Draft Conversion Practices Bill - published

Yes: this proposal looks to be about the action taken, not the supposed destination. With sexuality, being gay or straight isn't itself any problem, but trying to cajole someone about it might be.

I know some think "identifying as trans" is intrinsically damaging, and I'm not sure I would disagree, but this proposed bill doesn't cover that.

So affirming in what would be considered a harmful way rather than affirming someone on a path that could lead to a harmful outcome?

Unfortunately, affirming would not be deemed to be, (b) “Causing the individual - to believe that….(ii) they have a particular gender identity.

Harmful though affirming would be.

ISTR she’s a bit of a dimwit from something else.

The TRAs aren’t happy at that. Or the carve out for healthcare.

Yes, it's a "conversion practice" (because it really is hoping to get someone to change how they see things) but the only possible offence is if it is an "abusive conversion practice" because it is done through threats or coercion. Simply talking to someone wouldn't clear that threshold.

Think of dangerous driving — the question isn't "does this count as driving?" but "is this dangerous?". Same with the proposed offense of "abusive conversion practices".

Too hot to read through the whole thread so sorry if this has already been raised.

I'm wondering about the scenario where a child thinks that they are transgender but a parent tries to explore the possibility that they are gay.

Would this be classed as conversion therapy under the proposed legislation?

Sorry I'm just catching up.

Did they mean the Bill to be able to prosecute those who encourage people to believe that they have a transgender identity? Because there's a LOT of that about.

(2) “Conversion practice” means (subject to subsection (3)) any conduct carried out by a person towards an individual with the intention of—[…]

• (b) causing the individual—
• (i) to have or not to have,
• (ii) to believe that they have or do not have,

Yes, that's what I thought, it's partly a sop to the activists. As you say, it will be a big mess of a law with all sorts of unforeseen consequences. Hopefully it will get lost in the move to a new government and Andy Burnham's apparent newfound gender-critical view (or, at least, awareness that this is the sort of thing that loses Labour votes). I can't see his Makerfield voters being too happy with this kind of thing.

Burnham doesn't have much room to make missteps, and supporting this bill will be a huge misstep. Trying to see a bright side, Olivia Bailey may have felt the need to get the bill out now because she knows she's not going to be in a Burnham government.

No one should be told there is something wrong with who they are....

No one should tell a child/adolescent their belief they are in the wrong body is true because that implies there is something wrong with the child/adolescent.

The Finnish expert in adolescent gender medicine, Dr Kaltiala reported on this (my bold).

Asked by Helsingin Sanomat what she thought of gender self-identification for minors—a proposed element of the new Finnish law that did not ultimately pass—

Kaltiala emphasized that it is “important to accept [children] as they are,” but this means neither pressuring a child to conform to behaviours traditionally associated with the child’s sex nor “negating the body” by confirming that the child’s gender self-identification is real. “In either case,” said the psychiatrist, “the child gets a message that there is something wrong with him or her.”

^Evidence from a combined 12 studies to date demonstrates that when children with cross-gender or gender variant behavior are left to develop naturally, the vast majority—“four out of five,” according to Kaltiala—come to terms with their bodies and learn to accept their sex. When they are socially transitioned, virtually none do.*

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/finland-youth-gender-medicine

Dr Riittakerttu Kaltiala, a psychiatrist at Tampere University, founded one of Finland's two pediatric gender clinics in 2011.

Does the bill have a glossary of terms somewhere? I was wondering whether they have a definition for "transexual".

(8) The circumstances in which an individual has a transgender identity include (but are not limited to) where—

• (a) the individual is undergoing, is proposing to undergo or has undergone a process of gender reassignment,
• (b) the individual is transsexual,
• (c) the individual identifies as neither male nor female or as not solely male or female.

Though i suspect it will be rushed through as a sop to the activists who still cannot reconcile themselves with the SC ruling or the new guidance.

It will be a poorly made law with inevitable unintended and unforseen consequences, which will take up lots of time and energy to unravel going forward.

That is just so, so awful.

And yet those anonymous discord posters will have nothing to fear from this bill. No one will be going after them.

I personally know several young men who have desisted and regret having been convinced to take oestrogen because they’d still like to father children despite taking oestrogen they obtained online. They told me of being encouraged to think of themselves being trans by anonymous posters on discord etc. Including a young gay man who says he’s a straight woman now. There’s a tsunami of young autistic men out there being confused and many regretting that. But I know you don’t care. No need to reply.

Not a great surprise: I think the two areas most affected by this will be religious groups that discourage homosexuality and pro-trans advocacy organisations.

Much discussion here and elsewhere is on the description of "Conversion Practices" in the bill, but the real content is the proposed offence of carrying out or encouraging "Abusive Conversion Practices". With "Dangerous Driving", the "Dangerous" part is a lot more important than the definition of "Driving", and it's the same here.

