How banning ‘conversion therapy’ threatens our freedoms
Labour wants to make it a crime to question someone’s sexuality or gender identity.
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The threat to ban so-called LGBT conversion therapy is rearing its ugly head yet again in the UK. During the state opening of parliament this week, the King’s Speech included a fresh promise to make it a crime for anyone – be it a therapist, teacher, parent or religious leader – to ‘change, “cure” or suppress’ a person’s sexuality or gender identity.
Labour is rushing to repeat the last government’s mistakes. The Conservatives, egged on by Stonewall and fellow travellers in the LGBT movement, tried to legislate against conversion practices several times. Ultimately, they realised that a workable ban would be incredibly difficult to implement without major unintended consequences and declined to support one in their 2024 manifesto.
Make no mistake, introducing this ban would be a grave error. The campaign to ban conversion therapy in the UK is not about protecting LGBT people from psychological abuse or torture. After all, abusive and violent treatments are already illegal. An impartial look at the evidence shows that few LGBT people have actually undergone conversion therapy of any kind.
Instead, the idea behind this campaign is that the government should criminalise ‘any intervention’ with the ‘predetermined purpose’ of changing someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Proponents are very candid about what this will include. The official Ban Conversion Therapy (BCT) coalition even wants to criminalise ‘casual conversations’ and ‘private prayer’.
To see how bad this would really be, look no further than Australia. BCT coalition chair Jayne Ozanne, plus several of her allies, endorsed the 2021 conversion-therapy ban in Victoria as a ‘gold standard’. If this is the blueprint, we should all be seriously concerned. Official Victorian state guidance explains that a psychotherapist who doesn’t unconditionally affirm a child’s gender identity is committing a crime. A youth group coaching a teenager to identify with the sex he was born as is banned. A religious leader recommending that a gay man practise celibacy, even if he is perfectly willing to do so, is illegal.
Just in case you weren’t horrified enough already, an earlier version of the Victorian guidance seen by the Christian Institute also listed that a parent ‘refusing to support their child’s request for medical treatment that will prevent physical changes from puberty’ was supposed to be criminalised. In other words, not allowing your child to be prescribed potentially harmful puberty blockers was almost grounds for a police visit.
Back here in the UK, prime minister Keir Starmer has promised safeguards to protect ‘the important role… [of] teachers, religious leaders, parents and carers… in supporting those exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity’. This is hardly reassuring, given that what ‘supporting’ actually means is still unclear.
There is one ground for optimism, though, even if Labour passes a law as nightmarish as Victoria’s. Legislation like this, which is almost always hopelessly vague, requires extensive legal interpretation. British courts have at least shown some willingness to protect speech that violates progressive taboos. Take the case of Maya Forstater, in which a 2022 employment tribunal ruled that she was discriminated against in the workplace for her gender-critical beliefs. Scrutiny by judges would likely force a much narrower definition of conversion practices than has been laid out in legislation.
This would by no means stop a conversion-therapy ban from having a massive and hideous chilling effect, however – just as hate-speech laws chill expression that is not technically illegal. And we should certainly not be prepared to bet our freedom on judges continuing to uphold common sense.
Banning LGBT conversion therapy is at best misguided and at worst an active threat to freedom. We must oppose Labour’s ban as if our most basic liberties depended on it. They might well do.
Jacob Williams is a PhD candidate at Oxford University, where he researches the relationship between religion, conservatism and the liberal state.
Picture by: Getty.
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