To believe that Parents must have the right to tell their children they are not “in the wrong body” and children cant be “transgender”?

[DoubleMM]

The government wants to bring in a law that threatens anyone including parents with up to five years in prison for denying a child’s or an adult’s “transgender identity” -. The draft Bill is in Committee stage. Labour have committed to making it law. Surely this is just bringing back the Scottish Parliament’s vote that everyone has to agree? That men are women if they say they are? This time parents are in the firing line if they dont agree to their child being “transed” at school or elsewhere? The Bill proposes that the courts should be able to make an order to enforce compliance on parents. Surely this can’t be allowed to go through without a fight?

I don't think you understand the Conversion Practices Bill (which is what this rather overwrought and inaccurate OP is referring to, for anyone wondering).

What pp says. This is about banning conversion therapy, which has been shown to be harmful. It doesn't prevent parents from saying things. Though how you handle your child coming out with trans feelings is a delicate matter, and handling it harshly is unlikely to lead to a happy outcome.

That's not what the bill says. Why are you pushing a false narrative?

The op is right. Its not gay conversion, its opposing your child who believes in gender identity and thinks they're in the wrong body. Parents will be able to be prosecuted if they go against gender theory. I hate all this "be your true self", when its basically the complete opposite! Your true self is stamped through every cell in your body, this theory tells them to be someone else completely! You are all good enough as you are!!! This should be the message!

This is an insanely wrong description of this bill. Whether it's being disingenuous or just thick I have no idea.

I get what your saying no child should be allowed to have anything physical to change their sex until 18 but I really don't think parents should legally have the power to say anything either way

What legal right should a parent have over a child's thoughts, i think the trans thing is ridiculous personally but i dont want that much power over my child regardless of what they think (my child is not trans)

What legal right should a parent have over a child's thoughts

I dont even know where to start with this. We can teach them about science and facts and how its not possible to change sex. That's a good start. We can then investigate what's going on in their head that's making them think this way which is predominantly trauma, autism, being gay.

Shouldn''t that be left to the medical or otherwise qualified to help a child navigate this?

Not if they are pro gender and not actually open minded. Many are setting children on the pathway to trans. I feel like you haven't been reading about this for the last 10 years.

@DoubleMM

Is this the Bill you are referring to?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-conversion-practices-bill/conversion-practices-draft-bill

Your OP sounds like utter nonsense as there's absolutely no such thing happening in the UK or anywhere else?

Your OP sounds like utter nonsense as there's absolutely no such thing happening in the UK or anywhere else?

Please evidence this and i will rest easy.

I agree. I’m sick of overindulgent parents telling their children they can be whoever they want to be. They can’t because we live in a society with rules and regulations for good reason. Your child can’t run down the street naked, for example nor can they take a shit on the street.

Equally they can’t decide to be a girl one day because it suits. If they want to wear a dress or whatever I couldn’t care less at all, ditto if a girl wants to cut her hair off. I like Grayson Perry’s stance on this and his book The Descent of Man was particularly good. He doesn’t use women’s spaces because he isn’t a woman, he doesn’t deny his biology. Putting a dress on doesn’t make you female, you’re just a man wearing a dress which is fine but don’t deny biological facts.

It is.

This is the pertinent section (I have ignored the offence of assisting in a practice abroad for the purposes of brevity since that's less relevant). Emphasis my own:

"(1) A person commits an offence if the person carries out an abusive conversion practice on an individual which causes—

(a) serious harm to the individual’s physical or mental health, or
(b) serious alarm or distress to the individual which has a substantial adverse effect on their usual day-to-day activities."

A parent saying to their child that they can't change sex is not going to meet that threshold.

Parents will not be prosecuted for not believing their child is trans. They will absolutely be prosecuted if they cause their child physical harm or submit their child to abusive behaviour, as you would hope they would be for any type of abuse.

I highly doubt this is the case. Please show evidence that this is actually being proposed.

Agree OP. The problem is that the threshold for “conversion therapy” might be misunderstood or misapplied in practice. It’s a very dangerous direction we are going in.

Even Sex Matters have raised the concerns OP raised, law is always about how the lawyers interpret it in court on the day

The finer detail about where this abuse boundary lies is what's currently being debated. And what is significant harm? This could be distress due to misgendering etc.

I'm so strongly against this bill, not just because it can be misused in the way op has suggested. It is a law that is dictating for motive rather than outcome.

Quoting from the gov website about it:

*In assessing the nature of the conduct, consideration is to be given (among other things) to the question whether it involves any of the following—

(a) words or behaviour of a sexual nature;
(b) violent or threatening words or behaviour;
(c) controlling or coercive words or behaviour;
(d) use of economic pressure;
(e) use of psychological or emotional pressure.*

We already have laws that protect people from abuses of these kinds, especially when directed towards children.

Once you start legislating for motive rather than outcome, you create unintended outcomes.

If a child is abused, it is horrific regardless of whether the motive is homophobia, or some other motive, such as frustration about the child's SEN needs or disability: sadly, abuse with this motivation is much more common than homophobic conversion.

On the other hand, there are lots of possible circumstances where this law could be misused. For example let's imagine a young teenager is being groomed by a much older, same-sex partner and the parents are trying to keep the partner from seeing the child; the partner accuses the parents of homophobic conversion and "psychological pressure".

There shouldn't be asymmetric laws protecting some children from abuse more than other children.

And what would you call it when a parent repeatedly and knowingly causes severe distress to their child which substantially adversely affects that child's life? Rather than, say, working together and seeking professional help.

Bearing in mind we are talking about children in the context of this thread.

It doesn't matter if it's because of religion, sexual orientation, trans identity, or dietary choices. Parents mistreating their children - for whatever reason - and causing them severe ongoing distress is abuse.

A person commits an offence if the person carries out an abusive conversion practice on an individual which causes—

(a) serious harm to the individual’s physical or mental health, or
(b) serious alarm or distress to the individual which has a substantial adverse effect on their usual day-to-day activities."

Remove the word "conversion" and these things are already offences. We don't need a separate law singling out one specific motive for these already-unlawful abuses.

Especially not a law that might have unintended consequences

It doesn't matter if it's because of religion, sexual orientation, trans identity, or dietary choices. Parents mistreating their children - for whatever reason - and causing them severe ongoing distress is abuse.

Indeed. That is my main objection to this bill. It is an argument against it, not for it.

We have children being put onto puberty blockers because they claim that not getting them is doing serious harm to their mental health. I.E. they are threatening self harm if they don't get them.

Surely anyone can see that this law is going to result in children claiming that their parents are causing them serious harm by refusing to call them by a new name and pronouns?

I don't think so. Some medics have been proven to be entirely untrustworthy.

Fascinating how keen some people are to promote conversion therapy as a good thing. This place is overrun by anti-LGBT sentiment lately. And of course it's the same people who don't 'believe' every major medical organisation world-wide in favour of the various youtube videos they watch.
And parents don't own their children - there is parental responsibility not an absolute parent right. Some of the people on here are quite scary in their attitudes.