Scientific evidence doesn’t show sexual orientation, gender identity are fixed

CARSON CITY

Liberals claim they want to keep government out of the bedroom, but they’re working to put government into your therapist’s office.

On Monday, Sen. David Parks, D-Las Vegas, presented SB201, which would bar mental health professionals, including licensed counselors and therapists, from practicing conversion therapy for minors.

“Conversion therapy, sometime referred to as reparative therapy, is a range of treatments that aim to change someone’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual as well as to change someone’s gender identity,” said Parks. “Conversion therapy is a dangerous, unscientific and unethical practice based on the premise that people can change their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The science, however, isn’t what proponents assert, and looking at the evidence undercuts the bill’s rationale. In a review of almost 200 scientific papers published in The New Atlantis Journal in Fall 2016, Dr. Paul McHugh, a professor from Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Lawrence Mayer, a scholar in residence at Johns Hopkins University, found that scientific evidence doesn’t show sexual orientation and gender identity are immovable.

“The understanding of sexual orientation as an innate, biologically fixed property of human beings — the idea that people are ‘born that way’ — is not supported by scientific evidence,” they write. “The hypothesis that gender identity is an innate, fixed property of human beings that is independent of biological sex — that a person might be ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’ or ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ — is not supported by scientific evidence.”

McHugh and Mayer find that 80 to 95 percent of youths who have transgendered feelings “abandon them as they mature.”

SB201 would prevent counselors and therapists from helping these youths in any way process and navigate their changing feelings about sexual orientation or gender identity — even if the child is desperate for professional help.

Religious liberty is at stake as well. If a Muslim teenager goes to a Muslim therapist for help changing homosexual feelings to align with the Koran, the counselor couldn’t read passages from the Koran where it condemns homosexuality. The same would be true for Christian, Jewish or Mormon teenagers looking for professional help to live out their faith. SB201 would prevent a counselor from reading portions of their holy books in counseling sessions.

These scientific findings may trigger in some liberals the need for a safe space. I recommend a counselor’s office — an office that should be free from government overreach.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com. Follow @victorjoecks on Twitter.