Captive science - a big interview with Melinda Hal

We talked with Melinda Hal, a clinical psychologist and economist, about the rise of the LGBTQ movement, which now also targets preschoolers, about keeping politicians in check, about holding the medical community captive, about the economic interests hiding in the background, and about how all this affects the physical and mental development of children. As a leading researcher at MCC's Learning Research Institute, he perceives both the theoretical side and the practical side of the movement's effects as a psychologist at the Baja Hospital.

Can it be said that some disciplines in Western culture, including psychology, have fallen prey to LGBTQ ideology?

It can be stated because that's what it's really about. The sexual revolution that started in the United States was the first cause of where we are today. Of course, it would not have been a problem by itself, movements also have the right to exist, legal protection is important, but unfortunately we have reached a level where

it is far from scientific, it is far from about rights, especially not about children. Moreover, it can be stated that in many cases it is done against the children, as it can disrupt their psychological development.

Of course, the problem is not with people who do not claim a heterosexual orientation or who consider themselves to have a different gender identity, but rather with political activism. Because in many cases these activists take aggressive and extreme positions on certain issues and make claims that sound scientific but actually have no scientific basis whatsoever. From the point of view of science, there are many open questions, the only conclusion that we can accept is that science is currently unable to provide a clear answer to all the questions that arise in this field. Maybe in ten or twenty years, scientific positions will be accentuated as a result of genetics research and technological achievements, but today we are not there yet. The now debunked hoax that there is a homosexual gene appeared in Hungarian public consciousness only about five years ago. The damage caused by the fake news factory can be felt in my practical work, the number of LGBTQ people who see that they do not receive real protection from the movements has multiplied in my practice. I believe that no one should be subjected to stigma, discrimination, or abuse because of their gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion, yet political capital has used these people in recent years.

But as you mentioned, we now know that there is no homosexual gene.

That's right, science has clearly disproved it, we haven't found such a gene combination, and we can't find any biological basis for it. It is important to emphasize that we have not yet found the genetic basis for heterosexual sexual orientation, that is, for sexual orientation and gender identity, we only assume that there may be something in biology or genetics, but in fact this assumption also awaits research.

The problem at the moment is that such research has been specifically banned in several countries, and in some Western countries close to us, the topic of sexual orientation cannot be researched using scientific methodology either, because either such research does not receive ethical permission, or it is not allowed to be carried out.

In the USA, research results have come to light that have been misinterpreted - even due to political pressure - and this in itself raises concerns. In addition, we must remember that science cannot answer everything - perhaps it is impossible - since we know spirituality to be an equally important factor in the image of man as we know it today, as the other three (bio-psycho-social) factors.

According to them, politics stifles science, or at least limits it. But who is strangling politics? Because it is hardly believable that all leading Western politicians are LGBTQ activists at the same time.

We see that a very serious economic background has developed according to certain aspects. For example, transgender people have appeared in women's competitive sports, although

our biological gender is binary, i.e. there are two genders, male and female, and intersex people are still present in 0.08 percent of the entire human population, in their case both gender characteristics develop.

So our gender is binary, and it cannot be changed even if someone receives hormonal preparations, or some of their organs are surgically removed, or they are transformed in some other way. Biology is very decisive from this point of view and is already clear at a very early stage of the fetal age. It appears in the bone structure, nervous system, and hormone balance.

Another example from the business sector is the quotas on sexual orientation and gender identity already introduced in America. Large companies must have a certain number of LGBTQ people in the management, which also proves the presence of underlying economic interests.

Will performance be replaced by discrimination based on gender identity? Still, what's the point?

However, the interest is not only economic, the main goal is to psychologically shake the deepest structures in people. And if one of the deepest structural foundations, "who am I and what gender am I?" is shaken, then the individual becomes more manipulable, uncertain, and anxious, and he cannot deal with crises unless he receives ready answers. So I think that it is a complex goal that is being implemented worldwide. The change in the world order takes place along the lines of changing social thinking and people, now in a controlled manner.

Would this be a transformation of societies?

On the one hand, the creation of a new person, with a complete transformation of thinking. They promote value neutrality, but we promote value orientation. The latter means that values ​​are arranged in a hierarchy in the human mind, organization, and through development.

What do we mean by value neutrality?

That all values ​​are given equal weight. But this is fundamentally not true, neither of human nature, nor of biology, nor of law.

For example, according to them, the right to an abortion is given the same weight as the protection of life, even though abortion - with its resounding slogan of "my body, my decision" - is also murder. But due to value neutrality, these two rights still appear with equal weight, just as tolerance has been put on the platform where child protection is.

And the damage caused by the sensitization itself is already visible. By the way, the term is also used in psychology, of course not only in this field, but now a movement has appropriated it. Of course, the legal protection of minorities is an important and developing area, but we have already crossed over to the other side of the horse.

