When parents become suspects - Sex Matters

[IwantToRetire]

“No, you can’t wear a breast binder.” “No, I won’t call you by a new name.” These are reasonable things for a responsible parent to say to a gender-distressed 13-year-old. Under the government’s draft Conversion Practices Bill, they could become the basis of a criminal complaint, which could be brought by anyone.

These sorts of scenarios are described in Criminalising conversations, new research for Sex Matters by social scientist Matilda Gosling. Gosling interviewed 30 psychotherapists, clinical psychologists and counsellors about the bill, which is about to start a 12-week process of pre-legislative scrutiny by a joint committee of MPs and peers. In the , she talks to Helen Joyce about what they told her.

Full article https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/when-parents-become-suspects/

(Couldn't see if this has been posted - MN search really slow today)

Thank you for posting the Sex Matters Report ❤️

Please support the #BinTheBill campaign against the Draft Conversion Practices Bill and the Day of Action on Sat 24th Oct.

More info here
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5587311-5587311-binthebill-campaign-and-day-of-action-bin-the-draft-conversion-practices-bill-england-wales

Nope. I've rung social services on several occasions about two children I was worried about. The most that happened was a social worker questioned the parent then promptly did nothing.

Parents who have had trans children removed from their care have, in all instances, also found to have been physically and/or sexually abusing them.

'Conversion therapy' is and has always been a cover to abuse kids who are different.

No child should be made to feel unsafe at home, and adults should not be supporting their abuse.

Allow a child to wear a breast binder is abusive.

Yes; if a parent forced a child to wear painful; and constrictive clothing, that would rightly be considered abuse by that parent.

PrizedPickledPopcorn Agreed.

It is unbelievable that the CPS will prosecute parents of African heritage who use Breast Binders as part of the harmful cultural practice of "Breast Flattening" but gives a pass to parents, teachers, therapists and voluntary organisations engaging in the harmful cultural practice euphemistically referred to as "gender affirmation".

The CPS says of Breast Flattening (including by Breast Binders)

"The offence may be a form of child abuse or an offence against the person. Offences such as child cruelty (contrary to section 1(1) Children and Young Persons Act 1933) causing or allowing a child to suffer serious harm (contrary to section 5 Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004) and assaults (contrary to the Offences against the Person Act 1861) may apply. Prosecutors should refer to both the Child Abuse (non-sexual) and Offences against the Person, incorporating the Charging Standard prosecution guidance."

However, the CPS has even watered down its Guidance on "consent" to breast flattening (by any method!) after the "gender affirming loophole" was drawn to its attention.

It used to say

"Prosecutors should challenge the raising of consent as a possible defence: it is not possible to consent to an assault where the injury caused is more than transient and trifling: R v Brown (Anthony) [1994] 1 AC 212. This is subject to strict exceptions of which breast flattening is not one. Responsible adults who aid and abet a girl, as the victim, in breast flattening should also be considered for investigation and prosecution.”
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20260215143139/www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/so-called-honour-based-abuse#a07" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20260215143139/www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/so-called-honour-based-abuse#a07

It now says

”In cases of breast flattening/assault prosecutors should challenge the defence of consent as a possible defence. R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212 states it is not possible to consent to an assault where the injury caused is more than transient or trifling. A victim may have consented because of a shared belief that they need to undergo the practice or that victim agreed to what the family proposed, but it should be considered if this ‘true’ consent within the context of the particular circumstances of the case.”
https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/honour-based-abuse-forced-marriage-and-harmful-practices#HBA02

Breast Binding is a gruesome physical manifestation of the harmful New Conversion Practice of persuading young lesbians and tomboys that they are really "men", "boys" or practiced as an induction ritual into the adolescent sex-denialist non-binary subculture.

As for TransParentlyAnnoyed's manifestly defamatory allegation that, "Parents who have had trans children removed from their care have, in all instances, also found to have been physically and/or sexually abusing them." - I would love to see them trying and failing to defend that gross libel in court!

"What can't be stated often enough is how this bill - totally predictably - conflates adults and children. Stephanie Davies - Arai (link below) points out how the Bill "puts together adults and children and also puts together two categories: an objective reality (sexual orientation) and a subjective identity (transgender identity) and treats them as the same thing. For children, complex conditions involving mental health co-morbidities are reduced to an identity, adultifying and politicising one group of children".

"The Bill criminalises any conduct with intent involving controlling words (“no you can’t have a binder”) economic pressure (“no I won’t buy you blockers from an online provider”) psychological or emotional pressure (“hormones will harm your body and you might regret it when you’re older – and you can never be a boy anyway”). All of these terms are subjective. One person may judge a parent to be controlling or over-protective while another person may judge the same parent as exercising appropriate authority".

"Parents routinely restrict children from doing what they want; placing restrictions on behaviour is the normal duty of a responsible parent to safeguard and protect their child – from running into the road to refusing a teenager permission to stay out late at night"

This has - as so often in this area - been written by adults intent on undermining the parent child relationship and determined to adultify children, refusing to see them as young and potentially vulnerable to indoctrination and abuse. It's in fact criminalising responsible parenting.

www.transgendertrend.com/conversion-practices-bill-criminalise-responsible-parents/