The Government has included a ban on so-called conversion therapy in the King’s Speech, which lays out its legislative agenda for this parliamentary session.
In his speech at the State Opening of Parliament, King Charles III announced: “A draft Bill will be brought forward to ban conversion practices.”
Prior to the General Election, Labour promised to introduce “a full trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices, while protecting the freedom for people to explore their sexual orientation and gender identity”.
‘Multiple risks’
LGBT activists have been pushing for a ban to include prayer, preaching and pastoral conversations which do not affirm a person’s same-sex orientation or gender identity.
The Christian Institute has been at the forefront of opposition to a ban on conversion therapy, and has warned that such a broad ban would threaten gospel freedom and would inadvertently criminalise the ordinary work of churches.
In response, The Christian Institute’s Deputy Director Simon Calvert said: “The Christian Institute has obtained legal advice from leading King’s Counsel on every attempt to legislate for conversion therapy in the UK and every time those KCs have advised that there are multiple risks to the human rights of innocent parents, pastors and professionals.
“Hilary Cass indicated that she believes it is probably impossible to legislate on this issue in a way which complies with the findings in her report which highlight the intense pressures already placed on professionals dealing with gender confused young people.”
‘Highly controversial’
He continued: “We very much doubt that Labour can succeed where everyone else has failed.
“Gay and trans people are protected by existing law from abuse. But extending the law to criminalise casual conversations – as anti-conversion therapy activists have demanded – would punish the innocent, not the guilty.
“Nonetheless we welcome the fact that this is a draft bill which requires public consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny. These will reveal the many risks of legislating in this highly controversial space.”
Silencing opposition
Maya Forstater, CEO of women’s rights group Sex Matters, said before the announcement that a ban “will harm the children it is supposed to protect”.
“It’s been decades since clinicians tried to change anyone’s sexual orientation with electrical shocks and vomiting treatments. Such ‘conversion therapy’ is thankfully a thing of the past: recognised to be cruel and ineffective. If anyone tried anything similar today, it would be assault and they could go to jail.”
She also pointed out that the landmark Cass review of NHS gender identity services for children found no evidence to support giving puberty-blocking drugs to children, and that in the first instances, treatments should instead be talking therapies or anti-depressants.
Forstater said: “But the gender identity lobby doesn’t want this. It has labelled her approach ‘conversion therapy’ in a desperate attempt to silence those who oppose telling unhappy children that the way to feel better is to alter their healthy bodies.”
Outgrowing gender confusion
She continued: “Every study of trans-identifying children has found that, unless the grown-ups around them reinforce their identities by pretending they have changed sex, most will outgrow their gender confusion.”
“The people who will be harmed by the proposed law”, she concluded, “are those it’s supposed to protect: distressed kids.”
PM called to address hostility Christians face over ‘conversion therapy’