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.

I hope Rishi, or anyone still 'beeee kiiiind', reads this from the Critic

https://thecritic.co.uk/could-rishi-be-found-guilty-of-conversion-therapy/*

Or the Miriam Cates article.

That India W comment was, imo, in extremely poor taste at the time and has aged like fine milk.

Miriam Cates is aggravating all the right people on Twitter. A sure sign she's spot on.

Stuart Andrew acknowledged and apologised for delays when speaking at a session of questions to Government Equalities Office ministers in the Commons on Wednesday, but said “nobody” would make an announcement about what will be included in the King’s Speech ahead of time.

... (lots of virtue signalling from Labour members)

Tory MP Philip Hollobone (Kettering) said: “In its 2021 census the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that there are 260,000 transgender people in the UK.
“Does the minister agree with the separate Office for Statistics Regulation that due to skewed methodology this number is likely to have been a huge overestimate?”

Ms Badenoch said: “I do share the concerns that the Office for Statistics Regulation has raised. And actually, in February I asked my officials to explore with the ONS whether the census got the number right, because of a lack of understanding of the question.

“We need to be very careful about language. People don’t often understand what we mean when we use terms like transgender, gender identity, we’ve got to make sure that they understand that.”

https://www.aol.co.uk/equalities-minister-apologises-delay-bill-123620972.html

"This is a potential nightmare for counsellors"

Are you sure? I have a (non gender-critical) counsellor friend about this and she thinks conversion therapy should "definitely" be banned outright. A ban would not affect her work in any way.

Exploring gender/identity/sexuality with a counsellor does not count as "conversion therapy".

Exploring gender/identity/sexuality with a counsellor does not count as "conversion therapy".

This is what those who advocate transing gay minors would say.

I have a (non gender-critical) counsellor friend about this and she thinks conversion therapy should "definitely" be banned outright. A ban would not affect her work in any way.

There you are then

"The Party line, in oddly Orwellian fashion, seems to be that Mr Sunak was referring to sex, not gender. However, under the 2021 proposals on conversion therapy, advanced by Boris Johnson’s Government, that would make no difference and provide no defence."

This is interesting (from The Critic article); I didn't know that sex and gender had been conflated in the 2021 proposals. Does anyone have a link?

(Though my cleverest, most knowledgable friend does say that sex and gender historically were considered interchangable terms that meant the same thing; this is certainly not contemporary understanding.)

😂

Historically, gender has largely been a bowdlerised term for sex (or a niche academic concept).

The problem is that in the 2020s the two seem to have combined into something monstrous.

most knowledgable friend does say that sex and gender historically were considered interchangable terms that meant the same thing

Not sure what this is based on, and although oldish cant speak for hundreds of years ago, but growing up nobody, including newspapers used the word gender. (Does Shakespeard talk about gender?) Gender might have appeared in academic papers etc., but for us ordinary folk is our plain and simple way understood what sex was (and is). (Just google old newspaper articles)

It has only become more common to use the word gender since queer theorists usurped women's studies in universities, and then the products of their brainwashing started to get positions of influence in the media etc..

That's why we have the SEX discriminat act, and SEX is a protected characteristic.

How old in you "knowledgable" friend?

@IwantToRetire he's 60ish.

I probably wasn't very clear: I think he means that sex was The Term Used, and insofar as gender was ever used (ie rarely), it was used as a synonym for sex, not to mean something different (let alone almost opposite).

So he thinks that the term 'gender' has, as you say, been usurped and its meaning distorted by the queer gender ideologues... and he's not happy about it (he's as gender-critical as I am).

Nailed it.

I'm not the one who's bleating about Labour. You're projecting @IwantToRetire. My focus is women, feminism and this government's disastrous record on the Women's rights.

I'm not the one who's bleating about Labour. You're projecting @IwantToRetire. My focus is women, feminism and this government's disastrous record on the Women's rights.

I'm making fun of you. You so consistently dont understand what is being posted, but just use every post to say the same thing over and over again.

Sorry you dont get the joke.

Neither Labour nor Tories are prepared to come up with a firm position. It's all about, what's a good sound-bite that'll quieten people down, but neither are prepared to make the serious decisions we want.

Jokes are funny. What happened with the government last week is not funny. What our government has done and continues to do to UK women is not funny.

I totally understand what is being posted. It's not funny and it's not feminism. I get why you might think it's a joke though.

Sometimes you have to laugh - gallows humour.

Gender and sex were used very much interchangeably for quite a few years in everyday speech . It was happening quite commonly 30 years ago and no one thought they were talking about two different things. The only place you'd have found a discussion of gender as something different would be in a university, and in certain departments of the university.

