UPDATE/Focus On The Family Promotes Dangerous ‘Ex-Trans’ Ministries

[Incarnadine]

Thanks,

I tried for a long time and I could not find it.

It seems to me that it comes across as an attitude of tough cookies. If you have to deal with it it you have to tough it out. Sorry but for you there is no hope for a better life. You get to suffer. Too bad how sad for you. You are not allowed to be happy and whole. It sucks being you.

Sorry for the rant.

But its so much easier to tell someone else they have to suck it up and deal with it if the one doing the telling isn't dealing with it themselves.  Sometimes it seems that the ones who get to interpret Scripture for the rest are the ones who don't seem to struggle.

[Vicky]

The ones who have to struggle don't have the time to interpret it, or for that matter give a hoot about doing so.

[Incarnadine]

The ones who have to struggle don't have the time to interpret it, or for that matter give a hoot about doing so.

Sometimes that's true, and sometimes that's not.  The last couple of months have found me spending a ton of time trying to interpret correctly.  And I'm still struggling. 

[JenAtLast]

Oh, yes...I've heard that BS "confused" part before.  My mom still see it that way.

No...I am NOT the confused one.  No confusion about it.

And, yes....I tried reparative therapy.  I had it beaten over my head as a child, a teen and adult.  All it managed to do was destroy my self-esteem and make me feel bad about myself so that SHE could feel good about herself as being "a good mother".

Yeah...that worked wonders, didn't it mom?  Now instead of it being just me left to deal with a transition at a middle age, I also have a family who is trying to cope with the devastation.

No one can understand unless they've walked in our shoes.

[Shana A]

Focus On The Family Rejects Trans Identities As Disordered And Unhealthy

By Zack Ford on Nov 5, 2012 at 5:15 pm

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/11/05/1142931/focus-on-the-family-rejects-trans-identities-as-disordered-and-unhealthy/?mobile=nc

Jeff Johnston is Focus on the Family's resident ex-gay, and he is increasingly being called upon to speak as an expert on various identity issues, though he bears no such expertise. Following up on the group's promotion of ex-transgender ministries, Johnston is back to spread a series of remarkable falsehoods about what it means to be trans. His claims are built around the false understanding that being trans is a disorder, even though the American Psychiatric Association is declassifying it as such next year. From this false premise, Johnston encourages many mistruths and harmful ideas for supporting transgender youth.

[...]

Johnston then claims the best way to support young people who are questioning their gender is to try to force them to accept the body they have, rejecting their gender identity:

    Gender Identity Disorder is treatable. There are therapists who work with kids to help them accept the body they were born into and to embrace it as a good thing. This kind of therapy helps children to stop hating their bodies and to embrace their gender.

[suzifrommd]

Trans identities reject Focus on the Family as disordered and unhealthy:

Bigotry is treatable. There are therapists who work with bigots to help them accept the world they were born into and to embrace it as a good thing. This kind of therapy helps bigots to stop hating their world and to embrace reality.

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

Johnston then claims the best way to support young people who are questioning their gender is to try to force them to accept the body they have, rejecting their gender identity.

I noticed that he said "force".  Once again the kind of therapy that is rejected by the APA as junk therapy.

Gender Identity Disorder is treatable. ... 

Yes it is!  HRT, SRS, FFS, BA.  All recognized medical procedures.  No shock therapy, no brainwashing.

[Beverly]

What is it about the USA that when you get more than 50 miles inland from the coast people's brains switch off and religious mania takes over?

Why do these people hate us so much? It makes no sense.

Sometimes I am very glad to have 4,000 miles of ocean just off the UK's western shore...

[suzifrommd]

I noticed that he said "force".  Once again the kind of therapy that is rejected by the APA as junk therapy.

Wonder how Mr. Johnston would react to being "forced" to live as a woman for the rest of his life. After all, if he thinks it's reasonable to force Trans men to do this, shouldn't he be willing to do this himself?

[Nicolette]

What is it about the USA that when you get more than 50 miles inland from the coast people's brains switch off and religious mania takes over?

Why do these people hate us so much? It makes no sense.

Sometimes I am very glad to have 4,000 miles of ocean just off the UK's western shore...

I know what you mean. It's utterly alien to me and quite depressing really.

