Conversion Therapy Isn’t the Cure for ‘Toxic Masculinity’

Article here. Jump the paywall by Googling the first para. text. Excerpt:

'It’s traditional to regard other people’s gender and sexuality as pathological. Mostly male medical professionals once diagnosed “female problems,” including hysteria, fainting spells and chronic irrationality. Doctors and psychiatrists considered homosexuality an illness, and for decades it was listed as such in the diagnostic manual of the American Psychological Association. Some still try to treat homosexuality as a curable condition. Gender nonconformists have been relentlessly pathologized, stereotyped, and even criminalized wherever they wandered into public view.

Yet these traditions are being inverted. Macho men are now taking what we’ve dished out, and “toxic masculinity” is being blamed for school shootings, wars, sexual harassment, and even—God forbid— Donald Trump, who is held up as its very embodiment. Since people who regard themselves as masculine have spent centuries diagnosing other people’s identities, this turnabout might be considered fair play.

There is a certain poetic justice in the reversal. But that doesn’t make it a sensible, effective or morally decent approach to any particular societal problem. I can only say what members of these marginalized groups have said for years: Get your hands off my . . . gender.'