AIBU to think parents must be allowed to say no to gender ideology? - Petition against the terrible draft conversion therapy ban

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

https://stoptheconversiontherapyban.uk

YANBU - this bill is bad and should be binned or rewritten
YABU - we need a ban like this

To be clear - I completely support banning actual conversion therapy.

Nobody wants anyone electroshocked, beaten, threatened, raped, or “cured”. That is vile. But those things are already illegal in the UK. We don't need more legislation.

This new new draft bill goes much further and is so very broad. It does not just cover historic gay conversion therapy. It also covers “transgender identity”, and that is where this becomes very worrying for parents - the risk is that normal parental safeguarding will be treated as trying to “change” or “suppress” a child’s claimed gender identity. So instead of being free to pause, question, challenge, reassure, or say no, parents may feel they have to affirm whatever their child says immediately, and you can be sure those who have encouraged this behaviour with your child over the internet will tell them it's a crime if you do and to report you.

Where does the bill leave a parent whose 13-year-old daughter has suddenly decided, after TikTok/Discord/school/friends, that she is really a boy?

Can her mother still say:

“No, hang on. You are a girl. You always have been.”

“Feeling uncomfortable with puberty does not mean you are male.”

“No, I will not call you my son.”

“No, I will not agree to puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.”

“No, your body is not wrong.”

That can't be a crime, That is parenting surely, and parenting properly

Teenagers go through phases. Some are autistic. Some are gay. Some hate puberty. Some are traumatised. Some are being influenced online. Some are just trying to make sense of being female in a horrible pornified culture. The vast, vast majority of kids who say they are trans grow out of it with puberty - UNLESS they are affirmed and encouraged.

Parents must be allowed to slow things down, say no, and tell the truth about sex. Not be threatened with FIVE YEARS in jail?!?!

( https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-conversion-practices-bill )

There is a carve-out for healthcare professionals, but not one for ordinary mums and dads.

A law that makes parents frightened to have normal conversations with their own children is a bad law. A child should not be able to weaponise “conversion therapy” because mum and dad will not instantly affirm a new identity.

I am FOR protecting people from real abuse. I am against redefining ordinary parental boundaries, safeguarding, and disagreement as abuse.

Please consider signing this petition asking for the bill to be stopped/rethought:

https://stoptheconversiontherapyban.uk/

But many teens ( and adults!) find a parent disagreeing with them or not letting them do exactly what they want very distressing indeed. It’s far too subjective a standard. There needs to be an element of objective reasonableness.

I’n sure that a parent or doctor pointing out to a kid - sharing facts that eg taking x drug is very likely to result in osteoporosis which can cause extreme pain or that this surgery is experimental and these are the painful side effects etc may be distressing!!

I would have thought these are already offences in law. Abuse is abuse, why is a special version of abuse needed to be outlined?

The worrying thing is that this is contradictory in that (in the words of the Tavistock staff) young people who are gay or lesbian disproportionately say they are trans. The Tavistock’s figures were 9/10 girls and 4/5 boys were LGB. Being trans is itself gay conversion therapy.

This will also drive most sensible balanced therapists away from counselling anyone who is trans. The risks of being sued are far too great. In a report for an earlier version of this bill (it’s been around for years), an academic from Coventry University explicitly condemned neutral talking therapy. It’s absolutely crazy, because surely we would want any troubled child or adult to get all of the therapy they need, but, as others have said, therapy can be distressing (I’ve certainly cried in sessions) and a good therapist doing a good job could be prosecuted under this.