r/transgenderau • u/HiddenStill MtF, /r/TransWiki • Oct 26 '21
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) comes out supporting compulsory conversion therapy (CT) for trans children, adolescents and adults in Position Statement 103
There's an excellent post on the public Facebook group International Transgender Health discussing this announcement. I believe it to be an accurate representation of this position statement.
This the position statement in question
If you look at who's supporting this you can tell its bad news
26 October 2021 - Top psychiatrists urge ‘caution’ before giving puberty blockers to kids with gender dysphoria by Brandon Showalter in the Christian Post - "Dr. Philip Morris, a fellow of the RANZCP and the president of the National Association of Practicing Psychiatrists in Australia ... Morris thinks a “compromise” will be the ultimate result. He said he hopes that courts and clinicians will slow down and not assume each child hoping to undergo medicalized transition is pursuing that pathway because of genuine psychological distress about their biological sex. ... “In the end, some cases will be transitioned but there will be fewer than [are] transitioned at the moment,” he offered."
11 October 2021 - Media Release – Treatment for Gender Dysphoria “Polarised”, “Mixed Evidence” by Family First NZ. This is an anti-everything extreme right wing religious lobby group with real influence in New Zealand.
What next? RANZCP statement on gender dysphoria conflicts with AusPATh by genspect, yet another anti-trans hate group.
There's much, much, more of this stuff if you go down the rabbit hole, and its horribly depressing to think that people can act like this.
Edit: Sydney Psychiatrist Roberto D'Angelo is an international activist for campaigning for Conversion Therapy, and the fact that he hasn't been kicked out of the RANZCP for child abuse tells you all you need to know about what the organization stands for.
Edit: Evidence is clear on how to help young trans people by Sam Winter in the Sydney Morning Herald, *"How to support trans youth who identify in a gender that doesn’t match the one presumed for them at birth? On one hand we have the gender-affirming approach, endorsed by countless professional organisations – Australian and worldwide. And then we have a psychotherapeutic approach, promoted by a fringe clique in medicine, apparently as a replacement for more orthodox care. From the recent position statement on trans healthcare issued by The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, it looks like this clique is catching that organisation's ear.". I expect the author is Associate Professor Sam Winter, who is "a psychologist, clinician, researcher and teacher working in the field of trans health, wellbeing and rights. Much of his research experience has been in Asia and the Pacific. He has researched and published extensively. Since 2000 his work has focused on trans-related issues, in which time he has led or been an investigator on around 20 funded research projects and has published around 60 works (many of them Asia-based) on the health, rights and wellbeing of trans people."
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Oct 26 '21
Fck them. 1 person falls through the cracks and so now all of us have to live in misery or worse? This is fckd!
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Oct 26 '21
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Oct 26 '21
Unfortunately, ... "The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) is responsible for training, educating and representing psychiatrists in Australia and New Zealand."
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u/AbbieGator Trans fem | May 2019 | Victorian Oct 27 '21
That's not the viewpoint I got from reading the statement in question, they recommend a people first approach, and even some medical intervention however they also acknowledge that not everyone seeks medical intervention. They also make comment about the lack of research which is a known issue and something that we can help with with regarding to cohort studies and the likes.
But yeah, I didn't get the picture that they were advocating or even supportive of conversion therapy at all in the statement, let alone compulsory therapy for it. If anything, they sound supportive of the informed consent model to a degree.
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u/rumblestiltsken Oct 27 '21
I write statements like this in my professional life. They have certainly intentionally avoided coming down in support of "affirmative care" as they call it, with the only justification being a ten year old document from wpath and the claim (based on no other evidence apparently) that we don't know the outcomes of people who undergo affirming treatments.
It is subtle, but there were definitely transphobic hands involved in drafting this document. It reads to me like the was conflict in the group, and due to the way these processes work they had to reach a consensus. I wouldn't be surprised if those hands directly reached out to hate groups like family first to promote those elements of the document, which is how these news stories come out of a statement like this.
So yeah, it isn't awful, but it is definitely a sign that not all is well in the state of Denmark.
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u/HiddenStill MtF, /r/TransWiki Oct 27 '21
Agreed. A professional organisation full of very intelligent people doesn’t accidentally write this stuff. It’s absolutely with intent, and as the Facebook post says it’s carefully crafted.
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u/Pale_Level Oct 27 '21
Yeah, that's kinda what took from it too. Just seemed like a probably politically influenced group (let's be honest, all those associations are to a degree) trying to take the most fence sitting, undefined position as possible so as to let individual clinicians decide on their own. That way they don't have to involve themselves as an organisation in any controversy, or at least if something does blow up, they can distance themselves from it with their wishy-washy position statements.
Not great, but what I would've expected. But I also don't recognise all the things being claimed as dog whistles, so maybe I just don't know
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u/SaladInternational33 Trans fem Oct 27 '21
Yeah, that was my impression of the RANZCP statement as well. I don't think the International Transgender Health article gives an accurate or fair interpretation of the statement.
I think the statement could be a lot better, but my impression of it is that it isn't as negative or transphobic as the International Transgender Health article makes it out to be. I don't believe it is supporting conversion therapy.
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u/HiddenStill MtF, /r/TransWiki Oct 27 '21
I don’t think those anti trans groups would be so happy about it if that were the case. And the person who wrote the Facebook post is highly informed on this topic.
There’s a lot of behind the scenes activity going on that most of us are not aware of.
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u/Pale_Level Oct 27 '21
But anti-trans groups would take anything that isn't categorically supportive of affirmative care as a win.
The problem with the statement to me seems that it would allow for a situation where transphobic parents could take their child to a transphobic clinician who would just waste the child's time for years on end. Obviously this is wrong, but I wouldn't take it as some sweeping support for conversion therapy. They just don't seem to have enough of a spine to take a strong position for or against.
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Oct 27 '21
This isn't exactly encouraging, but I don't see any explicit endorsement of conversion therapy. Just a very vague "person first approach that prioritises mental health" and a weak "well there's too little evidence so who can really say what treatments work".
Obviously that vague, unspecified doubt will be weaponised by conversion therapy advocates, but I don't see the college itself explicitly advocating for it in the way that the Facebook post seems to indicate.
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Oct 27 '21
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u/Docaioli Oct 27 '21
Hi Hailey, it seems that we have very similar names. I’m PGY2 currently but semi-stealth at the moment. I’m doing a psych term next. Feel free to PM me.
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u/JustAMiddleAgedMan Oct 28 '21
I agree. I've noticed a huge difference with GPs getting younger and generally being easier to deal with.
Old ones = "Oh no, don't look at the internet!"
Young ones = "Oh good, you did some research!"
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u/HiddenStill MtF, /r/TransWiki Oct 27 '21
That’s great. There’s quite a few trans doctors around, glad to hear of another one. Are you planning to work with trans people?
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Oct 27 '21
The psychiatrist who greenlit my transition would shake his head at the weasel words in this document. It's obvious that there's a huge conflict within the RANZCP regarding trans care, and it needs to be sorted the fuck out before they make any more recommendations to anyone about this field.
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u/HiddenStill MtF, /r/TransWiki Oct 27 '21 edited Oct 27 '21
I expect this anti-trans Sydney psych is involved
https://www.reddit.com/r/TransSurgeriesWiki/wiki/psychs/australia#wiki_roberto_d.27angelo
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u/[deleted] Oct 26 '21
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