Conversion therapy to be banned - Sunak

[BeetleDeuce]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/19/rishi-sunak-ban-gay-and-trans-conversion-practices

Apparently Sunak to add this to the King’s Speech, banning conversion therapies for trans and gay people.

This is a potential nightmare for counsellors/psychotherapists/NHS services who want to explore trans people’s experiences of trauma and other sources of gender dysphoria. It basically means “affirming only” as far as I can tell. This is exactly why this was always a bad idea.

It seems the Sun was the first one to publish a news story saying it had been shelved. Not clear what their source is. Published a few days ago:

A senior government source said: “There is no way conversion therapy is becoming law before the election.”

Another insider said: “It is not in the King’s Speech. No one is running at this.”

The PM will kick the can down the road by publishing a draft Bill which he will consult MPs on - known as pre legislative scrutiny.

This will run the clock down, meaning it will not become law before the election - expected next winter.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/24480907/ban-on-conversion-therapy-not-in-kings-speech/

Actually quite clever if you think having a confrontation with the ECHR is a vote winner. It might well be.

I'm really busy. Rishi Sunak is my MP. Is this a good draft email to him, or indeed to any other:

I was pleased to read in the press that you will not be using the King's Speech to ban therapy that enables people worried about their gender to explore their feelings. Please can you also use it to explain that Biology is an important area for education, and that the Cass Report's recommendations will be implemented to get a grip on so-called 'gender education' in schools.

Emendations welcome. Briefer is probably better.

Conversion. Therapy should be banned. It's abhorrent

Does that include discussing with autistic teenage girls going through puberty, hate their body and say they are in fact men that hating your body is a normal part of puberty @Maddy70 because as it stands that’s the sort of thing that could end up included. If affirmation is the only acceptable response, how can we ever explore issues about gender identity with children & teenagers

You do know I was being sarcastic, right?

Clearly none of the major parties "know what a woman is" in the sense people refer to here, as being able to take a common sense view based on the reality of biological sex. That would mean, for example, that counselling a teenager to come to terms with the physical reality of their sex rather than embarking upon a dangerous and life-limiting course of hormones and surgery wouldn't be banned as "conversion therapy".

What we're witnessing is an unedifying scramble as Sunak and Starmer try and work out what position on The Trans Question will push the right buttons of the people whose buttons they need to push. There is not a smidgeon of genuine conviction, let alone common sense, from any of them in any of it.

The idea that the Tories might be saying ANYTHING out of genuine conviction rather than just a desire to manipulate people into being gullible enough to vote for them again was always a bit of a non starter. Maybe this will make it a bit clearer.

AYE GOD FORBID ANYONE BE GULBIELE ENOUGH TO VOTE FOR THOSE IDIOTS EH

@MadderthanMorris

Agreed. But right now, it looks vanishingly unlikely that the Tories will win the next election, short of some disaster (war?). So in reality it's going to be down to Labour. Who, like most here I think, I trust even less on this issue than the Tories.

Why do you trust Labour less? That implies that you have some trust of the Tories.

I distrust them both equally. Admittedly I was never a Tory voter in the first place. But the idea that after Brexit, "levelling up", Boris-The-Clown, lockdown parties and Trussonomics (just to name the main chapter headings, not even getting into the catalogue of disasters in between) one could attach any level of "trust" to anything they say about anything, is just beyond me.

It's not so much about trust; more about capture. More Labour MPs are captured than Tory ones. But as I said, it all counts for nothing if Labour win the next election.

It doesn't all count for nothing. We fought the Tory TRAs, well fight the next government's TRAs. This is feminism.

Or it would be if Labour hasn't convinced the electorate that they are the home of feminism.

For sure the fight goes on, @TooBigForMyBoots . I meant it counts for nothing what Tory MPs think if they lose the election, as looks likely. We are where we are.

Not necessarily, as we won't start from a position of having adopted self-ID. It almost feels like we are the only/among a tiny minimum of western nations that hasn't? And there's a direct read across between that and "conversion therapy" in that the latter wants to ban anything that explores feelings etc. So we wouldn't start under Labour from that position, as it were. Labour would have to bring it in and/or use a "conversion therapy" ban to bring self-ID in.