[Vicky]

I live 22 miles inland from the So. California beaches.  FOF was headquarted in a city just east of me, and only 31 miles from the beach until 1990.  They had only been at a 600 foot elevation here, but where they now are is about 5000 foot, so its the thin oxygen they were craving.  The problem with that theory is that they are near the site of Dr. Stanley Biber's hospital in Trinidad Colorado, and Colorado itself has a very trans friendly atmosphere in most places -- we do have tourist money!!

[Beverly]

I know what you mean. It's utterly alien to me and quite depressing really.

It is very alien to me as well. Here in the UK, promoting statements of harm towards children can be enough to get the local council or cops interested in your activities. Over here there was a recent case of a therapist attempting to 'cure' a gay man with christian values and she lost her professional status and licence. She appealed the decision and was backed by senior Anglian Bishops which merely stoked the row further, but in the end she lost the appeal.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9283083/Christian-counsellors-being-closed-down-says-struck-off-gay-cure-psychotherapist.html

[Beth Andrea]

The reality is, anyone can be forced to believe anything.

Beat them enough times, threaten them enough times, displace their family enough times, starve them and/or make them unemployed enough times...

And they'll believe. Or die in the refusal. Meanwhile...if they're dead...who cares about them anymore? FOF--or the Soviets, or the Nazis, or the USG--can always rewrite history to make "those people" the bad guys.

[Nicolette]

It is very alien to me as well. Here in the UK, promoting statements of harm towards children can be enough to get the local council or cops interested in your activities. Over here there was a recent case of a therapist attempting to 'cure' a gay man with christian values and she lost her professional status and licence. She appealed the decision and was backed by senior Anglian Bishops which merely stoked the row further, but in the end she lost the appeal.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9283083/Christian-counsellors-being-closed-down-says-struck-off-gay-cure-psychotherapist.html

Ahh, Lesley Pilkington. She was interviewed on LBC radio, London, last year. She left me completely baffled. She is completely away with the fairies, to put it kindly. What's frightening is giving someone like her any meaningful political power.

[Joelene9]

  Take it from this 60 year old who had suppressed her GID for most of her life.  This birth sex 'embracement' is a ticking timebomb.  GID treatment from someone who is ex-gay?  Really?  I may be ranting, but I have had it with the male gays anyway!  I have nothing but unsuccess in trying to get along with that group.  Is it because that in the past that one of the partners had to "camp out" in drag to be passable in public?  Is it because that the TG community remind them of that past?  Gay and transgender is like comparing apples and oranges!  Some of the public perception of both of our groups is that we are fruits anyway! 

  Joelene

[Brooke777]

The reality is, anyone can be forced to believe anything.

Beat them enough times, threaten them enough times, displace their family enough times, starve them and/or make them unemployed enough times...

And they'll believe. Or die in the refusal. Meanwhile...if they're dead...who cares about them anymore? FOF--or the Soviets, or the Nazis, or the USG--can always rewrite history to make "those people" the bad guys.

Very true!

[gennee]

What I find unhealthy is people telling us that we are. The APA has a history of pathologising African-Americans. IMHO, people who are spokespersons for ex-gay and ex-transgender 'ministres' are in denial about their own sexuality/gender identity.   

[MaidofOrleans]

"As Christians, of course, we'd say it's not healthy to encourage or promote recognition of a group based on their behaviors or based on something that's problematic psychologically. That's not the same as recognizing people because of their religion or the color of their skin, or things like this. At the same time we want Christians to reach out with love and treat people with respect. That has always been our goal."

I'm sorry buddy but you are not Christians.

[Keira]

"As Christians, of course, we'd say it's not healthy to encourage or promote recognition of a group based on their behaviors or based on something that's problematic psychologically. That's not the same as recognizing people because of their religion or the color of their skin, or things like this. At the same time we want Christians to reach out with love and treat people with respect. That has always been our goal."

I'm sorry buddy but you are not Christians.

Oh I can already imagine what would happen if you turned their statement around...

Say if a group of atheist activists said the same about Christians...

They would absolutely freak right out...and then be labeled as hypocrites.

Disclaimer- this only applies to Christians who preach love for all people and then turn around and start preaching hellfire and damnation to the "homosexuals and gender-confused."

[Beverly]

I live 22 miles inland from the So. California beaches.  FOF was headquarted in a city just east of me, and only 31 miles from the beach until 1990. 

Oh dear! It is worse than I thought then - you only have to get 30 miles inland from the coast....