This is when "gender" started replacing "sex" on forms and things.

It's still quite common in the US for average people to think that way, which is why they sometimes have much less clarity in these discussions. People understand gender and sex as synonyms.

You could find some very niche discussions of a more modern meaning of "gender" along with words like cis, 20 years ago, but they were absolutely not on the radar of most people. Even many people in the gay community, or people who considered themselves trans. It's only since about 2018 or so that this has all exploded for the general public.

Exactly

Yes, precisely this, @Rudderneck - thank you for explaining better than I did!

Over a very short space of time a concept of 'gender' and 'gender identity' has appeared and become quite mainstream, even though said concept is very rarely actually, carefully, philosophically defined, even when it is used in actual legislation.

Clarity is absolutely our friend here, and any political party seeking to or promising to pass legislation in this area MUST first DEFINE THEIR TERMS! It's so basic, and so shocking that most parties (small 'p') to the debate get away without doing so.

Would you are your friend be willing to test that in court?

Activist goes to a therapist, decides that exploration of the idea that they may not be trans is akin to converting them away from being trans, takes councillor to court. Councillor loses and is banned from the profession.

Sound far fetched? Well if the police can launch an investigation into hate crime for putting up stickers with the feminist flag on it...

This is being circulated on facebook, and not sure it is true. But we know from the GRA consultation that Stonewall etc., where able to mobilise a coordinated response:

Please could you write to your MPs and share among your networks - copied with permission

URGENT AND IMPORTANT

A sympathetic Tory MP advises that all MP’s are receiving large numbers of letters and emails lobbying for the Conversion Practices Bill to be included in the King’s Speech on 7th November.

This is why Rishi Sunak suddenly announced that the Bill would be in the King’s Speech. Despite the flip-flopping, it could still go in because constituency MPs are not getting anything like similar lobbying from the GC side: the message from constituents is that they want the Conversion Practices Bill.

There is, for example, a huge campaign across the Statutory and Voluntary Sector pressing people to write to MPs lobbying for the Bill to be included in the King’s Speech.

If it goes in the King’s Speech then it will be prioritised for debate before the next General Election, with MPs of all Parties, including the Tories, having been lobbied strongly to vote in favour.

If you haven’t already written to your MP, please write NOW.

If you have already written your MP, please write again NOW.

The advice was: Whatever else you might want to say, and if you say nothing else, please include the following points prominently in your own words:
——
Dear X,

I write with some urgency regarding the Kings Speech due on November 7th.
I ask you to vote the Conversion Therapy Practices Bill down, on the following grounds:

1. There is no evidence to suggest this Bill is needed. 5 years of evidence gathering has found that there is no practice that needs criminalising that is not already covered by existing laws.

2. The current Parliamentary agenda is full enough without additional legislation for the sake of being seen to be “doing something” in order to placate lobby groups such as Stonewall.

3. I would like to see a commission or enquiry into how children are being indoctrinated into believing it is possible to change sex, for girls to become boys or visa versa, particularly in schools. It is increasingly clear that gender non-conforming, autistic or young LGB people are particularly susceptible to gender identity ideology, which was highlighted in the Cass report into the GIDS service at the NHS Tavistock clinic.

Please vote this Bill down.

So now we have another annonymous briefing saying it WONT be in the King's speech (I have vision of Charles sitting on his throne getting more and more tetchy and asking well which is it you wont me to say!).

Gay and transgender conversion therapy won't be outlawed as proposed ban has been downgraded in the King's Speech

• Ban on gay conversion therapy will not take place before the next election
• Project had been expected to be part of King's Speech on Tuesday
• Ministers will instead promise to bring forward draft legislation for consultation

Sorry for DM link - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12708799/Gay-transgender-conversion-therapy-wont-outlawed-proposed-ban-downgraded-Kings-Speech.html

Thank you, done and sent. It may no longer be in the speech, I have mixed feelings about that as I'd rather this was all torn apart now rather than galloped past under some God-awful left coalition of realityphobic, misogynist and homophobic nutjobs, but still useful for MPs to have the fuller picture on record.

Although they are now wise to the brigading and sales tactics of the TQ+ political lobby, and increasingly wise that what they're told by this lobby is rarely the truth as it is, as opposed to what the lobby would like them to believe.

A confidence trick can only be played with all of the people for a very short window of time before they get wise, and that window is closing.

A confidence trick can only be played with all of the people for a very short window of time before they get wise, and that window is closing.

Yes, or maybe the window is being flung open and the full facts are getting through rather than small carefully selected "facts" being slipped through a small slot in the window, filtered by TRAs!!