I suspect this is proving to be far more difficult than anyone would have expected.

I think the issue is hugely difficult. To make even some of the changes in the law to the Equality Act and to do that in a way that wouldn't be very easy to challenge at judicial review takes much more time than people have been encouraged to believe.

Conversely the difficulty to me means that self ID as a matter of law is dead. I don't think it will happen. As a practical issue though, and unpicking "policy as law" there is so much to do.

This government has run out of time. Arguably what needs to happen is to designate single biological sex spaces and develop explicit and very robust policy rationales for them. That is the thing I never hear from politicians of any kind. If they don't do that then you will know they haven't a clue.

A government has to say as a matter of policy and with some evidence what they want. They don't. They could, because they've started with prisons. Now they need to extend that logic across the public sector that is infested with this stuff or self ID won't be finished. You need one tough person to get that through and a Prime Minister with an iron grip on his or her party.

Make the history syllabus known to parents? No problem.
Make the maths syllabus known to parents?
No problem.
Make the RSE syllabus known to parents?
Only problems.

Maybe someone can explain why.

Maybe someone can explain why
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67199816

I find this very worrying.

I used to be a HoD in a secondary school. Before I left that post, we had 3 girls who identified as boys but later detransitioned. (One was 'stealth', but actually outed herself to the boys in her year by telling them she was 'really a girl'.)

Children do grow out of this, if given the chance to do so. What some are labelling 'conversion therapy' is merely giving children the chance to make up their minds.

I was slated by a class of seniors because I 'misgendered' a girl. (I didn't know that she was trans - there had been no notification to staff because the parents didn't approve.)

It wasn't the girl who complained about misgendering - it was the other kids. They loved having something to be righteous about.

At one point, I'd explained to the girl that she'd need to get her parents to contact the exam board to have her certificates issued in her new name. She said that she was fine having her 'deadname' on them. That was when I should have twigged that she was being pushed by her pals.

Because no one cares about those other things.

As I understand it, it's because the have outsourced the writing of the syllabus to outside private companies who have then slapped a copyright on their materials which prevents the schools from openly sharing the materials with parents.

This is alluded to in the link posted by @IwantToRetire.

Geoff Barton, of the Association of School and College Leaders, says clarification over copyright law is helpful and agrees that transparency on RSHE materials is key; pointing out schools generally share that information on request.

I also found this article which mentions the copyright issue.

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/31/rshe-relationships-health-sex-education-review-curriculum-to-protect-children/

Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary has written to schools to remind them of their duty to share all materials with parents. She has also made clear that copyright does not prevent them from doing so when they show materials to parents on the school premises, but that we expect schools to avoid working with providers that do not agree to share materials with parents.

So there are some providers who do not agree to share materials with parents. Why would they do that? Can't everyone see the red flags?

I've said before, while there are issues with the Scottish curriculum, it is published in full online, and anyone can access it, read it, check the supporting materials, and contact the authors. They regularly consult on it. Yes, some of the content is problematic, but at least we know what it is.

If Scotland can do it without fuss, why not the rest of the UK?

https://rshp.scot/

Miriam Cates in The Telegraph this morning:

PROTECT CHILDREN FROM RADICAL GENDER IDEOLOGY.

