An urgent message from Athena Forum

[Justme56]

Write to your PACE delegates to clarify misconceptions about conversion therapy bans and urge them to vote NO on the upcoming resolution to criminalise non-affirmative care.
In December 2025, the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination of the PACE unanimously adopted a draft resolution calling for a Europe-wide ban on “conversion practices” — aimed at changing, repressing or suppressing a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
The resolution was tabled by Kate Osborne, a UK Labour MP and member of the Socialists, Democrats and Greens Group.

• The framing of the resolution intentionally conflates sexual orientation with gender identity and gender expression. They are completely different, and arguably incompatible, concepts. Gender identity and gender expression are highly contested ideological beliefs that deny biological reality and claim that children can be born in the wrong body.
• The resolution calls for criminal sanctions, national legislation, monitoring mechanisms and coordination with civil society organisations to enforce this framework — effectively criminalising mental‑health professionals, educators, parents and social workers who do not affirm a child’s self-declared trans identity.
• It proposes mandatory training and public awareness campaigns across a wide range of institutions — including healthcare services, social work, education, religious institutions, law enforcement, the judiciary and prosecutors — embedding this belief system into state-funded services, professional standards and school curricula.

Read our comprehensive briefing on the transactivist push to extend “conversion therapy” bans to gender identity and gender expression here. This ideological overreach must be removed. Ahead of the vote on 29 January 2026, MPs in the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) need to hear from you.

Just adding this here.

https://x.com/athenaforumeu/status/2010635632456896930?s=46&t=ZX_bLozRqm8etdGICMcAvA

Oh wow. That is really heartening - thank you for posting.

Fantastic work.

Fantastic work.

Done.

The whole thing seems very murky. The vote in the Equality and Non-Discrimination committee was, apparently, unanimous. This means that Sir Christopher Chope (Conservative, of upskirting Bill blocking infamy) voted for it.
Does Kemi know this?
Does she care?

However, if Chope was absent then I assume his 'alternate' votes. This is Valerie Vaz who is Labour, and from a different political grouping.
Why does a Tory member have a Labour 'alternate'?
Does she have to vote how Chope wants, or does she get to vote her own sweet way?
Why can't I find on the Council of Europe website which individuals actually voted for this measure?

Agree it all sounds very murky and undemocratic. As the phrase goes, the thing about UK MPs is that they work for us. Some of them may need reminding of that.

Do the people on these kinds of extra-national organisations have to toe the party line in the same way they would in the House? I rather thought they didn't but I don't actually know.

I found this on HoC web site which has terms of reference
https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/offices/uk-parliamentary-assemblies/pace-uk/pace-uk-committees/coe-delegation-committees/coe---equal-opportunities-for-women-and-men/

But has not links to dates of meetings, let alone minutes.

And a the bottom a link supposedly to take you to PACE Committee doesn't work!

No idea, I'm afraid.

https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/offices/uk-parliamentary-assemblies/pace-uk/
This is a more up-to-date version, and the link to PACE on the right-hand side works

Thanks. I searched the .gov.uk and sort of assumed they put newest first.

But good to have that link, though no info about have the met, have the agreed a strategy, or are they going as individuals.

Does seem really strange for that not to be any sort of press release.

I suppose we will here about after it has happened and whatever decision is taken cant be reversed.

I think we all agree that Athena Forum have made an excellent start to their work. They are still looking for Founding Supporters, with a goal of 500 and a current tally of 272.
Support them for 5 euros/month (or more!)

https://athena-forum.eu/

It seems that some amendments have been tabled for consideration tomorrow, including a couple that the forementioned Sir Christopher Chope (Cons) has put his name to:
https://pace.coe.int/pdf/4753b5c3956ee0751595e99e40a5f4ae85677722901a4e95524b678e9192c841/doc.%2016315%3A%20compendium%20of%20written%20amendments%20(provisional%20version).pdf

Reading that, one para stands out; "The experience of countries that have been pioneers in this area, such as Malta, not only provides valuable insight into the principles that should guide legislative reform, but also into potential shortcomings and loopholes that must be avoided."

I don't think that the country with the most restrictive abortion laws in the EU, where women have no right to an abortion unless their lives are immediately in danger (& that only sometimes, remember Andrea Prudente's death in 2023?) & where the (male) Chief of Staff to former PM Joseph Muscat is implicated in the fatal car bombing of an inconvenient (female) journalist, has anything to tell the world about human rights, other than it reckons men should do as they please;

Muscat used trans legislation as a distraction from Malta's endemic corruption & even the Maltese govt's enthusiastic torching of women's language & sex-disaggregated data collection hasn't helped them climb higher than 15th in the EU for "gender parity".

Live you tube link.

I didn't realise The Baroness Root Unt was going to be there.

The resolution passed.
x.com/AthenaForumEU/status/2016927480230400176

🖕to Kate Osbourne

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

For God's sake!!
At least it looks like Athena Forum are in it for the long haul in challenging this. I'll sign up to support them.

Surely the battle is lost now as far as the CoE is concerned? But I'd like to see some questions in the House about the massive democratic deficit here. MPs are elected by their constituents. And they have no say in the policies put forward.

So today is the day that I officially admit to myself that I will never vote Left again. Lots of ancestors from the cotton mills, the dockyards and the Irish diaspora spinning in their graves.

I'm happy enough to vote Left, but not until Left parties see sense on this issue. By supporting the majority of the public in their battle against an unelected and well-funded elite who wish to re-write the law to their own advantage. Y'know, the sort of thing the Left is supposed to do...

As posted yesterday:

The UK remains linked to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) because it is a member of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which is a separate treaty from the EU. While Brexit removed the UK from the EU legal order, the ECHR still binds the UK to uphold fundamental rights, with the Human Rights Act 1998 allowing these rights to be enforced in UK courts.

The Council of Europe (CoE) is the continent’s leading human rights organisation, founded in 1949 and based in Strasbourg, France. Comprising 46 member states, its primary purpose is to uphold and promote human rights, democracy, and the rule of law across Europe, notably overseeing the European Court of Human Rights.

Decisions in the Council of Europe (CoE), a distinct body from the EU focused on human rights and democracy, are primarily reached by the Committee of Ministers, which constitutes member states' foreign ministers or their permanent representatives. Decisions are typically made through consensus, but some areas may require unanimity or a qualified majority

So suspect this will lead to an increase in court cases in the UK relying on this decision by the CoE.

I have come to the conclusion that they are never going to see sense on this. At best, they will put it on the back burner if it is politically expedient to do so. They showed us who they were going to become with the PIE issue back in the day.