For "Conversion Practices", the description is incredibly broad, but the key part is what counts as "Abusive" from the characterisation in paras 1(5) and (6):

This is not simple, but it is very much in the vein of recent legislation that tries to cover things like "coercion" in relationships that is abusive while not outright violent. It's extremely hard to operationalize but definitely important.

I think there are two novel elements, compared to current legislation.

1. Making an offence of conversion practices that use emotional or other controlling coercion — existing legislation already outlaws physical harm like electroshock. Extending that to "words or behaviour" is difficult to do well, but I think important to address. It might cover, for example, religious organisations running a weekend camp on "freedom from same-sex attraction"; or a group that suggests ways to get your kid to go on that camp.
2. Including gender identity as well as sexuality. That's new: persuading someone they "really are trans" is definitely a conversion practice and, if done in certain ways, could be abuse in law.

My reckoning is that for sexuality, bogus scares about "gays will try to make everyone gay" leads to legislation that in practice hits the real issue of those trying to pray away the gay, and that's a good thing. Adding in "gender identity" because of TRAs campaigning that we all want to sacrifice "trans kids" will in the end turn out mostly to be effective against "come join our rainbow family" groups. Here's hoping.

I think it's the timing of it that's confusing. And the King does one of these speeches every year, and this recent one was for Starmer's government. Burnham may want a different direction, even if it's just for the sake of being different. If Labour still wanted Starmer and everything he stood for, he wouldn't be leaving!

I don't believe Labour is the party of the people. Labour cares only about themselves, and lots of them don't agree on anything. I still think that if Burnham wants this Conversion Bill, he'll want to put his own stamp on it. We'll see.

It was promised in the Kings speech, anyone who thought they were going to dump this is still clinging to the idea that Labour are the party of the people.
Every other country in the Global Left club has got one, Labour activists are all part of that gang. They're more interested in impressing the internationist than anything the insignificant population want, they're all part of a Transglobal movement, we don't count.

I did say earlier that I thought the new government might quietly dump it, perhaps after a bit of haggling and a consultation or something. It's not really worthwhile tabling it now just to say " well, see what we did for you, and the other Party dumped it" because they're both Labour.

It may have been done at the behest of Andy Burnham, but I think that's high unlikely, even as a sop to him. He's not even guaranteed the Leader position yet (yet!)

So this has to be a "Starmer thing before he goes" thing or a "let's do this quickly before Starmer notices" thing. If so, Burnham might want to withdraw it, tweak it, whatever, so that he can say it was "a former PM's idea" ( if he doesn't want it) or "look at my, greatly-improved, Bill" (if he does want it).

I have hopes that it will be "withdrawn for further consideration and consultation." I'm not an optimistic kind of person, generally 😬

I don't understand why they decided to drop this bill now, in the dying days of the Starmer government. To sabotage Burnham? Or it's been rushed out by Olivia Bailey, Minister for "Equalities", when government is in a kind of drift and she thinks no one will notice. Perhaps she's worried it will be shoved under the carpet when Burnham takes over.

This bill will satisfy no one and annoy all sides. I always thought it was a leftover from the full-on trans activist infiltration of the Labour party (if you look at some of the language associated with early versions of the conversion therapy "ban" proposal, it was very circa 2017).

As it currently is, it's a mess that makes no sense and will be unworkable in practice (any conversion therapy ban would be, truth be told, but this one in particular sounds like it's trying to square circles). This bill would also contradict the Equality Act and the EHRC guidance, as, for example, trans-identified men won't be able to use women's loos because they are not biological women. They are thus having their "internal sense" of being a woman violated.

Maybe it will all eventually come down to no one is allowed to talk about gender ideology at all, or talk about being gender critical, or about nonbinary, or any of this, because everything you say could get you prosecuted! 😆

Honestly, if we could guarantee that men would be forbidden forever more in female single-sex spaces and services, and no one would be forcing us to use the wrong words for things (like forced pronouns, or cervix-havers) I'd be very happy to never, ever discuss any of this ever again!

• (b) causing the individual—
• (i) to have or not to have,
• (ii) to believe that they have or do not have,

So someone could prosecute a teacher who teaches about 'transgender identities' and TRAs who groom on Bluesky or Discord?

Interesting.

All this angst and pain and delay, only to come back round to what Glinner said SIX YEARS AGO. He was right then and he is still right now.

"You don't tell children that they were born in the wrong body because they're children and they will believe you."

Thanks for the article, fromorbit

Yet there is one thing legislators should be able to agree on: laws built on vague definitions are dangerous.

What confidence can a clinician have that exploratory questioning will not later be characterized as an attempt to alter or suppress a patient’s identity?

The problem is that once vague concepts are written into statute, they cease to belong to the politicians who drafted them.

Isn't this interesting? Did I not just say all this earlier, and was dismissed without even attempting to answer any of these apparently pertinent concerns? Seems I'm not the only one concerned about correct definitions in law. Who would have guessed??

There's an irony that conversion therapy is defined as various treatments such as electroshock and talking therapy to cure them of transsexuality, but removing organs, pumping the body with synthetic hormones is considered humane.