As explained in part 1, the California Assembly is passing bill AB2943 banning the dissemination of all views, be it by book sales, conferences, websites, therapy sessions for consenting adults who choose to pay, views which are contrary to the position of the LGBT Division of the American Psychological Association . When looking into the bill itself, we see that the bill starts off with a world-view stance which in itself is deceptive, misleading and fraudulent in terms of consumer protection. The draft reads,
“2.a. Contemporary science recognizes that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is part of the natural spectrum of human identity and is not a disease, disorder, or illness.”
The word “contemporary science” is incorrect, there is no consensus on the matter as we shall demonstrate. In this article, we will look solely into this claim. We will look at the historic events of 1973 and quote six contemporary scholars on orientation issues.
The bill addresses the issue that consenting and fully accountable adults in California need to be “protected”, just like a 6 year old. Of course, these adults need no guidance when viewing sadomasochistic gay porn or enrolling for a gay dungeon party (bring your own whip). But when the book “The Battle for Normality” by Gerard van den Aardweg, PhD, lies in the bookshop, then the legislative members have been led to believe that the idea of normality is extremely harmful in this day and age in California. And the necessity for protecting adults against normality in the bookshop is fully scientifically based. So harmful. Or is it?
1. American Psychiatric Association
In 1973 no less than 42% of the psychiatric community, united in the American Psychiatric Association, voted against removing homosexuality from the list of mental issues needing help and research, because there was no underlying scientific evidence to support the move. It was highly controversial then, it is highly controversial now. To this day, evidence in support of the move has not been supplied. There is no article proving that same-sex attractions are just one of those everyday things, like a cloud in the sky.
The move at that time was solely based on radical gay activism and imposed by force on the psychiatrists at their annual conferences in 1971 and 1973. In this day and age, it would be labeled as terrorism to perpetrate the violent and intimidating actions of the extremist activists in 1973 to deliberately disrupt the conference in order to enforce a certain outcome. The 3-day conference was in fact almost called off.
In gay activist circles, it is called ‘stonewalling’, the sudden appearance of a huge flash mob, seemingly coming out of nowhere and meant to overwhelm. It is a preconceived and intimidating hit-and-run tactic, in an effort to have the police called and then to subsequently gain the victim role.
In Wikipedia, we read,
“The Stonewall riots (also referred to as the Stonewall uprising or the Stonewall rebellion) were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the LGBT community.”
The flash mob technique is also known as “Act-Up!”, and is widely performed to create public pressure. It is mostly used in the anarchistic squatters movement, radical gay AIDS activism and extreme gay-lib.
At the 1973 conference, (straight) activists who also came around to lend a hand from a protest against the Vietnam War closeby , formed a complete circle around the conference building, shoulder to shoulder, prohibiting psychiatrists from entering. The psychiatrists came from all over the USA and did not know what hit them. They thought everyone was gay; and there were so many infuriated young men!
In The Washington Post we read:
“When the American Psychiatric Association (APA) held its conference in Washington in 1971, Mr. Kameny crashed the event, seized the microphone and said, “We’re not the problem. You’re the problem!”
On the gay-lib website Rainbowhistory, we read,
“Because the 1971 conference would be held in Washington D.C., Mr. Kameny was asked whether he would moderate a panel called “Lifestyles of Non-Patient Homosexuals” at the 1971 gathering. He did so, but he also collaborated with the Gay Liberation Front to plan an aggressive protest action. At a pre-arranged time, as GLF members invaded and disrupted the conference, Kameny seized the convention hall’s microphone and shouting above the din, declared, “Psychiatry is the enemy incarnate…Psychiatry has waged a relentless war against us. You may take this as a declaration of war against you!”
The Declaration of War that Mr. Kameny issued was no joke and is still valid today. It is part of the Anti-Psychiatry Movement, a highly controversial ideological effort which aimed in the previous century to change all definitions of mental problems, thereby stabbing psychiatry in the heart. In Wikipedia, we read,
“Anti-psychiatry is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment is more damaging than helpful to patients. It considers psychiatry a coercive instrument of oppression.”
Dissident psychiatry (if persistent) is to be silenced and dissident mental health workers are to be locked up if at all possible.
Activists at the American Psychological Association continuously rewrite history about the 1973 event, in order to make it look like one long, smooth transition or evolution of scientific thought. Well, it wasn’t. There was nothing scientific about it. It is the biggest hoax of the 20th century.
Thanks to this extremist left-wing militarism towards the psychiatric community, we now see
-psychiatrists losing their license for life in New York as of 2017 if they discuss the opposite sex with a “gay” client, and gay activists oversimplifying sexuality as an on/off phenomenon and then blaming the therapist for “his/her” view,
– we see mental health workers intimidated and imprisoned for up to a year in Malta thanks to members of the International Gay and Lesbian Alliance who were flown over from the USA in 2016 to help pass legislation to imprison mental health workers,
-we see activists tackling each American state to ban books, conferences, websites, in fact anything and everything connected to dissident view (2018: “50 States-50 Bills”, Samantha Ames and Samuel Brinton),
It must be said that it is strange to see tough-guy lesbians, who once insisted that burly male cops were the zenith of a patriarchal and paternalistic society, are now finding themselves licking his heels. “Paternalism is good, paternalism is right. Fuck the system, you say? So-o-o 20th century!”
