Recently a group of organisations who promote the idea of “gender identity conversion therapy” conducted a survey and produced a report. The report contains a caveat:
“The data should be approached as qualitative and demonstrative rather than as statistically robust
quantitative data. The quantitative findings come with caveats, mainly due to a limited sample size
which affects the ability to conduct statistical significance testing.”
Despite this they make the claim that the findings are “valuable” and give “important insights” into what “gender diverse people have been suffering in the UK.“
“Coupled with other research, the quantitative and rich qualitative data presented in this report
provide sound evidence to show that:
“GICT takes place in the UK
“GICT is harmful and has negative impacts on public health
“A GICT ban is popular among those who’ve undergone the practice”
Michael Biggs, Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, analysed the survey methods and report and we publish his analysis here.
‘Conversion Therapy’ & Gender Identity Survey: an analysis
A guest post by Michael Biggs
The latest salvo in the campaign to legislate for gender ideology is the 2020 ‘Conversion Therapy’ & Gender Identity Survey. It was produced by organizations with a combined earning power £12m per year: Stonewall (£8.3m), the LGBT Foundation (£2.7m), Mermaids (£0.9m), the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (£0.1m annual income), and the Ozanne Foundation. Given their resources, one might have expected something more than a pamphlet of 20 pages. It reports research that is fundamentally flawed.
The respondents were not sampled from a defined population, as in a proper scientific survey. Instead, they were recruited online by the same organizations that are campaigning for legislation. The pamphlet does not provide the questionnaire completed by the respondents, as is standard in scientific research.
As far as one can tell, no academic social scientist was involved in this research. It was overseen by Richard Matousek who is an ‘independent researcher’ at a marketing research company, Kantar. He has only one other research project listed on the website.
Out of a total 1504 responses to the survey, only 51 respondents had undergone ‘gender identity conversion therapy’ (p. 10). Of these, 8 ‘felt it worked completely’ (p. 14). Therefore the survey identified only 43 people who reported negative experiences. This number is surely a slender basis on which to propose new legislation. The category of ‘gender identity conversion therapy’ is so broad that it conflates quite disparate phenomena. On one hand, it includes ‘severe physical and sexual violence’ including rape (p. 5). These abhorrent acts are already serious crimes, and so legislation is not required to outlaw them. On the other hand, the label conversion therapy is also applied to voluntary counselling by an NHS psychotherapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist (p. 12).
The analysis excluded 28% of the survey responses (p. 7). Many of these were omitted for being ‘transphobic’ (p. 18). No objective criteria are provided to define transphobia; the epithet apparently serves to exclude responses that contradicted the legislative agenda of the organizations funding the research. One such response expressed concern that gender-nonconforming homosexuals are being encouraged to imitate the opposite sex by taking cross-sex hormones and enduring surgeries—‘transing the gay away’ (p. 18). Presumably any responses by detransitioners such as Keira Bell or Sinead Watson—who now regret being given medical ‘treatments’ for gender dysphoria—would likewise have been excluded.
In sum, then, the research reported in the pamphlet has little, if any, scientific value. It reinforces the impression that the proposed legislation is motivated by the desire to further institutionalize gender ideology rather than the need to address a real social problem.
To read the full collection of articles by Michael Biggs on the Tavistock’s experimentation with puberty blockers click on the image to download the free pdf here:
‘…the research reported in the pamphlet has little, if any, scientific value. It reinforces the impression that the proposed legislation is motivated by the desire to further institutionalize gender ideology rather than the need to address a real social problem.’ That sounds spot on.
So 43 people experienced ‘negative experiences’ but 28% of 1500, about 420 people, were not allowed to have their experiences reported at all.
An object lesson in how to lie with statistics.
Gender Identity Ideology’s latest ‘conversion therapy’ red herring should ring alarm bells for any thinking person: Not only does it ‘reinforce the impression that the proposed legislation is motivated by the desire to further institutionalize gender ideology, rather than the need to address a real social problem.’ It reinforces my concern that this ‘Trans’ Gender Identity Ideology is deliberately masterminding a MASSIVE social problem – of genocidal proportions.
This yet again is evidence confirming that the trans activists will do anything to stop children who show any sign of being interested in the opposite gender from being gently led to acceptance of their natal sex rather than undergoing the physical and medical ravaging of their bodies and a life of impersonating what they are not. These activist organisations are literally wicked child abusers.