Transphobic Feminism + Psychology = Conversion Therapies
This article was originally published by MILENIO, before being taken down in response to pressure from transexclusionary groups. I’ve translated it from the Spanish with the express permission of the author, Láurel Miranda. You can read her original piece here. Please get in touch with me directly at laurensarahcocking at gmail dot com to republish this translation elsewhere.
The first time I went to a psychologist I was 15, I’d just come out as a cisgender gay man and one of my parents thought it’d be a good idea to “get my bearings” by which they meant get myself back on the road to heterosexuality. Back then, fortunately, I already knew that a professional psychologist wouldn’t have me turn my back on my sexual orientation; rather, they’d support me on the journey of self-acceptance. And that’s what happened. What I didn’t see coming was, after telling them about my history of sexual abuse between the ages of 7 and 8, the psychologist asking me if I’d enjoyed what happened (no, I’m not kidding) and, if not, why I hadn’t spoken up and asked my parents to denounce my abuser. The cherry on the cake was when they said that due to my silence, my abuser had probably gone on to abuse others.
Why am I telling you this? Well, because the job of a professional psychologist seems to me to be extremely tricksy. Tricksy in the sense that it requires knowledge, tact and empathy in order to tackle the different issues with which a patient could be dealing. In the case of the aforementioned example, it didn’t mean a thing that my therapist was well-versed in sexual orientations, because they were lacking when it came to sexual abuse (of a child, no less). Unfortunately, even nowadays there are psychologists that bring their own prejudices into their professional practice, as opposed to their knowledge, ethics and respect for human rights.
Conversion Therapies
Although much has been said about so-called conversion therapies (or efforts to ‘correct’ sexual orientation and gender identity) — to the extent that they’re punishable in Mexico City — it seems that the discussions haven’t been enough. Apologies to my LGB companions, but for now I want to focus on just how dangerous these types of torture (because they are torture) can be within the trans community.
I’ve written about the existence of exclusionary feminisms whose discourse goes against people’s bodily autonomy and that, as such, seeks to restrict the decision-making capacity of those bodies or identities which they code as ‘incorrect’ or, in their own words, ‘reproductive agents of the patriarchy’. We’re talking, of course, about trans and nonbinary people, but also about sex workers or women who decide to engage in surrogacy. It greatly concerns me, however, that this feminism riddled with prejudices and ideas that mirror those of the most conservative right-wing, is the baseline from which some psychologists operate professionally.
For those that aren’t familiar with the problem, let me fill you in. For the transexclusionary radfems, trans people are non-existent, which means they always read transwomen as men, while transmen are understood to be women confused by a deep-rooted internalised misogyny, one which has them rejecting their identity as a woman in order to attain male privilege by way of gender transition.
Violence Against Transmasculinities
What happens if we combine transexclusionary radfems with psychology? Well, we end up with pseudo-therapists trying to convince their patients, especially transmen, that they’re not trans. Because it’s worth noting that while these therapists identify as radfems, they only treat women (or transmen, although they refuse to respect their gender identity). When talking about transexclusionary feminism we’re typically and mostly referring to the violences exercised against transwomen, but it’s worth emphasising that this practice of conversion therapies is merely one of the multiple violences carried out against transmen.
Furthermore, the vision of these pseudo-therapists is limited when it comes to understanding the differences between sexual orientation and gender identity. Convinced that trans people further the erasure of straight women and lesbians (a conspiracy theory as nutty as flat-earthers), they can’t even begin to understand that there are gay transmen, by which I mean that they’re attracted to cis and other transgender men.
As such, their phobia towards trans people is based on two catastrophic potentialities: transwomen will end up invading all their spaces, to physically abuse them, while transmen will contribute to the reduction of the female population, as well as proliferate the use of inclusive language which will ‘erase’ words like ‘woman’, ‘mother’, ‘maternity’ or ‘leche materna’ (breastmilk, in Spanish). From there comes their robust rejection of laws which use more inclusive phraseology, such as ‘pregnant person’ to refer to all people that, regardless of gender, are capable of reproduction. Why does it matter that that category be incorporated into law, without the need to eliminate the category of ‘woman’? Well, for the simple fact that transmen or transmasculine people should have access to rights like safe abortion or menstrual products.
In Mexico City, conversion therapies have been rechristened as ‘Efforts to Correct the Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity’ and they’re punishable by jail terms of between 2 and 5 years, and between 50 and 100 hours of community service. In Spain, along with the Trans Law (Ley Trans) they’re also promoting the LGBTI Law (Ley LGBTI), which carry fines of up to 3.7 million Mexican pesos for people perpetuating such practices. What do we need to do in Mexico to ensure these tortures enacted against the LGBTI community are punishable the length and breadth of the country? Above all, what do we need to do to move past punitive punishments and become a society that respects the bodily and gender autonomy of people of all ages?
I don’t have the right answer, but what I do know is that, at the very least, we need conscientious psychologists and hate-free feminisms.
Láurel Miranda is a transwoman and journalist who currently works as the SEO Manager for Grupo MILENIO. She also teaches multimedia journalism in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at UNAM. She loves her family, her cat and hot chocolate. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Lauren Cocking is a Yorkshire-born, Mexico City-based writer, reviewer and translator working from Spanish into English. She’s currently translating a collection of short stories by a debut Mexican author and trying to learn Welsh. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
