A ban on conversion therapy, which could well be in the Kings Speech - will require a definition of both Conversion Therapy AND Gender Identity - that's going to be tricky...

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

But I feel probably for everyone's advantage.

Lawyers will be ALL OVER IT given the amount of stick the government are getting constantly on all gender issues (rightly).

How can you give a legal definition to a belief? One that most people do not believe in?

I feel as if you may be optimistic about this. I agree definitions are needed but the NHS appears to have got by for years on coercive control and word salad and have absolutely no consequence for breaking the law in a way that increases risk of sexual assault to patients and steps all over female staff's rights.

Charles is fairly sensible and Camilla is excellent on women's rights so let's hope he refuses to read out nonsensical word salad without definitions if this should come to pass. You'd hope they'd also resist anything that might harm women and girl's safeguarding as it would not be a good look from the monarchy at the moment.

Even the ones that believe in it often believe in it differently.

Does it require a definition or will they just ban it and then leave everyone to figure out the mess later?

Charles is fairly sensible and Camilla is excellent on women's rights so let's hope he refuses to read out nonsensical word salad without definitions if this should come to pass. You'd hope they'd also resist anything that might harm women and girl's safeguarding as it would not be a good look from the monarchy at the moment.

I think there is zero scope for the king to have any influence whatsoever in the wording of the speech. Also, the speech itself is bound to be all about the feelz and consequently a word salad. (Perhaps we should say caesar salad since it will be read by a monarch.)

It will hopefully be at the point of actually drafting the bill that reality kicks in a bit. Though it didn't for the gender recognition act.

the NHS is not the law though, laws need very clear definitions, or they don't work, and, lawyers of all sides will be all over this with a very fine toothed comb right?

I believe the Lords will force a definition in, if one does not make it in already

And yes, it will be the drafting of the law itself not the speech which makes the difference

Well - as this appears to be happening by default anyway with transactivists routinely threatening and bullying a range of professionals about exercising due diligence & safeguarding children, maybe we need this to expose their thinking about children?
It could be an opportunity to reinforce the need to safeguard children and enshrine in the law the right for children and young people to grow and develop free from being gaslit & influenced by biased transactivists?

And yet look at the use of the term "gender reassignment" in the Equality Act, which isn't clearly defined - or defined at all, as far as I can see. Or the way that the original GRA which uses the terms "sex" and "gender" interchangeably. So I'm not optimistic.

this is a very good point. However I have had many conversations that tell me the people who will be scrutinising the bill will no longer be asleep at the wheel.

With hindsight, it seems ridiculous that hand-wavey, undefinable stuff like "living as a member of the opposite sex" ever made it into legislation. You'd hope, now that people are more aware, that that wouldn't happen again.

Primary reason for repealing the GRA is how poorly it is written - followed swiftly by it being a lot of old guff

I don't think it's even possible to come up with a definition of gender identity that some won't consider transphobic.

It's bizarre that Labour might want to go down this totally self destructive route

It is impossible to define but I guarantee they have learned nothing. They will stick their fingers in their ears and railroad it through and leave 1001 court cases to sort out the mess just like the GRA and Equality Act.

I think this is the most likely option.

The big problem is that there is research that indicates that the large majority of prepubescent children who present with 'gender dysphoria' will desist with trans identification by adulthood without any special intervention by therapists, with a large portion of them identifying as gay or lesbian. There's also good evidence that when minors go on puberty blockers they practically always go on to cross sex hormones, i.e. they don't desist. So, the question is: is the reason for lack desistance due to the fact that they're put on puberty blockers or because their identities are aggressively affirmed?

The most reasonable take is that it's probably a combination of the two, and that there's a real risk that activation affirmation (to avoid professional sanction for 'conversion therapy') will cause at least some number of trans identified youth to go onto life altering surgeries and cross-sex hormones who would otherwise have come to peace with their biological sex.

It's an extraordinarily dangerous and irresponsible attempt at legislation given the very poor state of evidence and state of capture in paediatric medicine by the trans lobby.

If Charles refuses to read out anything there’d be a constitutional crisis that would bring an end to the monarchy, which for my part would be very welcome. Unfortunately all the monarch does is announce what his government is going to do.

