Talk:Core Issues Trust

Impartial lead needed

I've added the word 'purports' to the lead, but this isn't enough to establish full impartiality. In particular I'm concered about the sentence "those seeking to change homosexual behaviour and feelings" - when there is no consensus that this is actually possible. There's also needs to be some reference to the group's 'promotion' of their philosophy, as this seems to be a key aspect to their ethos.Obscurasky (talk) 20:56, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Impartial lead needed

I've added the word 'purports' to the lead, but this isn't enough to establish full impartiality. In particular I'm concerned about the sentence "those seeking to change homosexual behaviour and feelings" - when there is no consensus that this is actually possible. There's also needs to be some reference to the group's 'promotion' of their philosophy, as this seems to be a key aspect to their ethos.Obscurasky (talk) 20:56, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

A bad start

The article begins,

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The Core Issues Trust is a British Christian organisation, which focuses on the topic of homosexuality and promotes conversion therapy.

Purpose The Trust claims it is possible to change sexuality and offers "psycho-therapeutic" [1] conversion therapy for homosexual behaviour and feelings.[2]

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An examination of the organisation's own website makes it absolutely clear that it does not promote conversion therapy or anything remotely like conversion therapy. The references [1] and [2] do not in any way substantiate this false claim on the part of the primary author of the article.

It would be appropriate for this entry to deleted altogether, in the interests of the reputation of Wikipedia as a useful source of information. Truth matters.

Obscurasky writes, "I'm concerned about the sentence 'those seeking to change homosexual behaviour and feelings' - when there is no consensus that this is actually possible." There is abundant evidence that many do change their own homosexual behaviour and feelings, including this writer as it happens. The reference is only to those who are "seeking" to do this. There is no claim at all that a therapist can change a client's behaviour and feeling for the client, the essence of purported conversion therapy, a service which Core Issues Trust does not offer. John Allman (talk) 06:09, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

John Allman, the group's website says "CORE works with people who vountarily seek to change from a “gay” lifestyle to a gender-affirming one. This is sometimes referred to as a “sexual re-orientation” process."

Our own Conversion therapy article begins "Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual using psychological, physical, or spiritual interventions". This statement by the UK Council for Psychotherapy says "Conversion therapy is the term for therapy that assumes certain sexual orientations or gender identities are inferior to others, and seeks to change or suppress them on that basis."

Those seem aligned to me, so I don't see that any change is required to the lead of the article at this time. Best, Darren-M talk 09:24, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Accepting the above discussion of what Wikipedia counts as "conversion therapy", might it be prudent to include some note indicating that CORE believes this to be a perjorative term which does not apply to them? I realise that we may not want to lift large portions of quoted text from their website to avoid overuse primary sources, but some of this might be relevant?: “This is a pejorative, imposed term, coined by an American gay activist, Dr Douglas Haldeman in 1991, that names some extremes such as electro-shock and aversion techniques only ever conducted by medics, long since abandoned from the 60s, or extreme behaviours already outlawed such as ‘corrective’ rape for which there are no prosecutions in the UK. Because the term speaks of talking therapies and counselling as “pseudo-science” in association with these extremes, to be heard defending talking therapy and counselling for unwanted same-sex attractions is then taken to be a defence of the indefensible ‘Conversion Therapy’ label. We reject this accusatory term.” I understand if people disagree with this suggestion. MannersMakythMan (talk) 09:27, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

References