Equalities Minister Fires Starting Gun on Conversion Practices Stitch-Up

The government has fired the starting pistol on the culminating battle of the gender wars – and already the odds seem stacked against sex-realist campaigners.

On Friday, journalist Sonia Sodha tweeted a letter from equalities minister Simon Lightwood MP to the Chair of the Joint Committee on the Draft Conversion Practices Bill, formally presenting the Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. The Bill is widely regarded as a Trojan Horse that would overturn years of sex-realist free speech victories, including Miller and Forstater, by exerting a chilling effect on parents and professionals who refuse to affirm someone’s delusions of gender. 

Lightwood’s lightweight letter lists the government’s justification for the Bill, which includes the aim of “ensur[ing[ that all individuals are able to live freely”. He also claims that the government has taken “careful steps” to balance the need for adequate thresholds to prevent “abusive practices” while “respecting freedom of religion and parental rights”.     

At no point does the minister acknowledge the inherent tensions between parental and professional freedoms or the criminalisation of non-affirmation, as highlighted by numerous campaign groups including Gay Men’s Network, Bin the Bill, and LGB Alliance.  

While ministers are bound to defend government legislation, Lightwood’s letter will land on fertile ground. The Commons representatives on the Joint Committee are overwhelmingly wedded to gender identity ideology, with five of the six MPs having publicly called for a “trans-inclusive” Bill. 

For example, Alex Barros-Curtis MP (the Chair of the Committee and recipient of the Minister’s letter) expressed his “delight” that the government had committed to banning “barbaric practices” in the King’s Speech. The only Conservative MP on the Committee, Sir Jeremy Wright, has made no public comment about conversion practices. 

The composition of the Joint Committee fuels speculation of a “Westminster stitch-up” on a par with the Assisted Dying Bill, where the Committee has reached its conclusion before accepting evidence 

Former Labour MP and peer (and psychiatrist) Lewis Moonie is among the critics of the draft legislation. “This Bill is a classic Trojan Horse, conflating something objectively real, like sexuality, with imaginary and delusional beliefs,” he told Terf Times. “It enables malicious private prosecution for subjective ‘harms’ defined by the ‘victim’ – which could easily include a parent’s refusal to use neo-pronouns. 

“I urge my former colleagues to look behind the bland language of the Bill and engage with its opponents to understand the incredible harm it would do, especially to young LGB people.”

With somewhat serendipitous timing, this exact concern cropped up today in the House of Lords. In a debate on the age of consent for the puberty blocker trial, Lord Frost noted that his convictions about the nature of reality and sexual difference made it difficult for him to imagine circumstances in which puberty blockers were administered to children. He reflected: “By the way, I worry…that if the government’s Conversion Practices Bill ever made it into law, what I’ve just said will become quite a risky thing to say.” 

Therapists are among those who have expressed their alarm that the Bill will escape effective scrutiny. They include Avy Joseph, director and co-founder of the College of Cognitive Behavioural Therapies.

“I would ask parliamentarians to question why gender identity has been placed alongside sexual orientation, and to consider that it offers a less contentious route to giving a contested belief protection comparable to religious conviction,” he told us. “Explicitly presenting it as such would invite scrutiny of its foundations, its justification and its implications for people who do not share it. Calling the approach ‘symmetry’ avoids confronting the fundamental difference: sexual orientation is not a belief.”

Pre-legislative scrutiny of the Draft Conversion Practices Bill has already begun, with some sex-realist organisations this week receiving invitations to contribute.