The 'conversion therapy' bill is an abomination

I would put Olivia Bailey in prison, before the parents who refuse to affirm trans identified children.

A girl can dream…

In 2013, when writing a book chapter about the hideous practice of “praying away the gay” (as conversion therapy is known, particularly in the US) I went undercover to experience it for myself. I travelled to a so-called therapy centre in Colorado that specialised in “same-sex attracted females”.

Despite being undercover, and something of a tough cookie, it was a horrific experience that left me feeling fairly traumatised. I was told I was broken, and needed to be fixed. I was told I was possessed by demons, and that my ancestors were howling in pain at what I had become. Throughout this process, it was obvious that my “therapist” knew full well she could not change me from being a lesbian to being heterosexual: her mission was simply to stop me being gay.

What the government’s draft bill labels “conversion therapy” for trans-identified children is in fact the opposite of what it describes. In the draft, “abusive conversion therapy” includes ‘financial pressure’ or ‘emotional pressure’. What constitutes an offence is simply that a trans identified person feels ‘seriously harmed/alarmed/distressed’. The penalty is an unlimited fine and up to five years in prison.

My recent podcast series, Julie in Genderland, is based on interviews with parents whose children were encouraged and/or enabled to socially transition at school. All but one of those young people eventually desisted – but not every aspect of the hell those parents were put through was caused by their children claiming to be the opposite sex. Parents who refused to simply affirm these delusions were also subjected to threats from teachers and social workers.

In many cases, adults (often social workers) in thrall to transgender ideology had driven a wedge between parent and child, and two of the parents I spoke to ended up estranged from their children. I heard detailed accounts, including from the young people themselves, of instances in which they had presented at a gender clinic claiming to have “gender dysphoria” only to be instantly validated as “transgender”.

The truth is that there is no such thing as a transgender child. The gender distress these children experienced was due to underlying problems that any responsible professional should have spotted immediately: sexual abuse, autism, severe bullying, internalised homophobia – any of which can cause young people to feel profoundly disconnected from their bodies, as we also see with anorexia and self-harm.

Parents are terrified that their attempts to get the help their children so desperately need will result in investigation, criminalisation, and imprisonment. The government is taking therapy, support and gentle scrutiny – the kind aimed at uncovering what underlies a young person’s claims to be transgender – and labelling it “conversion therapy”. This bill will strip parental rights from mums and dads who simply want to know how they can help their children live happily in their bodies.

Of course, properly regulated therapists should be investigated if there are allegations of coercive control over patients – and if parents are sending their children to Christian boot camps, the law should intervene. But children experiencing distress about their bodies need support – not affirmation that they are in the “wrong body”.

Then there is the issue with those who wish to de-transition. Michael Kerr is the founder of Detransition Pathway UK, the first UK-based support service for those who regret transitioning and wish to reclaim their true sex. Kerr tells me that, were it not for the fact that he had been able to speak with a man who did have full surgery about his feelings of profound regret, he would have gone down the same pathway. “I would have had to live as a castrated gay man,” he says.

We do not need additional laws against conversion therapy. Any accredited therapist must already be ethical and non-coercive, and this legislation may have unintended consequences for those seeking help. For all the young adults waking up to the enormity of their mistake and in need of support to process this, it could well mean that no therapist would dare go near them for fear of ending up in prison for helping someone reclaim their true sex.

If this bill becomes law, people who regret transitioning will have nowhere to go. There is a huge difference between telling a lesbian or gay person that they are bad or broken for being same-sex attracted, and a parent who tries to dissuade their child from transitioning. Criminalising parents who are convinced their healthy child may simply grow up to be gay and would like them to pause, and think carefully before drastic surgery, is an abomination.