This is beautiful. Over 370 religious leaders from 35 countries have signed a declaration demanding a worldwide end to the dangerous practice of conversion therapy for LGBT+ people.

The signatories include Archbishop Desmond Tutu; the Most Revd Linda Nicholls, Archbishop of Canada; the Most Revd Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church; the Most Revd John Davies, Archbishop of Wales; Rabbi Aaron Goldstein, chair of the UK Conference of Liberal Rabbis and Cantors; and many other key figures from many faiths including the Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu religions.

Here’s an extract from their declaration:

• We affirm that all human beings of all sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions are a precious part of creation and are part of the natural order.
• We affirm that we are all equal under God, whom many call the Divine, and so we are all equal to one another.
• We, therefore, call for all to be treated equally under the law…
• We believe that love and compassion should be the basis of faith and that hatred can have no place in religion.
• We call on all nations to put an end to criminalisation on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity, for violence against LGBT+ people to be condemned and for justice to be done on their behalf.
• We call for all attempts to change, suppress or erase a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression – commonly known as “conversion therapy” – to end, and for these harmful practices to be banned.
• Finally, we call for an end to the perpetuation of prejudice and stigma and commit to work together to celebrate inclusivity and the extraordinary gift of our diversity

Oh, to be fast-tracked and rushed into medical treatment. Here are the latest gender clinic waiting times for the UK: in the Exeter area the waiting list for an initial appointment is now five years.

The maximum waiting time for these services is supposed to be 18 weeks.

This, by Jude Ellison Sady Doyle, is very good. Doyle, like me, came out in later life.

It is increasingly possible to envision a future where being trans or nonbinary is as unexceptional as being left-handed. In that world, conversion therapy for trans children will seem as barbaric and nonsensical as the stories about left-handed children who had their hands strapped to their desks until they learned to write “correctly.”

The Shriers and Singals of the world aim to prevent that future with disinformation campaigns. By framing trans children as diseased, deluded, and contagious, they’ve paved the way for a legal agenda that aims to eliminate those children entirely.

…the transphobic agenda has much more wide-ranging ambitions than you’d suppose. In the wake of the U.K.’s puberty-blocker ruling, TERFs immediately began arguing that “the promotion of transgender issues on social media” should be criminalized as well.

Doyle makes the point that while it’s true suicide rates are higher among trans people who aren’t supported, that misrepresents the real human cost: people living miserable lives.

Trans people are forced to perform extremes of suffering to prove that we have a right to exist, as if only the utmost agony could excuse the otherwise unforgivable act of transition. Lots of trans people have been suicidal, including me, but not all trans people die. Lots of us just wind up in the position I was in on my 38th birthday — lonely, depressed, uncomfortable with other people, uncomfortable with ourselves, with a lifetime of relationships that didn’t work, with a history of drinking too much or getting high or playing video games for 24 hours straight to escape our bodies, tense and angry and tired, navigating every social interaction as if we’re playing piano blindfolded at gunpoint, but too afraid to do anything about it, because actually being happy might mean losing our jobs or our friends or the people we love. This is a livable condition. You don’t die from it, at least not right away. It’s just that it’s also not how anyone should live.