2. Professor Tamsin Wilton
Miss Wilton is an activist lesbian scholar of Gender Studies. She is professor of Human Sexuality at the University of the West of England, UK. In her book “Sexual (Dis)orientation”, she writes,
“It is important to state that social constructionist accounts do not themselves absolutely exclude essentialism. Thus, for example, there may indeed be a ‘gay gene’ (although the existing evidence is remarkably weak); however, the expression of any such genetic inheritance in and by any particular individual will depend on so complex a set of social, cultural and psychological factors as to make it radically difficult, if not impossible, to isolate its effects.
Thus, even if we accept that there may be an essential element in sexuality, this is not at all the same as claiming that sexual orientation is an involuntaryindividual characteristic, nor that there are such ‘things’ as homo-, hetero- or bisexuality. Given the complicated socio-cultural constructions of both gender and the erotic, the notion that sexuality may exclusively be orientated towards men for no reason at all, towards women or sometimes suddenly towards both, must be seen as a very large claim indeed. Moreover, to append to the notion of sexual orientation the further stage of sexual identity formation – the psychosocial process by which individuals name themselves lesbian, gay, bisexual or (less often) straight – is to enter theoretical territory of daunting complexity.”
The technical word ‘essential’ means in modern lay terms ‘born that way’. So, what she is writing is:
“Even if we accept that there may be a notion of ‘born that way’, this is not at all the same as claiming that there are such ‘things’ as homo-, hetero- or bisexuality”.
Here, we see a lesbian identified UK professor placing a huge question mark behind the notion that a two-faced coin ‘homosexual/heterosexual’ actually exists. The debate is of “daunting complexity”, so she states. This complexity stands in sheer contrast to the simplifications in the California bill.
3. Professor Jane Ward
Another example is lesbian identified scholar Dr. Jane Ward, professor of Gender Studies at the University of California-Riverside. In an article in 2017, called “Born this way? It is more complicated than that”, she writes,
“Getting America to believe that people are born gay — that it’s not something that can be chosen or ever changed — has been central to the fight for gay rights. If someone can’t help being gay any more than they can help the color of their skin, the logic goes, denying them rights is wrong. There are a lot of lesbians who subscribe to the ‘born this way’ narrative, in part because it’s become almost an obligatory story. But many members of the LGBTQ community reject this narrative, saying it only benefits people who feel their sexuality and gender are fixed rather than fluid, and questioning why the dignity of gay people should rest on the notion that they were gay from their very first breath.”
4. Professor Henning Blech
Dr. Henning Bech is a gay identified professor of sociology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is author of the book ‘When Men Meet: Homosexuality And Modernity’. In this book, he argues that homosexuality is no longer viewed as a separate identity in current science. In an interview, he says:
“Ideas of hierarchy and dichotomy, of oppression and exclusion have become quasi-automatic and almost compulsory in many studies of these fields, for instance in feminism, migration studies and queer studies. In my own work, I have made a critique of these tendencies.”
In another book, ‘Introducing The New Sexuality Studies, 2nd edition’ (2017), he says,
“What is specifically interesting about Denmark is the trend towards the disappearance of all kinds of homosexual, gay, lesbian and queer identities. What remains of the divide between a heterosexual identity and a homosexual identity is merely a matter of sexual or erotic taste, and that is something entirely different from the idea of the homosexual as a separate human type or identity. Thus we are witnessing the end of “the homosexual”. “
5. Drs. Mayer and McHugh
On the website ‘Ethics & Public Policy Center’ we read,
“Epidemiologist Dr. Mayer and psychiatrist Dr. McHugh made it clear in their 2016 review that the science is far from settled. The authors reviewed the findings of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies on gender and sexuality, and their conclusions challenge some of the popular cultural myths that surround questions of sexual orientation and gender identity. Their study refutes the LGBT ‘Born that Way’ theory as well as dismissing the ‘transgender’ labels for children.”
6. Dr. Laura A. Haynes
The Californian scholar, Laura A. Haynes, PhD, writes
“The Handbook of the American Psychological Association says that it is not true that same-sex attraction and transgender identity never change. The APA (2011) officially recognizes sexual fluidity or sexual orientation change. The APA Handbook says, “Although change in adolescence and emerging adulthood is understandable, change in adulthood contradicts the prevailing view of consistency in sexual orientation” (Rosario & Schrimshaw, 2014, APA Handbook, v. 1, p. 562). Also, both the American Psychiatric Association (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-Fifth Edition, p. 455) and the American Psychological Association (Bockting, 2014, APA Handbook, v. 1, p. 744) recognize transgender identity fluctuates, and the vast majority of gender dysphoric minors will eventually accept their chromosomal sex. Therapy that is open to change is more in harmony with the course of sexual orientation and gender identity for many than is gay-affirmative or transgender-affirmative therapy.”
7. Women’s Studies Resources for Students
In the Glossary of Womens Studies Terms, which is used for contemporary Gender Studies at universities in the USA, we read,
“Sexual identity: one’s gender orientation (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transsexual). According to most gender theory, sexuality is fluid, not a fixed concept, so these categories may be unnecessarily rigid.”
8. Conclusion
The statement in paragraph 2a of the bill, claiming that “contemporary science” would “recognize” that the LGBT labels are “part of the natural spectrum of human identity” is simply not true. The stance is a reflection of the ‘born that way’ theory, but even a short look in the literature reveals that distinguished scholars on gender issues do not support the view.
Given the fact that the rest of the bill content relies heavily on this ideological stance, and given the fact that it is not supported by scientific facts as claimed, then the content of the bill is in itself to be regarded as fraudulent and deceptive.
People trading in a commercial setting and psychotherapists who would follow the bill, end up acting in a deceiving and fraudulent way. In this sense, the bill places them in an impossible position, making the approval of the bill an act of bad governance.
To be continued
Job Berendsen, MD
