THE HIDDEN CRISIS BEHIND GENDER AFFIRMATION AND APANZ'S RECENT STATEMENT
Reality Check Radio
I spoke to Paul Brennan on Reality Check Radio in New Zealand to discuss the Association of Psychotherapists Aotearoa New Zealand’s new position statement, which rejects any efforts to help individuals change their sexual orientation or gender identity, describing it as a form of conversion therapy.
Listen to the full discussion here
In Victoria we have the problem that therapists may find themselves in trouble with the law for not following the affirmative care model. In fact parents can find themselves in the same trouble for adopting a “wait and see” approach. Victoria’s Anti-Conversion Therapy law was quietly passed by the Daniel Andrew’s Labor state government without broad community awareness and now sits on books as a legal minefield for parents and therapists. It has also meant that GPs tend to handball people with gender issues ( for want of a better way of defining it) straight into the hands of the gender clinics to avoid legal difficulties. In such an environment parents and therapists are effectively coerced into affirming, on pain of being reported to a government appointed commission that acts much like a Star Chamber, that can order someone to undergo reeducation at their own expense or declining this, face the courts. Both sides of politics seem to be on board with this because it is seen as a niche issue that distracts from big ticket policies and feel it can be safely ignored as an election issue.