Tiresome . . .
That is the word a colleague used a while ago after I updated her — for the umpteenth time — on some of my research into the fiasco that has been Bill C-279’s lack of progress in Canada’s Senate. (The bill, which would provide protection for transgender people at the federal level, is hung up there and unlikely to be passed.) It’s not that my colleague is insensitive; she supports equal rights for all LGBT people. It’s just that hearing about the constant bickering over what should be a given is, well, tiresome.
Still, give her credit. At least she is aware of the issues. The vast majority of Canadians know little about transgenderism and the issues surrounding Bill C-279. Transgenderism is simply not on their radar screens (with the exception, perhaps, of Caitlyn Jenner’s sensational emergence this week in the pages of Vanity Fair).
No doubt, most Canadians if polled would agree that trans people should have equal rights. And that would be the end of it for them — unless transgenderism suddenly started affecting their lives on a personal level. And that’s probably happening more now as children enabled by social media start exploring gender fluidity and transgenderism.
So, what happens when little Johnny tells mum and dad that he is really a girl, and wants to present as one and use the girls’ sex-segregated facilities at school? What do mum and dad do about it?
I don’t have definitive answers to this. But I would hope that parents wouldn’t take a “spare the rod and spoil the child” approach in dealing with children who have gender identity issues — or any other issues. I hope they wouldn’t try to beat the transgenderism out of their kids — either literally or figuratively.
And that may be the logic behind Ontario’s Bill 77, known as the Affirming Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Act 2015. As my Postmedia colleague Barbara Kay points out in her National Post column on Tuesday, which has the headline (in part) “Bill 77 … is a dangerous overreach,” the bill “will ban funding for “any services rendered that seek to change or direct the sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient, including efforts to change or direct the patient’s behaviour or gender expression,” and will ban health professionals … from “carry[ing] out any practice that seeks to change or direct the sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient under 18 years of age.”
In short, the bill seems designed to prevent children from becoming targets of reparative therapy, that is, therapy commonly known as conversion therapy, which has been widely condemned for the draconian way it forces individuals to change their sexual orientation from gay to heterosexual. Barbara argues that Bill 77 is incorrectly conflating sexual orientation and gender identity and that, essentially, a ban on this form of therapy in dealing with children is “a dangerous overreach,” as the headline says.
I don’t see it that way.
And I don’t see it as a loss of power for parents — who shouldn’t have that sort of power in the first place.
I see reparative therapy as a form of figuratively beating an individual into submission, which might cause all sorts of long-term, i.e. lifelong, collateral damage. From what I know of reparative therapy aimed at kids with gender-identity issues, one of the strategies is never to validate the child’s transgender feelings and wishes, to stamp them out no matter how much the child protests. The mission is to make them straight at all costs — even if they’re not straight. In short, it can be a painful process for children — and might they simply surrender and fake they are straight just to stop the process? What sort of life lesson is that?
Thing is, gender fluidity, transgenderism and transsexualism are facts of life today. Some people are legitimately trans, while for others, there may be stages of gender fluidity that will pass. Some children need to explore, as they do in so many other ways as they grow up.
I’m not against therapy. Indeed, for some trans people, therapy is necessary before they can proceed with gender transitioning. But not reparative therapy. I believe that a gentler form of therapy can help children with gender-identity issues learn if it is a passing phase or, alternatively, help them in the transition process. And I suspect that is what the people behind Bill 77 believe, too. I mean, if it was just me, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post.
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The National Post is reporting tonight (June 3) that Bill 77, “introduced by New Democrat Cheri DiNovo and supported by the governing Liberals, sailed through committee on Wednesday with the expectation it will pass its final vote Thursday. … The bill was amended in committee to clarify that therapeutic practices are still allowed under the law as long as their primary aim isn’t to change a person’s sexual or gender identity.”
Turning the Page is an opinion blog focusing mostly on LGBTQ issues.