"In 2018, Theresa May pledged to end so-called conversion therapy. In 2020, Boris Johnson promised to ban it after a government study into its prevalence. In 2022, he decided against a legal ban, then rapidly backtracked but said the legislation would not include trans conversion therapy.
In January this year, Rishi Sunak’s government committed to bringing forward a “trans inclusive” ban. Over the summer, these plans were delayed, but last week it emerged that a Conversion Practices Bill was being considered for the King’s Speech.
Confused? Me too. But given the complexity of the issues and the strength of feeling on both sides, it is perhaps unsurprising that successive administrations have blown with the wind. The sorts of things that people think of as “gay conversion therapy” include electric shock treatment and physical abuse, appalling practices that were shamefully and indefensibly used against homosexuals in the past. But these abuses are, thankfully, already illegal through existing legislation that covers sexual abuse, coercion, and grievous bodily harm.
In conversation, ministers have been unable to provide a worked example of a single additional conversion practice that they wish to outlaw, but campaigners continue to press the Government to introduce a new ban on “trans” conversion therapy. Judging by the results of similar efforts elsewhere, this could result in a series of dreadful unintended consequences.
In Canada, for example, legislation was recently introduced creating an offence of causing a person to undergo “a practice, treatment or service designed to... change a person’s gender identity to cisgender”. Canadian parents who want to seek help for children experiencing distress about their gender could now risk prosecution and jail sentences. In Victoria, Australia, it is now a criminal offence for a parent to refuse a child’s request for puberty blockers or “gender-affirming” care.
“It is frankly unthinkable that a Tory government could import a ‘Stonewall charter’ into criminal law
”
Over the past few years, much has been revealed about the harms done to vulnerable children by such treatments, including the permanent loss of fertility and sexual function.
From the ongoing scandal of the Tavistock clinic to the discovery that schools – still without government guidance on how to handle issues of gender identity – have been socially transitioning children, it is increasingly clear that children need to be protected from radical gender ideology.
Against this background, it would be sheer foolishness to bring in a law that could prevent parents and doctors from protecting children from making irreversible choices.
Proponents of the Bill claim that it can be drafted to avoid these consequences. But even if this is possible, legislation can be amended as it makes its way through Parliament, and these amendments are not within the Government’s control.Campaigners have called for “conversion therapy protection orders”, which would give courts the authority to remove a child from their parents if deemed at risk of so-called “conversion practices”.
We have already seen cases of British parents who refuse to “transition” their children being referred to social services. If such orders were to be included in the Bill, it could prevent parents from even talking to their children about gender and sexuality.
It is frankly unthinkable that a Conservative government could import a “Stonewall charter” into criminal legislation purely to appease activists. The law is the foundation of our fundamental freedoms. It must never be used for political virtue signalling.
There are those who argue that we should bring in a ban now ahead of a potential Labour government so that we can legislate on our own terms. But the duty of a conservative is to hold the line; not to breach it less badly than our opponents.
A Conversion Practices Bill would have a chilling effect on free speech and on our voters – which is a doubly unwise course of action before a general election."

I'm about to get married. Do you think the bride to be would call it all off if she knew I loved Miriam Cates? Oh, I mean as well as her, lol.

Seriously, how can it be so few MPs who speak so directly and eloquently about this? Just her, Kemi Badenoch, Rosie Duffield. I'm struggling to list any others.

Bloody brilliant article, Miriam nails every single point. Thank you for sharing that, it cheered this wet Tuesday morning enormously!

'The law is the foundation of our fundamental freedoms. It must never be used for political virtue signalling.'

Totally. I've argued that I'd rather this was got out in the HoC now rather than under a bunch of leftist nutjobs with alternative realities who look facts in the face and just deny that they are there, and frankly I don't think it would then make it to a bill or a bill that did what the gender lobby want, and if it did then it wouldn't survive the HoL.

To me the point of getting this out would be to have it in everyone's plain sight that this lobby tries to use the law to achieve what it wants (which is often nuts) and to control and oppress and harm others as an active part of it, not as a side effect. And that it is unreasonable and incapable of balance or consideration for others, and needs less 'kindness' and a hell of a lot more tough boundaries.

I see her point about 'holding the line' and not trying to 'legislate less worse than them' and also once there, amendments will be constantly being tried to be rammed through to push it where the gender lobby wants. But I think the lobby will force it in eventually and it should be discussed and sorted out: and hopefully not just kicked into the long grass (again) to keep boomeranging back, but permanently thrown out as the utter mess it is. In part because what the HoC and HoL need to catch up on is that this is not a set of individual separate issues, it's all one single issue of the behaviours and manipulations that a political lobby uses to try and control and avoid democracy and subvert the law. And it needs stamping on.