Politics of Changes

There has been a political controversy recently over  psychological techniques or therapies intended to change homosexuals into heterosexuals. Some pro-homosexual activists want them banned completely while some others want a ban only on their use on adolescents. While they are right to oppose people, adults or adolescents, being forced into undergoing these treatments  (or any other treatments to modify their behavior or attitudes, sexual or otherwise), they are wrong  when attempting to prevent people from being allowed to use them voluntarily.

A mentally competent adult has a right to try any therapy he wants and can pay for to deal with any condition he thinks he has, no matter how odd or pointless it seems to others. It is his business and not the business of anyone else, including the government.  The assertion that these techniques do not work is irrelevant. There are all sorts of techniques out there for weight loss, hair removal or restoration, making women prettier and men more virile, and restoring youth which often do not work, but people are free to try them anyway.

The vehemence of the activists suggests something beyond mere concern over the therapies not working. People rarely get that worked up over others doing pointless things which don’t work.  The real point seems to be a belief that attempting to change one’s sexual orientation is not merely  futile but also wrong and against nature. In making such claims, pro-homosexual activists who also support transgendering, are in the strange position of arguing that while one’s conjecturally genetically influenced sexual orientation is  sacrosanct and immutable, one’s demonstrably genetically determined gender is ethically unimportant and subject to alteration by an act of will. It is hard to miss some inconsistency there.

The facts are that some people do change their sexual interests, and some people do go through processes to change their gender. Others may find  their doing so to be bizarre, immoral, neurotic, or worse, but in a free society should not attempt to make the government stop them.