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Why a Bill to Ban Conversion Therapy is a Terrible Idea

by Toby Young
3 November 2023 2:00 PM
2J3WB4C People take part in a protest outside Downing Street in London, over transgender people not being included in plans to ban conversion therapy. Picture date: Sunday April 10, 2022.

2J3WB4C People take part in a protest outside Downing Street in London, over transgender people not being included in plans to ban conversion therapy. Picture date: Sunday April 10, 2022.

In this week’s Spectator, I’ve written about Rishi Sunak’s plans to publish a bill banning conversion therapy. The baffling thing about this is that conversion therapy, as commonly understood, has been banned in this country for years. So what is it the Prime Minister wants to ban?

The bill hasn’t been published, but my fear is it will look a lot like the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act passed in the Australian state of Victoria in 2021. As in the U.K., pseudo-scientific ‘treatments’ for homosexuality were already criminal offences in Victoria when the act received royal assent, but the new law went further. For instance, a religious leader who has a conversation with a member of their congregation in which they urge them to resist their homosexual desires can now be jailed for up to ten years if they have caused injury, which includes “harm to mental health”.

In addition, the act prohibits any “conduct directed towards a person for the purpose of changing or suppressing their… gender identity, or inducing them to do so”. In other words, if a girl who believes she’s a boy is urged by her doctor to see a psychotherapist before having surgery, that doctor would be breaking the law. The only approach a medical professional is allowed to take when faced with a teenager suffering from gender dysphoria – which is still listed in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders – is to affirm the child’s self-diagnosis and facilitate whatever ‘treatment’ they’ve seen on TikTok.

According to some critics of the Victorian law, it even prohibits parents from trying to dissuade their children from taking puberty blockers.

Worth reading in full.

If you want to write to your MP and urge them to ask Rishi Sunak not to publish this bill, you can do so by using the Free Speech Union’s campaigning tool.

You can also watch me talking about this on Spectator TV here.

Tags: Conversion Therapy BanRishi SunakSpectatorState of Victoria

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6 Comments
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Free Lemming
Free Lemming
1 year ago

Can we ban images of mentally ill people holding up signs about banning ‘conversion therapy’? It’s like seeing a packet of skittles come to life.

57
-3
soundofreason
soundofreason
1 year ago

Conversion therapy. Presumably it will be illegal to help people to convert to whatever ‘Trans’ would be in their case?

28
-1
wilsonnl
wilsonnl
1 year ago

I agree, if the Act will prohibit any “conduct directed towards a person for the purpose of changing or suppressing their gender identity” then it will prohibit any attempt to persuade a person to change their gender in the first place. This Act will ban attempts by teachers, nurses, doctors, and activists to gender affirm. This should result in jail sentences for activists who pressure children to be sterilised and castrated.

38
-1
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  wilsonnl

That’s a nice theory, but not how it will work out in practice: At the core of the transreligion is the belief that people are composed of a gendered soul that’s separate from and more important then the merely physical body which needs to be affirmatively castrated (or other mutilated) to save this gendered soul from its otherwise certainly terrible fate. That’s obviously nonsense on steroids or – somewhat more politely put – like all other stories about nonphysical existance of something ot somebody, a superstition/ religious creed but because social scientists are pushing for it, it’s by definition a part of The Science™.

Tranfafficionados obviously don’t word that in this way, they prefer handwaiving while mumbling something about The Brain™, but in realitly, little is known about how the brain (the real one) actually works at the chemical level and they’re just exploiting this to avoid being contradicted.

11
0
Jon Mors
Jon Mors
1 year ago

Does this mean that for counsellors to try and convert confused gay kids to straight trans kids is also banned?

There’s something very sick about people that prefer to believe that somebody (e.g. their child or patient) can be born in the wrong body, and may need surgery to correct it, to accepting that they have same sex attraction.

Why, if I were gay I’d be quite offended.

21
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
1 year ago

It is an interesting idea given the depth of the issue. I think that there is much more to it than is commonly understood and therefore a therapeutic approach would be based upon shallow foundations. Obviously it shouldn’t be banned any more than learning about Marxism or Nazism should be banned. There is a very interesting book called The Mysteries Of Same Sex Love. It really is a deep mystery I wouldn’t assume that you have you have an understanding of it. You won’t grasp it on a psychological or cultural or genetic level.The understanding belongs to a higher realm which used to be commonplace but we have lost sight of it. It is a gradual returning to the realm of the spirit.

3
-1

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