Ummmmmmmmmmmm.
Ok?
Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick has admonished Opposition leader Judith Collins for saying the National Party does not have a position on conversion therapy, a harmful practice that attempts to change or suppress an individual’s sexual orientation.
The pseudoscientific treatment, which has been linked to severe mental health issues, uses psychological or physical interventions in an effort to convert an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity – primarily used within religious sectors where the LGBTQI+ community is opposed and frequently condemned.
Ummmm.
Y-e-a-h.
Ok let’s start by pointing out the obvious.
Anyone who believes in a magical flying invisible spell casting Wizard for their moral and ethical compass and use that magical flying invisible spell casting Wizard to force a sexual orientation on another human being is fucking insane and incredibly damaging.
Of course – as an aside – this is the Government currently pushing for hate speech against religion so I’m not sure how they manage to intellectually marry this up with banning gay conversation and defending religion against hate speech, but that’s just me being mean spirited.
Let’s get back to Chloe and the journalist who kept asking question after question after question about National’s position on Gay Conversion.
Now.
YES we should totally mock Judith and National for not actually having a position on this issue.
It’s an issue that matters to the rainbow community and should matter to any citizen in a secular democracy.
B-U-T
And I hate to point this out Chloe, but aren’t YOU the Government and have been the Government for 3 years, going on 4?
I’m far less interested in Judith’s and National’s position on Gay Conversion therapy and far more interested in what you as the Government are actually doing about it?
Turns out, Labour and the Greens have been doing fuck all about Gay Conversion Therapy..
Labour urged to hurry on promised conversion therapy ban
The Government won’t say when it plans to roll out long-awaited legislation banning the practice of conversion therapy, despite it being a Labour manifesto pledge at the last election.
The ban is coming, but Justice Minister Kris Faafoi’s office is being tight-lipped about when to expect it, saying they can’t give timeframe for any draft legislation.
In response to queries, Faafoi’s office said it couldn’t yet give a timeframe on when legislation for the ban would be published and introduced.
..so Labour and the Greens are the ones dragging their heels here, meaning attacking National (who aren’t in power) for not having a position seems a tad churlish.
But while we are on the topic of Gay Conversion Therapy and Gender Conversion Therapy, would THIS type of Conversion Therapy be allowed?
A couple are refusing to reveal the sex of their 17-month-old baby to their close family because they want to protect them from ‘unconscious gender bias’.
Mother Hobbit Humphrey, 38, and father Jake England-Johns, 35, who live on a houseboat in Keynsham, near Bath, said they are currently dressing 17-month-old Anoush in both boys and girls clothes.
The married couple, both members of the Extinction Rebellion climate action group, are also asking friends and family to address the toddler using the gender-neutral pronouns, ‘they’ and ‘them’.
I love that the Mums name is ‘Hobbit’.
Look, I’m old fashioned. I think parents have an obligation to provide space for children to be children and that if those children decide in their own experiences that they are gay, Bi, Trans, queer, heterosexual, assexual or polyamorous they should be respected for their choice and be allowed to establish their sexual orientation and identity, but parents pushing ideological straightjackets onto their children, be it for religious or woke identity politics, should be called out for the damage they are causing.
UPDATE: Labour have announced they intend to put legislation towards banning Gay Conversion Therapy this year.
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This is unbelievable.
Chloe, the housing crisis (heard of it?) worsens while you guys pretend or just don’t really care it exists.
People are now blowing well over 60% of their income on rent and no one in government really gives a shit. And every week that goes by that number goes up.
Some of your must vulnerable citizens you lot claim you represent are being dumped into motels and the like, only because living in a car or under a bridge is just too embarrassing even for a politician, never knowing where they might end up in a month, because of our worsening housing crisis…
But instead of going hard out on that you mock the powerless redundant Collins on gay conversion therapy?
What the fuck?
+100 x-ray. You perfectly sum up my view on this. As Bomber has said more than once welcome to neokindness…
When we have god only knows how many kids living with all kinds of abuse etc I literally fail to see how a ‘gay conversion policy’ is a priority in the slightest.
I takes a brave and intelligent person to point one the hypocrisy of one’s own tribe – well done.
That said it’s probably the final nail of the coffin for your wedding invite this year.
Why didn’t Chloe berate Jacinda for not having a position on how she would vote in the cannabis referendum?
I hear many Ministers of this current government blame the previous government for a problem . They seem to forget they were the previous government . Labour were given so much political capital because National were not really in the game but what have they done with it to push through any real change to those at the bottom of the ladder.
Trevor might I remind you that Labour were not the Previous govt. the Coalition was the Govt. Very different but easily confused.
” Turns out, Labour and the Greens have been doing fuck all about Gay Conversion Therapy..”
And just about everything else that requires urgent attention and the courage to see it through.
This government is actually worse than the last National , Maori, ACT government because at least they governed for their donors, the wealthy and special interests.
The free market Social Democrats have the biggest majority since Bolger and Ruth’s decent society in 1990 and are clearly going to squander this massive opportunity to be as Adern said ” Transformational ” which is now sounding just like all the other empty clichés political self serving parties like to use.
No dishonesty from Jacinda. She and her team ARE transforming NZ -transitioning it from kleptomaniac oligarchy to feudalism (with a tad more fascism than before).
