A Bill was introduced into the Victorian (Australia) Parliament two weeks ago, seeking to ban ‘conversion therapy’ and proposing fines of up to $10,000 or up to 10 years in jail for those who attempt to change someone’s sexuality or gender identity. The “Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Bill 2020”, if passed, will give the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission the power to investigate and prosecute anyone who attempts to assist or encourage someone to change their sexuality or gender identity back to their biological gender. In America, twenty states have now passed similar legislation, banning so-called ‘conversion therapy’.
The troubling thing about anti-conversion therapy legislation, is that it only applies in one direction. It is only the attempt to realign someone with their biological gender that is prohibited. Convincing someone that they are a DIFFERENT gender to their biological gender, and helping them to change gender accordingly, is NOT considered to be conversion therapy, and is not subject to the ban. In other words, the proposed legislation makes it illegal to encourage or assist a biological man who thinks he is a woman to begin to see himself as a man again. However, it remains perfectly legal to encourage a biological man to change his gender identity to a woman and to assist him to do so. Similarly, it is perfectly legal to encourage a man to explore and develop his homosexual tendencies, but it is illegal to encourage a homosexual man to explore and develop heterosexual tendencies.
What is even more extraordinary is that the proposed Victorian legislation applies even in the case of a transgender person ASKING FOR HELP to revert to his/her biological gender or a homosexual person asking for help to deal with unwanted homosexual feelings. In other words, even when the person being counselled or assisted has given FULL CONSENT and has even initiated the so-called ‘conversion therapy’, anyone who counsels or assists or even prays with that person to help them reconnect with their biological gender or with their heterosexual nature can be prosecuted and may face up to 10 years in jail.
On the other hand, the LGBTQI community remain able to encourage and assist people to explore other sexualities or change their gender with complete impunity. And this is exactly what they are doing. In state school curriculums across Australia and in other Western nations, young people are now taught about trans-genderism and alternative sexuality and are encouraged to no longer be limited to their biological gender. They are even given help lines and websites to contact where they are encouraged to explore alternate sexuality and gender and are given resources in how to proceed along those lines.
This reveals the extraordinary influence that the LGBTQI lobby now exerts on public consciousness and upon state legislation. Their woke philosophy has infiltrated not only our homes and our schools, but also our houses of parliament and given rise to what must surely be the most outrageously hypocritical piece of legislation ever proposed. It is apparently perfectly acceptable to convince someone that they are NOT their biological gender, but completely unacceptable to help them to see that they are.
Surely the REAL conversion therapy is convincing someone that they are not the gender they were born as. Yet this type of conversion therapy now has the full support of the law and is openly promoted by schools and actively supported by the psychological and medical professions.
In the lead up to the currently proposed Victorian legislation, religious groups lobbied the State Government to have the prohibition only applied to conversion therapy without consent. They argued that if a transgender person initiates contact and requests help to revert to their biological gender, or if someone requests help to eliminate unwanted same-sex attraction, churches and individuals should be able to help and guide them with impunity. This suggestions, however, was rejected. The proposed legislation prohibits anyone from helping such a person, even if they request it. It even makes it illegal to send a person interstate to receive ‘conversion therapy’ in a state where it is legal. Recommending that a person crosses the border to get help can result in prosecution.
The philosophy behind the proposed legislation is a simple one. Victoria’s Attorney General, Jill Hennessy, stated:
“We’re sending a clear message; no one is ‘broken’ because of their sexuality or gender identity. These views won’t be tolerated in Victoria and neither will these abhorrent practices.”
Can you see the hypocrisy in this statement? Conversion therapy is outlawed, based on the claim that no one is “broken” because of their sexuality or gender identity. Yet, the conversion practices of the LGBTQI movement are founded upon the premise that some people are, indeed, “broken”; that they are born in the wrong body. This perception of inherent brokenness, of gender dysphoria arising from a mismatch between body and mental gender – a profound gender unwellness resulting from some kind of major blunder by mother nature – underpins the whole transgender movement. Thus, apparently the LGBTQI movement is allowed to perceive people as broken and are allowed to attempt to fix them through counselling and medical intervention, while anyone who attempts to convince a transgender person that they were NOT born broken – that they are not the product of some cosmic accident that needs to be corrected – can be fined and even locked up in jail.
What a bizarre, twisted society we have become. We encourage men to believe they are women (and vice versa), and we lock up anyone who tells them they aren’t.
The proposed Bill, after being tabled on 18th November, is set for debate in state parliament early next year. Stay tuned.
I agree. What a twisted and hypocritical society we are becoming. Down with the proposed legislation. Who running the Victorian Legislature?