The UK Government has announced that it shall proceed with a ban on ‘Conversion Practices’ and that this bill shall include transgenderism.
This is a great cause for concern.
Firstly, we consider our children who have transgender ideation have been ‘converted’ – however, we doubt that the proposed Bill will be designed to stop all the practices that have placed our children in such a harmful state.
Second, it is difficult to imagine exactly what practices the Bill would seek to ban that are not already illegal.
We have already been ‘around the block’ once before in January 2022, and Our Duty produced a submission for that consultation on a proposed Conversion Therapy Ban.
While we are reassured by statements that parents and health professionals will be able to help affected people desist from transgender ideation, our worries are that there might be anything that can act as a ratchet locking in a transgender identity, or that transgender identities will be legitimised thus making it harder for parents to support their children in discovering that these are not a rational or healthy lifestyle.
We consider it essential that health professionals target 100% desistance from transgender ideation (just as they would target 100% desistance from suicidal ideation). Consequently, we have grave concerns that the Bill might inadvertently prevent that ideal.
We cannot discern anything that is not already illegal that requires prohibition as regards helping a person with transgender ideation lose that ideation. On the other hand, we would welcome legislation that prohibits converting people into thinking of themselves as transgender. The people most susceptible to such conversion practices (mainly school and online bullying) are homosexual, autistic, traumatised, abused, or have neurodiversity and/or mental illness. They need protection from the suggestion they ‘might be trans’, and we advocate for such protections to exist in law.
Unintended consequences
We are concerned that any legislation that touches on transgender ideation runs the risk of
establishing ‘gender identity’ in law, and/or establishing persons with transgender ideation as a category of person in law, it is our view that a transgender identity is a social identity much like ‘punk rocker’ or ‘goth’).
The Civil Service
Through our dealings with various Government departments, we have formed the opinion that the Civil Service is not impartial when it comes to gender ideology. It might even be fair to say that much of the executive has been ‘captured’. This manifests itself in communications which presuppose the existence of people being transgender as innate attribute as distinct from social identity. Or more simply, a civil servant acting on the belief, say, that a ‘transwoman is a woman’ is not acting impartially. Politically contentious training courses, that present gender ideology as incontrovertible fact, are still being paid for by and delivered to civil servants. This results in a cadre so politically indoctrinated that it is difficult to navigate.
Interaction or influence of existing legislation.
We would like to see the repeal of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the removal of ‘gender reassignment’ from the Equality Act 2010. We would also like to see an end to the practice of issuing passports and driving licences with an inaccurate sex. While we appreciate that neither of these necessities is current government policy, we are concerned that any Conversion Practices Bill could make such housekeeping harder. For example, anything in the Conversion Practices Bill that relies on a person having a ‘gender recognition certificate’ or refers to their ‘gender reassignment’ status or refers to any legal form of identification that can inaccurately record sex.
Definition of Conversion Practices
It is our duty to prevent unnecessary harm from being inflicted upon our children. We consider that social gender affirmation is unnecessary psychological harm, and that medical gender affirmation is grievous bodily harm, and both of these are conversion practices. We would like to see these facts reflected in legislation.
Our definition of a transgender conversion practice is:
Any activity which can lead directly or indirectly to a person acquiring transgender ideation or any practice that inflicts irreversible harm in affirming a transgender identity.
False equivalences
A transgender identity is an undesirable thing. Legislation in other countries (e.g. Canada) has sought to place having a transgender identity and not having a transgender identity as somehow equivalent in standing. This is dangerous and arrant nonsense. It is far preferable for a person’s health and wellbeing to be without a transgender identity. Indeed, an explicit statement to that effect in any legislation could be a useful reference to help sufferers accept that they need to lose their transgender ideation.
Transgenderism is presented by its advocates as a ‘state of being’, an attribute or characteristic meriting legislative status equivalent to that afforded to sex, race, and disability. The truth is that a transgender identity is social in nature, and from a societal perspective equivalent to the possession of tattoos. There is no justification for including ‘gender reassignment’ or ‘transgender identity’ on any statute.
False Information and quality of evidence
Evidence was presented to a prior consultation on a Conversion Therapy Ban from, amongst others, Mermaids and Beaumont Society. This evidence contained a number of easily disproven falsehoods and yet seemed to be taken at face value. We appreciate that this new Bill is to receive pre-legislative scrutiny from Parliament, however, there is a risk that evidence admitted in such a process might be similarly specious. What measures will be in place to ensure the objectivity and truthfulness of matters for consideration? Also, in that prior consultation the evidence taken did not encompass the range of voices, especially parents and detransitioners, that would be expected to be heard for such consultation to be balanced and fair.
The Happy Transitioner
Frequently, it is suggested that affirmation of a transgender identity (including medical interventions) is right for some people. Such people are often presented as exemplars, and many achieve fame and fortune. Care must be taken when considering these people as evidence for transgenderism, for the benefits of treatment, or as having standing in the debate to prevent gender affirmation. The reasons for caution are:
1) Such people would probably be happier in the long run had they not transitioned, and where medicalised, they would certainly be heathier.
2) Such people have a strong desire to have their life-choices validated, one source of such external validation is for them to have more people like them. i.e. it is in their interests to convert more susceptible young people to think of themselves as transgender. Ideally, the promotion of transgenderism undertaken by these ‘influencers’ would be seen as a conversion practice, and such promotion banned for younger audiences in much the same way as is the promotion of smoking.
3) Regret is real and the number of detransitioners who have suffered irreversible harm is
increasing.
Permitted Practices
The medical professions need to collect evidence and have a debate as to what practices are
reasonable to prevent the harm of gender ideation. These harms are severe and can include loss of fertility, early onset of age-related conditions such as osteoporosis and the menopause, and premature death. Practices to help a patient rid themselves of transgender ideation, when balanced against the risks of failure, need to be permitted to an extent proportionate to the downside risks.
Societal Pressure
Protection for people wishing to help society achieve 100% desistance from transgender ideation must not be limited to any particular group (e.g. parents, health professionals) it is everybody’s duty to help sufferers reconnect with reality. The whole of society needs to feel empowered to save people from transgender ideation. We’d all like to think we’d try to talk someone out of jumping off a bridge, or stop them driving a car while inebriated. Stopping a person from seeing themselves as transgender is a similar duty, our duty.
