Michigan’s authoritarian legislators plan to use government power to impose their absurd views on gender identity on the rest of Michigan. The plan is to expand the definition of conversion therapy to restrict parents and therapists from using “gender-affirming care” for children suffering from gender dysphoria.

The state legislature has approved legislation banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ youths. This makes it the 22nd US state to do so.

Michigan lawmakers have approved a bill that bans so-called conversion therapies for minors. This comes as Democrats continue to push a pro-LGBT+ agenda during their first few months of power.

The bill would prohibit mental health professionals from engaging youths in the discredited scientific practice of trying to convert LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations.

Michigan Senate passed the ban with a vote of 21-15 — one Republican voting with Democrats — on Tuesday night after the Michigan House had already approved the bill. The final approval will be given by the Democratic Governor. Gretchen Whitmer has called the therapy “a dangerous practice.”

This occurred just before the Michigan House passed legislation criminalizing the use of the wrong pronouns to refer to a person who is transgender.

Some have proposed expanding the definition of conversion therapy to include children with gender dysphoria. Although the goal may be to protect kids, critics claim that this approach is not only dangerous but also violates parental rights. Advocates of this measure use the power of the state to enforce their views. They ignore the complexity of gender identity and the possibility of resistance or growing out from dysphoria.

This ban on “conversion therapy”, which includes gender dysphoria, is an egregious abuse of parental rights and fails to take into account the best interests of children. It is important to respect the autonomy of parents when it comes to making decisions regarding their child’s wellbeing.

By forcing parents to follow “gender-affirming care” including puberty blocks and surgical treatments without fully evaluating their child’s needs in the long term, they ignore the possibility of natural resistance and deny parents the opportunity to consider alternative approaches. This also means that many children will be forced to undergo these “treatments”, which have been proven to cause irreversible harm to individuals, especially when they grow up.

The complexities of gender dysphoria are important to understand, especially in children and teenagers. While some people continue to identify themselves as transgender in adulthood, research indicates that the majority of children who experience gender dysphoria eventually grow out of it.

The phenomenon of transgender children “growing out of” their transgender identity by the time they are adolescents or adults is called “desistance” by gender researchers.

Since the 1960s, studies on transgender children have revealed that many of them — between 65 and 94 percent — stopped identifying as transgender.

In ignoring the possibility of resistance and focusing solely on affirming a child’s identity as transgender, there is the risk of medicalizing this experience and possibly subjecting children with long-term effects to unnecessary interventions. The “gender-affirming care” is destroying lives without reason.

Those who support these laws use the state’s power to impose their views and limit individual autonomy. Let me be honest. If, under these laws, parents hire a therapist for their child suffering from gender dysphoria and that therapist uses “conversion therapy” as the pro-transitioning kids’ lobby refers to it, the government may send men armed with badges and guns to lock the parents up for allegedly “abusing their child”. The government will take away the license and stop the therapist from practicing their profession, under threat of being put in a cage.

The threat of violence by the government is being used to force your children into a transgender lifestyle. They are serious about their violation of your right to raise your child the way you choose. We are fighting against authoritarians of this type, and we must continue to fight back if we don’t want them to get their way.