Certain minority groups, such as gender minorities, want rights which, if they were granted, would shake the entire society.

Again, I just have to return to the fact that the source of the conflict is not the people living a lifestyle other than the heterosexual, but rather the very loud, one might say, some people who assert their interests with aggressive rhetoric based on the principle of "the end justifies the means". As an individual and not in the service of social interests.

Is it still about tolerance, or have we come to the point where it is not only necessary to accept otherness, but to love it, respect it, and even put it on a pedestal?

And to follow. This is what we see behind putting children in the crosshairs. My quote above unfortunately also fits here.

We can see child victims all over the world because the protection of life has been placed behind rights. However, psychological damage to children is permanent damage in all areas of life. Its long-term consequences go far beyond individual traumas. Unable to cope, anxious, insecure, manipulable techno-generations will arrive.

And this is a problem because only future generations can find a solution to the climate disaster, economic crises, hunger, overpopulation, and diseases. But how will they be able to do all this if there is no ability to tolerate the anxiety necessary for performance, or if there are no questions on the way to self-knowledge, because apparently everything can be changed and the clues of reality are blurred?

The results of the lobby's activities are shockingly echoed in American statistics: one fifth, or 20 percent, of Generation Z identify as LGBTQ, compared to 3.3 percent of Generation X or 2.7 percent of baby boomers .

They tried to make us believe that there is a biological background, we refuted this, as we do not know if there is, yet they continue to claim it. And they explain the shocking statistics with "coming forward", i.e. according to them, each society has become so much more tolerant, so people with a non-heterosexual orientation are now daring to take on themselves. But "emergence" alone does not explain this enormous growth. Just as there was no genetic mutation. In some countries, the percentage of gender role dysphoria - the disturbance of identity, which is already a clinical psychological issue and is included in the DSM-5, our clinical manual - has increased by up to 4000 percent among young people. Probably

in the background, we find the manipulative activities of the media that reach everyone, and behind them, political activism and economic capital, the purpose of which is now clearly visible.

However, the consequences can no longer be hidden: scandals, crippled children, lawsuits, closing of some gender clinics, etc.

At least 85 percent of young people with gender role dysphoria return to heterosexual sexual orientation and lifestyle by young adulthood. The problem is that, with the help of the media, activists promote the LGBTQ lifestyle as if it were a fashion trend, packaging it as attractive for young people, and of course keeping silent about its very valid dangers. But we clearly see from the research that the risk of suicide increases 3-5 times for those affected; the number of depressive episodes, the level of anxiety, and the frequency of personality disorders also increase. In most cases, it is also a serious psychological problem that should be treated, but not with hormones.

Even the puberty blocker results in permanent damage to the body, these forms of transition also mean artificial infertility. Each transsexual person undergoes up to 50 interventions, and these are not small interventions, not "one-day" operations. Our body cannot be transformed by cutting it all over again, and then, if we have regretted it, reshape it. It's a one-way street, there's no going back.

But even hormone treatment causes long-term damage. There was a procedure in which a single dose was equivalent to the hormone content of a hundred birth control pills. Let's think about what this does to the human body! And let's not only pay attention to how gender identity and sexual orientation or sex life itself will work in the future, but also how the number of cancer cases increases, while the psychiatric problem remains.

Girls who take testosterone face an increased risk of diabetes, endometrial cancer, liver damage, breast cancer, heart attack, and stroke.

Exactly. In some countries, children can decide to take puberty blockers from the age of 12, and they can also start the transition medically. This does not necessarily mean surgery, but it is completely incomprehensible, since the nervous system does not support teenage children to decide how they want to intervene in their health, having a long-term, lasting effect on themselves.

Is this ethically compatible with medicine?

It is problematic both ethically and scientifically: the frontal lobe, which is the main brain structure responsible for rational decision-making, matures even in young adulthood. We did not set the age of majority by accident.

We cannot say that adolescents, let alone younger ones, can necessarily make a rational decision. If a child is diagnosed with cancer, it is no coincidence that he does not decide on his radiation treatment, but the parent, who is the main decision-maker in the matter, since he is able to weigh it up.

Of course, the whole family must be involved in such a process, I support this, otherwise there will be no effective cooperation, the children must also be asked and they must be properly informed, but we see trends that point in the opposite direction: the children are not adequately informed, there is no mention of permanent damage during one-on-one consultations. In fact, it is not psychologists or educators who have turned into consultants, but external actors who talk to children about gender-changing transitional factors in Western countries. However, due to the Internet, trends arrive much faster than before, one might say like a bolt from the blue.

Are parents being deliberately pushed out?

