of changes in gender identity, but due to external factors such as stigma and lack of social support.”

I really wish political combatants in the culture wars, on the left and the right, stayed out of these decisions and left them to the children involved and their parents or guardians together with their trusted advisors.

I think everyone would be better served. Particularly the children.

One good thing about saying I am a meanderer, is that no one should be surprised when I have to backtrack. Today is one of those days where I have to backtrack to some extent. Just after I posted my last epistle on the gender wars I read an article in the New York Times that causes me to reconsider some of the things I said.

This article by Megan Twohey and Christina Jewett alerted me to some very recent science that changes things.  This article suggests that although puberty blockers can ease the anguish to transgender youths and buy some time for them to weigh  their options open, now there are some growing concerns about the long-term physical effects and other consequences of such treatment. This makes the decisions transgender youth and their parents or guardians must make even more difficult. The Times reporters pointed out, “concerns are growing among some medical professionals about the consequences of the drugs.” In fact, they said a “small number of doctors won’t recommend them at all.” Evidence is emerging of potential harm from using blockers, particularly to the bones of growing youth who are taking such drugs.  The estrogen and testosterone treatment affect the bones and other parts of the body, including brain. There is also some evidence that the children won’t recover from the losses when they go off blockers as much as earlier believed. As with so many treatments there is often a price to pay for using them and caution is clearly warranted.

As the reporters reminded,

“Many young patients and their families have concluded that the benefits of easing the despair of gender dysphoria far outweigh the risks of taking blockers. For others, the limited studies and politicization of trans medicine can make it difficult to fully evaluate the decision.”.

People have to make a judgment call in weighing the risks and the benefits. This is particularly important in the case of young children who don’t want to make irreparable mistakes.  In Europe people seem to be better at basing their decisions on issues involving sexuality and gender on science than they are in the United States where unfortunately the decisions are often clouded by political considerations or ideology. As the Times reporters said, “…in the United States the public discourse about transgender care is growing more incendiary.”  Or as Dr. Natalie Nokoff, assistant professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Colorado, put it we need “less vitriol, more science.”

Obviously I can’t give medical advice. It is the politics of the issue that concerns me and how young children in some cases become fodder in the gender wars.

Clearly, more research is needed. I think all scientists can agree on that. Issues like this need more light, not more heat.