Draft Conversion Practices Bill - published

Thanks for the link, our government letting the activists doing their thinking for them again.

"But appeasing swivel-eyed activists in and outside parliament with criminal law is dangerous business. A campaign built on a laughable exorcism statistic ought to have given up the ghost. Instead, it looks set to haunt us all."

I couldn't agree more, but the government seem's impervious to learning any lessons.
I remember there was a comment on another thread (or possibly this one) that shared a tweet from someone who had worked out that if the exorcism figures were true, then the clergy would be performing more exorcism than marriages every year.

Surprise, surprise ... as predicted

From TerfTimes, 29 August 2026:

Stonewall haunting No.10 | TERF Times

Stonewall haunting No.10

The Government’s “best evidence available” leads straight to Stonewall and a survey claiming that one in ten LGBT adults has undergone an exorcism

There is just one click between an official government document on the conversion-therapy ban and Stonewall, the wounded giant of trans lobbying.

The keen-eyed warrior women of Transgender Trend drew attention to the connection on X. Footnote three of the Government’s Draft Equality Impact Assessment links directly to a Stonewall campaign page promoting a ban, complete with an invitation to donate....

The campaign has outlived Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, the lettuce, Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer. The draft Bill has now washed up in Andy Burnham’s in-tray.

Labour says the proposed offence is tightly drawn and will criminalise only abusive conduct intended to change somebody’s sexual orientation or transgender identity where it causes serious harm, alarm or distress. Critics fear that its elastic language could still place parents, therapists and teachers in legal jeopardy for challenging a child’s belief that he or she is transgender.... [my bold]

Cynically, he probably calculates this will appease his Onmicausers when it turns out he can't make billionaires magically pay for an entire population's needs and wants.

There's no actual monetary cost to this, whereas addressing real problems like underfunded public services beyond tinkering at the edges is probably impossible now.

Well one of the things said about AB is that he is/was a more 'adept' politician than Starmer (however much of a double-edged compliment that might be), and surely one of the first rules is, don't go seeking out contentious problems when you've got plenty on your plate already.

Burnham seems to be trying to keep all his options available, including reviving the assisted dying issue (saw something briefly in the news earlier). I don't think he's even begun to consider how many of these issues he actually wants to let go, so he's juggling all his balls at once... (sorry 😬)

He's blowing with the wind at the moment (shades of Starmer) - oh, I forgot, it's called "Labour" and "being a politician."

This hasn't been much in the news lately, but the govt are pressing on with it? Wasn't it hoped that this was one of those things that Burnham might quietly drop? Why the need for this legislation anyway?

New article from TerfTimes, from 28 August 2026, written by LGBA:

Caring will be criminalised | TERF Times

Caring will be criminalised

The Conversion Practices Bill risks turning parents, teachers and counsellors into criminals for helping children understand that they may simply grow up to be same-sex attracted, writes LGB Alliance’s Campaigns Manager.

There is something deeply perverse about watching gay rights being used to make it harder for children to grow up gay. And that’s why, at LGB Alliance, we’re opposing the Draft Conversion Practices Bill....

The Government says parents have nothing to fear, but there is no general exemption for them, or for teachers, friends, charities and pastoral workers. Nor is the threat of criminal prosecution the Bill’s only means of enforcement. It also creates Conversion Practice Protection Orders (CPPOs). These are civil orders and do not require somebody first to have been prosecuted or convicted. Police and local authorities can apply for them; family courts can make them during existing proceedings; and urgent orders can initially be made without the accused even being present. Breach an order without reasonable excuse and you could land in prison....

Done.

The petition needs many more signatures.

Bumping this to say that the Free Speech Union is running a petition to try to get the Conversion Practices Bill stopped Apparently Burnham is thought to be going ahead with it - but he has plenty on his plate and maybe it wouldn't take much obvious opposition to get him to give up on it.

Stick fsu conversion practices petition into a search engine and it should come up: headline is Stop the Conversion Therapy Ban.

(There doesn't seem to be a similar petition on the parliamentary petitions site. I'm not sure if that's just because nobody's developed one or if it's somehow against the rules there. I'm not up for being one of the real names on such a thing, right now, but if someone starts one, do announce it here and I'll sign!)

Akua Reindorf talks to Green Party Women about the FWSII SC judgment, and in the questions segment someone asks about the Conversion bill (57:30) - she calls it a lateral attack on both Forstater and FWSII.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jNaXhTFjUXg&pp=iggCQAE%3D
(edited to add timestamp)

Re 5 years imprisonment for parents trying to protect their child from transgender brainwashing induced self-harm and cult pressure.

1. The average custodial sentence length for sexual offences in the 12 months ending March 2015 was 63.0 months. This has risen by 4.5 months since the previous year.

Only three months more.

Yes, that's how I read it. Which is why I may end up declaring a non-cis identity so I can benefit from the protection of my identity. It is, after all, my lived experience.

Said it before and I'll say it again, this whole Neosexist Genderist bolllocks only works because they never apply the principles they say they believe in to anyone except trans identifying people.

As soon as you try to make it make sense more broadly in society, it all falls apart.

I think telling someone they are cis is a conversion practice according to the bill. It is conduct towards an individual with the intention of making them believe that they do not have a transgender identity.

I don't think that's how it works. She said she does not have any gender identity, therefore no transgender identity. Telling her that that means she is 'cis' is not trying to talk into or out of a trans identity, as described in the law.