I can hardly wait for the ‘broken’ financial markets and ‘broken’ equity markets to collapse:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/stock-market-broken-now-all-see
On the other hand, the degree of in NZ and elsewhere fascism is likely to surge when they do.
The national party ARE a mental health problem.
One day, and sooner rather than later, when we hear a brain fart pop out of a natzo we’ll laugh then shake our heads as we walk away.
They’re already an expensive gaggle of half wits educated well beyond their intelligence trying to open up trade with a planet besieged by a deadly virus. Can you just imagine what AO/NZ might be like now had they won the last election!? While I’m no adherent to aderns gubbimint for their reluctance to front up to the con/swindle combo that is neoliberalism I think she’s predominantly guided by her humanism and common sense. Collins, on the other hand, is a plain and boring woman, extremely unlikeable on all levels to this person and just plain dumb. Her political colleagues appear to be escapees from a large box of Zombies that’s fallen off the back of a truck driving from a laboratory known for its radical medical experiments on the mind and body.
No one should give one fuck about what people do when all parties happily agree on fun and pleasure.
Surely? So long as people smile, are happy and joyful?
Does that sound like a Natzo world to you?
( Another way to look at the National Party is as a group of capitalists pushing a business model on us by using their knowledge of our politics to enable them to make $-profits. That’s not politicians being political. That’s not people trying to manage a society effectively by specifically targeting those most at risk first. That’s business people being business people and so they’ll have ZERO interest in those at risk, in danger, in hunger, in poverty because those people can’t return a $-profit. That’s not politics. That’s business and business people need to be kept as far away from politics as needed. Otherwise naked democratic politics can always be defined as Fascism. )
Banning gay conversion therapy? Yeah that must be somewhere in my top 10,000 priorities.
Here Labour and the Greens go again, sliding ‘gender identity’ into a more popular, well understood Bill, as if sexuality conversion therapy, and gender identity therapy are the same thing.
There is a long documented history of dodgy practices where people try to change the sexuality of same -sex attracted people: lesbian, gay and bi-sexual people. It doesn’t work, and can be harmful.
The best practices for children and young people is to allow them to decide their sexuality for themselves. ie. do nothing, accept them as they are, and go with what they say about themselves. if they change their minds when they get older, no big deal.
Buuuut… it’s not the same for alleged gender identity conversion therapy. For gender ideologists, affirmation only is the way forward for any child or young person who says they do not feel like their sex,ie male/female as observed, identified and recorded at birth. There are only 2 human sexes, as for most mammals, it is set at conception and can’t be changed.
Genderists want anyone who says they feel they are a different gender should immediately be affirmed, and offered medications and or surgery, that can have life long impacts. For them, anything else is ‘conversion therapy’. But the lifelong impacts can be infertility, loss of sexual function or limited sexual response, increased likelihood of cardio-vascular illnesses, and more.
Some genderists see doing nothing, and allowing the child time to fully mature, as ‘conversion therapy’.
As increasing numbers of young detransitioners are testifying, they thought they wanted to transition at the time – most often detransitioners are young females, who opted to transition medically in their early to mid teens.
Many were prescribed puberty blockers and then testosterone (by a 2 weekly injection). Many also went on to have ‘top surgery’ ie double mastectomy. Then, by they time they reached mid-20s (when the brain reaches full maturity), some decide it was mistake. They then mourn the changes they cannot undo – deeper voice, thinning head hair, body hair, and the amputation of their breasts, possible infertility.
Among detransitioners many say they now wish they had been offered alternatives to medical transitioning eg therapy to deal with gender dysphoria (discomfort with their sexed body). It is very common for young women to feel at odds with their bodies while going through puberty. As well as the daunting physical changes, they can experience unwanted male attention, being relegated to secondary status, etc.
Some female detransitioners say they had other issues, including internalised homophobia. ie they are same sex attracted and felt that it would be more acceptable to transition to be a man, than to be a lesbian. And for them, transitioning was actually lesbian conversion therapy. Thus sexuality conversion therapy, and gender ID conversion therapy can be in conflict.
Much more research is needed to discover how many detransitioners there are, and what their issues are – some say deciding to transition was due to childhood trauma or abuse, others say they were later diagnosed as ADHD or autistic – conditions where people can feel disconnected from their bodies. And more.
I would be happy for the government to go ahead with a Bill outlawing conversion therapy for same-sex attracted people.
But linking it to banning of ‘gender identity’ conversion therapy, risks denying young people the counselling and support they need to understand more about why they want to transition – before making a decision that has a life long impact, which teenagers may not fully understand.
If you want to offer gay conversion therapy, make sure you have appropriate qualifications to do it, I would say equal to a psychiatrist. That should do it.
You wouldn’t go to a pastor/priest to get your wisdom teeth sorted, why would you trust one with something as important and life affecting as this.
They want to ban Christian counselling between consenting adults who freely wish to practice their religion.
But don’t give a shit about genital mutilation and experimental hormones given to children… a sane society would call this “child abuse” but now we are so woke we have disappeared up our own arseholes.
Jesus, what did I miss. It seems I missed the bit where the Greens won an election outright, or the one where they are a coalition partner. Chloe is the government??????????
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