Letter to MPs on reintroduction of Bill C-6 to amend the criminal code regarding conversion therapy
Please use any part of this letter for your own use.
Dear [name] MP
Congratulations on your election as MP for [riding] of which I am a constituent.
I write from a deep concern about the physical and mental health of children and the hazards of the current transgender identity movement. This may be an issue you have not looked into much, as many people haven’t until it affects them as a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, a mental health counsellor, a doctor, or some other connection.
I’m assuming in the coming days you will be faced with a vote on a reintroduction of Bill C-6 , An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy). Your party has sponsored this poorly-written piece of legislation. As a new member of parliament I ask you to please fully inform yourself on the implications of criminalizing thoughtful, professional health care for children and youth presenting with gender dysphoria through Bill C-6. It is unfortunate that Bill C-6 conflates lots of good research and medical statements on the harms of conversion therapy related to sexual orientation with treatment of gender dysphoria.
The politicized singular focus on “affirming therapy” is a gross disservice to children and youth who need thoughtful, evidence-based treatment for their distress. In many cases they need to be supported to accept their homosexuality, or bisexuality, which is still stigmatized, rather than be put on a path to lifelong medicalization through experimental puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to “affirm” their identity as the opposite sex.
Conversion therapy as it is properly understood — trying to change a person’s sexual orientation — is unacceptable and deserving of a prohibition. Yet by the addition of “gender identity” this bill will criminalize therapy that helps children and adolescents deal with the homophobia they have experienced and often internalized and come to accept themselves as they are.
Please think carefully about amending the bill to either remove gender identity or more specifically insert an assurance that medical practitioners will not be subject to spurious and intrusive accusations of providing ‘conversion therapy’ when they are not. Exploratory counselling and psychotherapy that is neither “affirmation” nor “conversion” should be the first-line treatment for all young people with gender dysphoria, potentially reducing the need for invasive and irreversible medical procedures. This is especially critical now, when we are witnessing an exponential rise in the incidence of young people presenting with gender dysphoria who have diverse and complex mental health issues and require careful assessment and treatment planning.
For your convenience, here is a link to the excellent submission on Bill C-6 by Canadian Gender Report. Please read this thoroughly researched, balanced submission and ask yourself some questions about the ethics of Bill C-6 and its potential consequences for the safeguarding of children’s health. If you have not had time to thoroughly research this issue as many of us have, this submission has done it for you, including a linked bibliography of relevant research studies, reviews, and news reports.
You owe it to the young people of this country to do no harm to them. In reviewing this bill, please call in medical professionals on all sides of this issue and create room for civil dialogue to inform your decision. In your zeal to protect the human rights and dignity of all people, please don’t shy away from examining unintended consequences for children’s health.
I also ask you to read this beautifully written post on the pitt.substack (PITT stands for Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans):
Letter To a Well Meaning Bystander: Open your mind-when it comes to trans, you might be misguided
I trust you will give this issue the careful thought it deserves. It takes courage in the current social/political climate to challenge beliefs adopted by your political friends. For your information, I am not a conservative in my social or political views and am deeply dismayed by the failure, represented by Bill C-6, to safeguard children’s mental and physical health by the “left” or “centre left” or “progressives.”
Sincerely,
[name]