Of course, since the parent was the only one who could put a stop to this rampage. First, fathers were liquidated from the family, with the slogan of the movement that all fathers are abusers and that paternal authority is a negative factor to be rejected. Then they started to liquidate mothers as well, with messages that a mother can be anyone, a family can be made up of anyone, and so on. These are completely extreme guidelines, not about bonding, love and intimacy. I have to emphasize again that political activism tries to plant extremist messages in the minds of young people and attract them with the general lie that you can be anyone.

However, this is not supported by biology, we cannot be anyone, not even beyond medical interventions.

What about the little ones?

This is the most worrying. With the help of the media, the movements began to push for social transition for young children. We are often criticized for not claiming that children are sent for gender reassignment surgery, but the concept of transition can be social, legal and medical, and among them, social transition usually happens first. In the case of the nervous system, you have to think in terms of schemes, these appear as representations and images in the children's minds. And these images are constantly differentiated during our development. We have a mother image and a father image of appearance, which is the first stimulus when we establish the difference between them. What is the difference? This is when Oviapu's ominous phrase "girls have pussies, boys have cookies" is often heard. And this is the first manifestation of the stimulus that has entered. That's all nursery and preschool age children know about the difference between men and women.

And these frames are completely washed away when, say, men dressed as mermaids, with beards and tulle, give presentations to children.

And the next stimulus is what mom knows and what dad knows. Love language is not the same. Paternal authority plays an important role in development, children ask completely different things from the two parents, they turn to the father and mother with different problems.

Why is the medical community so divided on the issue?

I think the reason is the spread of value neutrality. In many cases, a doctor also tries to help along these lines, even though the help is not to satisfy the momentary needs of a client.

If we satisfy the need, we support the persistence of the unwanted group of symptoms and psychopathology.

In many cases, however, the need is satisfied, even though it may stem from a sudden period of defiance or the influence of contemporaries.

What about domestic division?

The sharpening began two years ago, with the publication of the Meseország Mindinkié . There have been several ethically questionable actions, most notably a petition against a senior colleague.

This went against both ethics and the profession, as well as our basic principles, and I dare to say that it was carried out by political activists.

And a fundamentally unethical petition cannot be placed on a scientific basis, nor is it relevant. Unfortunately, we were unable to start the dialogue two years ago, later the Hungarian Psychiatric Association issued a statement in which they formulated very harsh, scientifically questionable claims, and we only made our voices heard after that.

By "we" Value-Centered Psychologists ?

That's right. And those high-ranking colleagues who understood the scientific background of the above. I must add that the topic is very specialized, and even if someone is a psychologist or a doctor, transgender clients do not necessarily appear in their practice. That is why it was difficult to bring together people who have the time, energy and motivation to review the world's literature from A to Z, since 3-4 thousand scientific articles are published on a given topic every day.

However, child psychologists only know whether it is beneficial or rather harmful for preschool children if any sexual content (education, sensitization, transgender people) is presented to them at this age, right?

In truth, this is where we started the professional debate, and then after the statement of the Psychiatric Association last year, we continued here as well. We also had to justify the most basic evidence in psychology and psychiatry. Among other things, that development is staged, and these stages build on each other. Even though we have surpassed Freud in many respects, the Oedipal conflict is there, the search for identity is there, and there are regressive states, which means that if a conflict is not resolved in the right time frame, we will slide back and forth into the affected stages, which can also lead to a personality disorder. Certain legalities cannot be crossed. So that's where we started the debate, last September at the conference of the Hungarian Psychiatric Association, several of us stood up and stated our arguments, while

ten professors issued a statement that effectively refuted the Psychiatric Association's statement, and the professional community did not refute the latter.

Since then, I see that we can finally have a dialogue, we can support each other without getting personal, even if we have different political-ideological approaches. This is an important and positive step forward, but it was necessary to lay the foundations and bring it back to the scientific space and say that

this kind of pressure from political activism will not be tolerated by the Hungarian psychological and psychiatric profession.

Do you think there is a chance that the captive profession will be freed?

We have a great responsibility, but I think that we are not in a bad position in Hungary, you can turn to the professional protocols and the representatives of the profession with confidence. How long we can hold our front lines is another question, because we sometimes lose a battle as a result of digitization and the integration of activists. For example , colleague Ádám Németh spoke in an article about the fact that any LGBTQ client in Hungary can undergo reparative therapy. However, I do not know a single colleague who performs reparative therapy.

Here, it is more about the fact that the psychologist does not always have to satisfy the needs of his patient, since he does not achieve development by doing so.

Ádám Németh presented a research whose methodology we do not know, nor the real data. And such statements cause a huge loss of trust in LGBTQ clients, which is why we recommend to those colleagues who do not want to accept dissent to try to read studies that provide professional development and examine all sides.

The value-oriented approach supports professional debates and, despite the difficulties experienced, we stand for the transparent presentation of science and the importance of protecting life.

And I'm optimistic. The time will come when representatives of the helping professions will stand together on the front line for the sake of children.

Featured image: Rita Pongrácz