What this might do is provoke some people to think a bit more coherently than hitherto.

One of the things that is really weird about this ban is the fact that it is so specific. If there really is a problem with therapists pushing to change people's self-concept and/or lifestyles then surely this needs to be tackled on a more generalised basis? Sexuality and trans-identification can't be the only arenas where any kind of therapist-led change is potentially damaging/intolerant/ideological/disrespectful.
What about the cases where parents arrange therapy for their adolescent children with a view to 'correcting' what the parents see as a problematically rebellious lifestyle -- partying, not studying, having a lot of sexual partners, abandoning the parents' faith, etc. Why are these types of therapy less in need of a specific ban?
The reality is that any form of therapy that is perceived from the outset as geared towards changing the client in a pre-defined way needs interrogating.

Even when the change is easily recognisable as something constructive that the client has rationally and autonomously sought: Say somneone begins therapy with the goal of improving their self-esteem or moving away from disordered eating, it is still the therapists' professional duty to review that goal continuously - maybe it is a screen for some deeper, more troubling issue, or perhaps it is not an authentic self-determined goal but just something the client's family framed as a problem, etc. The therapist has to be led by the client's self-exploration at all times, and to interrogate their evolving priorities, rather than uncritically pursuing what seems to her a highly obvious unquestionable good outcome.

And of course there are loads of potential changes that a client might be seeking through therapy that are in a grey area -- not obviously good or bad, not obviously helpful or unhelpful for the client. No therapist should accept these as the pre-defined goal of therapy. The goal should be constantly reviewed, and possibly dismissed, in the light of whatever the client brings to therapy.

In other words, you would pretty much have to be an incompetent and/or authoritarian therapist to be pushing for any pre-defined change in the client. So legislation, if any is needed, should probably be aimed at tightening up who can actually market themselves as therapists. Most relevant words relating to providing therapy aren't 'protected' and anyone can use them to promote their services. So we should probably start by defining standards that must be met in order to be authorised to promote oneself as a therapist

This ⬆️

They couldn't define 'Islamaphobia' but it didn't stop them from bringing out a 'guidance' that can be used to silence any criticism of Islam. Most of the laws parliament past are incoherent, it's why were in the mess we're in.

That fact so many politicians are lawyers might explain it.

What does this refer to?

There is currently some TRA activism because they say Labour promised to bring this in but haven't drafted a bill.

Have you seen something new?

Okay - I've found a reference thanks to HOC Library ie

Two further draft bills were announced but have not been published:

• Draft Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill
• Draft Conversion Practices Bill

So we, Parliament are waiting for a Draft Bill.

I wonder who will be writing that!

Full breakdown of what the King's Speech will include https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10585/

Can’t comment and all that.

and have no idea if a ban on conversion therapy will make it into the kid s speach. Nobody does until like 10m prior. its a horse trading game etc.

but I know people who would have described themselves as asleep at the wheel previously, no longer do. So I have faith this will get scrutiny.

I don’t understand how ‘conversion therapy’ applies to gender anyway. If loads of kids desist from thinking they’re the opposite sex then they’ve been ‘converted’ and that’s a ‘bad thing’?

If you can't define what ‘conversion therapy’ is, or say what it includes and what it doesn't, then you can't make good law about it. You'd hope that lesson would have been learnt by now.

Based on how they hushed up the GRA reading, all they do is bring forward the bill through the Lords. Then it seems they can avoid it going in the speech. Don’t quite understand the mechanism but that’s what happened last time to avoid making the monarch say weird stuff that made no sense

My understanding from this briefing they are saying it has as it were already been accepted, and they just haven't got round to drafting it. And / or have realised that cant just cobble together the TRA version of this, which has been the impetus.

ie TRAs want it to be a law that nobody can say to someone, if a young child, do you know what you mean want by trans, what else is going on in your life etc. etc..

But old fashion LGB are saying that trans identification is always right, is more often than not an attempt to convert people who are same sex attracted.

So its the same old fight.

Not sure how any one can even attempt to draft it because both sides will say the other is the conversion menance.

I suspect that it will go on not being drafted, in much the same way as they will never bring the draft guidelines to the HoC.