They Don’t Have to Call It Conversion Therapy

They don’t have to call it conversion therapy.

They don’t need a program name.
They don’t need a signed memo.
They don’t need to admit anything.

If you strip away gender-affirming care, tell someone their identity is a mental problem, and put them in a system where they cannot leave—what else do you call it?

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🧠 “It’s All in Your Head”

That phrase should sound familiar.

For decades, LGBTQ+ people have heard it in doctor’s offices, in classrooms, in living rooms.
It’s the foundation of conversion therapy: the idea that who you are is not real, not valid, not fixed—just a mistake waiting to be corrected.

Today, inside federal prisons overseen by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that same logic is quietly being repackaged as “treatment.”

Under policies tied to the administration of Donald Trump, transgender inmates are being denied or cut off from gender-affirming care. Hormones restricted. Surgeries eliminated. Identity reframed as something to be managed psychologically instead of medically.

On paper, it’s policy.

In practice, it’s something else.

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🚧 When “Treatment” Becomes Coercion

Let’s be clear about one thing: therapy itself is not the problem.

Supportive, affirming mental health care saves lives.

But that’s not what we’re talking about.

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We’re talking about a system where:

• You cannot access the care that aligns your body with your identity
• You are told your identity is a disorder
• The only “help” available is aimed at making you tolerate or abandon who you are

Outside prison, you could walk away from that.

Inside prison, you can’t.

That’s not treatment. That’s coercion.

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🏳️‍⚧️ I’ve Seen This Before

I don’t need a government report to tell me what this looks like.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s—when being trans wasn’t understood, wasn’t respected, and definitely wasn’t treated as something real.

It was a punchline at best. A pathology at worst.

And like so many of us, I learned early what the world expected:
Stay quiet.
Hide it.
Push it down.
Fix yourself.

That’s what “treatment” looked like back then.

Not support. Not understanding. Not care.

Correction.

And when you hear that long enough, it does something to you.
It teaches you that maybe you shouldn’t exist.
That maybe the problem isn’t the world—it’s you.

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⚠️ Forced Detransition Is Not Neutral

When you take away hormones from a trans person, that’s not a neutral act.

When you deny transition care, that’s not a passive decision.

When you tell someone their identity is something to be psychologically “resolved,” you are not helping them—you are redefining them.

Call it whatever you want.

The outcome is the same:

• Identity suppression
• Psychological harm
• Increased risk of depression, self-harm, and worse

And when it happens in a prison, where people cannot leave, cannot choose another doctor, cannot advocate freely?

That crosses a line.

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🔥 You Don’t Need the Label

There’s a reason this debate keeps circling one question:

“Is this conversion therapy?”

But that question can actually miss the point.

Because conversion therapy isn’t defined by what it’s called.
It’s defined by what it does.

If a system:

• Removes affirming care
• Replaces it with pressure to conform
• And treats identity as something to be corrected

Then it doesn’t matter what label is used.

It functions the same way.

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✊ The Reality We Can’t Ignore

No one should have to prove that something is officially branded as conversion therapy before we take it seriously.

We’ve seen this before.

We’ve lived it before.

And now, we’re watching it happen again—this time in a system where the people affected have the least power to resist it.

They don’t have to call it conversion therapy.

But if it walks like it, and harms like it, and erases people like it—

We know exactly what it is.

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