One of the more maddening aspects of the culture war is that language has been rendered meaningless.

Most of the disputes are destined to remain unresolved because there are a few shared definitions among competing parties.

We are left with armies of straw men

thrashing about on an imaginary battlefield while most of us look on in a state of

bewilderment. The recent debates over conversion therapy are a case in point.

At a Labour Party event in Parliament on the 29th of January,

Kiastama pledged to implement a full trans-inclusive ban

on all forms of conversion therapy.

Now he's likely to find some support among the population.

A U-Gov poll last year revealed that 65% of voters believe that gay conversion therapy ought to be banned, and 62% for... of recognize the difference between the two. A natural consequence of a climate in which

discussion of sensitive issues is routinely stymied by both the brow beaters and the brow

beaten. Yet when we wade beyond the messy definitional quagmires, we find that the phrase conversion therapy

is only coherent when applied to sexual orientation rather than gender identity.

The consequence of this semantic ambiguity means that most people

do not understand that in order to oppose gay conversion therapy one must be opposed to a ban on

trans conversion therapy. Now this is going to require some explanation.

When we hear the phrase conversion therapy most of our minds leap to a variety of horrific

practices in America Christian fundamentalists have established programs to address the problem of homosexuality.

This was satirized in an episode of South Park, where Butters Stotch is mistakenly assumed to be gay by his parents and dispatched to Camp New Grace, whose slogan

is, Pray the Gay Away.

At one point, the boys attend a presentation by Pastor Phillips, who tells them that he used to have unclean urges, but was healed through the power of prayer,

all the while prancing around like Nathan Lane in the birdcage.

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