It is more like being an atheist and some religious person insisting that means you are 'godless'/'a lost soul'/'a heathen'/'a satanist' etc - trying to frame your non-belief in terms of their religion.
I don't see anything in the bill that could be used against that.

Sure that's all true. How many times has it been said here, surely they wouldn't be so stupid as to... and the govt says, hold my beer! I suppose I was basing it on the idea that Burnham was a more adroit operator than Starmer.

Have you met our government? Everything they've proposed since getting into power has been a shitstorm.

The first thing they did when they got in was suspend a law that would have protected free speech, it had gone all they way through the parliamentary procedure, they had voted for it when in opposition, it had been signed off by the King, and they just stopped it just like that.
Suspending jury trials, ban on social media for under 16's, taking us back in Europe despite the country voting to leave the EU.

I think telling someone they are cis is a conversion practice according to the bill. It is conduct towards an individual with the intention of making them believe that they do not have a transgender identity.

For you to hear this from a stranger online in a brief conversation, it’s unlikely to be a crime because you are unlikely to be alarmed and the conduct is unlikely to be viewed as abusive once all facts are considered.

However, I think teachers would be extremely ill-advised to tell pupils that they are cis if this bill passes. The power dynamic makes ‘abusive’ much more plausible and the mental state of a child in that situation also makes ‘serious alarm or distress’ a more realistic possibility.

And if this bill is passed,

I think it's unlikely. Why would any govt seek out the shitstorm it would cause?

Bloody hope so, anyway!

It's a fucking coup isn't it? Make it impossible to discuss the reality of sex without being prosecuted for "conversion practicices".

And I notice it doesn't seem to allow for equivalent protection for those of us who have no gender identity being "cis-ed" against our will.

With the asymmetry that is such a feature of TRActivism, they are very much all about saying you can't try to convince someone that they have or do not have a transgdener identity, but very much a-ok enforcing the assumption that anyone who has not declared a gender must have a cisgender identity.

Right. I am declaring my transgender umbrella identity of agender person of female body.

And if this bill is passed, anyone trying to cis-ify me, or force me to share spaces or identities with trans "women" is going to find the full weight of my legal right not be be subjected to their gender conversion coming down on their heads.

Very much looking forward to telling the regular TRA scolders they have to stop their vile practice of converting me to cisgender. And to getting stuck in campaiging for establishing in law and in practice the very necessary provisions for people of female body to mitigate the abuse, exploitation and disadvantanges that people of female body face in society.

I haven’t noticed anyone on this thread talking about the “relevant officer” part of the draft bill yet, so wanted to call attention to it:

If you are a school governor and your school is judged to be guilty of an offence, you are individually guilty of the same offence if you have missed a single reasonable step to prevent the commission of the offence. Each individual is at risk of a 5 year prison sentence & a fine.

It doesn’t just apply to school governors, it applies to responsible people in all organizations. Company directors for example.

I’m sure this is the stick that Stonewall will use to beat organisations with so that they pay for compliance training.

But it gets worse, members of unincorporated bodies whose affairs are run by members are also on the hook for these punishments. Anyone a member of a book group planning to read and discuss a sex-realist book?

Of course parents are doing this. I was referring to a case which was mentioned by Baroness Cass in the recent debate about puberty blockers in the HoL.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2026-06-25/debates/581F94F9-7AB7-40A0-91AC-CD4A48A7C241/PubertyBlockersTrialConsent?highlight=cass#contribution-95C40316-CAEC-40E3-B56A-8DBBCF340023

Are you trying to say that she was lying or mistaken when she talked about a child "who was a biological male socially transitioned at two and a half by his parents"?

According to Suzie Green, she took her son's toys off him because his dad didn't want a gay son. And his son pretended to be a girl to get his toys back. She then obtained puberty blockers online and gave them to him and then laughed about his tiny penis. She was more worried about her marriage breaking down than her son's health.

The first 2 females given puberty blockers at GIDS, both were given them because their parent/s did not want butch lesbian daughters.

This homophobia runs through the ideology like a stick of rock. It is perfectly possible to do your own investigation into this, we've been documenting it on here for a decade.

LOL! Right.

No abusive parent will jump on an opportunity to massively hurt and harrass their child.

No attention-seeking parent will jump on the new bandwagon of parental fame.

No homophobic parent will take the chance to trans away the gay they see in their child.

Shall we add this to the long list of Things That Won't Happen? And then turn out to happen, a lot...

How on earth do you believe this?! Most boys play with dolls, most mums encourage their daughters to do stuff once reserved only for boys.

No parent is doing this. Dear God, why would they. Parents gain nothing from their kids being trans but constant worry, much as will always support and love them.

Do you think we have a special machine or something? A trans laser beam? Jesus actual Christ the ignorance.

So parents who decide their son is a girl because he likes playing with dolls, and then convince him he actually is a girl, can be arrested? They can start with the parents of that poor child Baroness Cass talked about in the HoL debate recently.

If they do force this through, then Kemi can put on the manifesto to roll it back again as soon as Labour come out of power. Along with sorting out the waste of time and space EDI'ing and vexatiously litigating in the Civil Service and everywhere else. This bill will go down with the electorate like a bucket of cold sick once parents start being prosecuted and it hits the papers.