This bill might as well be a long-lost chapter of 1984.
This bill might as well be a long-lost chapter of 1984.
‘L GBT+ people will be protected from physical and psychological abuse to change who they are,” the British government proclaimed in its description of a recently introduced bill that would ban so-called conversion therapy in England and Wales. The legislation represents yet another attempt to expand England’s illiberal speech-policing regime — all while reflecting the leftist predisposition to subvert the meaning of words for political aims.
The new “Conversion Practices Bill” is devilishly vague, but here’s what stands to happen if it is passed in its current form. The law would establish new criminal offenses that carry an unlimited fine and a five-year maximum prison sentence for “conversion practices,” a term broadly defined as “abusive” conduct that aims to change an individual’s sexual orientation or “transgender identity.” (This standard would supposedly be applied bidirectionally, meaning that it would be an offense to try to convert a homosexual person into a heterosexual person, and vice versa.) When assessing conduct, consideration would be given to whether it involved “(a) words or behaviour of a sexual nature; (b) violent or threatening words or behaviour; (c) controlling or coercive words or behaviour; (d) use of economic pressure; (e) use of psychological or emotional pressure.” But that would theoretically cover most conduct, since surely all discussions about an individual’s sexuality or “gender” necessarily involve “words . . . of a sexual nature,” while “psychological or emotional pressure” could be just about anything.
Ultimately, the bill creates the following crime: “A person commits an offence if the person carries out an abusive conversion practice on an individual which causes — (a) serious harm to the individual’s physical or mental health, or (b) serious alarm or distress to the individual which has a substantial adverse effect on their usual day-to-day activities.” Yet many LGBTQ+ activists claim to be victims of a traumatic “hate crime” if someone accidentally “misgenders” them, so we can probably assume that any criticism of a person’s sexuality or “gender” will be legally classified as causing “serious harm.” An additional worrying provision in the bill would criminalize encouraging or assisting a person outside of England and Wales in performing “conversion practices.”
The bill also introduces a new type of protection order that can be issued by the court in response to an application, or even in circumstances where an application has not been filed. This is quite an extreme measure: Other types of protective orders issued in the United Kingdom are designed for alarming behavior such as stalking, harassment, and domestic violence. Under the bill, the court could issue a protective order “even though the respondent has not been given such notice of the proceedings as would otherwise be required by rules of court,” which presumably means it can be issued against an individual who has not been charged with any crime. Furthermore, a person who has been issued a protection order can be arrested for violating it.
Not only is the bill confusing, but its text seemingly contradicts what the government and elected representatives have said about it, leaving us to wonder exactly what conduct would be considered permissible. A carve-out exempts medical professionals engaged in “healthcare,” although the government also describes the bill as resulting in “all forms of ‘talking conversion therapies’” being “banned for under-18s regardless of circumstances.” So, there is somehow a “healthcare” exception, yet certain forms of therapy are seemingly unprotected. Moreover, I suspect that the types of therapy that will be deemed illegal are those that espouse the “watchful waiting” model rather than the “affirmative” approach, given that the United Kingdom’s thought police has long skewed in favor of left-leaning speech. Notably, there is no similar exemption for parents.
What would this law look like in practice? A mother who tells her son suffering from gender dysphoria to just “wait a few years” before pursuing “gender transition” could be imprisoned for years, whereas the activist therapist who tells that same boy that “you’re a girl because you say so and you should get estrogen injections” would likely be protected.
These are just a few concerning features of the bill, but the problems are endless. First, it operates on the premise that there is such a thing as a “transgender” person, thereby biasing the law against all gender-critical or sex-realist views that deny “gender” as a legitimate category. To put it plainly, the bill assumes that a person really can be “transgender,” and since the only precondition to adopt that identity label is to just say that you are “transgender,” anyone who does not respond with enthusiastic affirmation risks espousing some type of “conversion” practice.
Perhaps the most challenging question for the bill’s drafters is how the law would practically apply to individuals assisting “detransitioners” — i.e., the people who previously underwent “transition” (to at least some degree) and then reverted to accepting their sexed identity. Would anyone who initially encouraged those people to “transition” have committed an offense, or would the people who encouraged detransitioning be guilty? The bill runs into similar issues with respect to sexuality because it assumes that sexual orientation is both fixed and innate — which is hard to reconcile with the long list of individuals who profess to have experienced a change in their sexual orientation, for one reason or another. (Just search something like “woman happily married to a man discovers she was a lesbian” on an internet browser, and plenty of profile-style articles will show up.) I imagine that, in practice, the schoolteachers who advance LGBTQ+ ideology in class will not be found guilty of attempting to “convert” a child.
If the bill is passed in its current form, it will have a significant chilling effect on speech by discouraging discussion about issues related to sex and sexuality. People will self-censor because they will fear that criticizing the illogical concept of “gender identity,” the barbaric practices branded as “gender-affirming care,” and the folly of approximating a sex change through “transitioning” will amount to illegal “conversion practices” because such sentiments dismiss a “transgender” person’s self-perception. Concerns about the law’s criminalization of what ought to be protected speech are underscored further when one considers that the law seemingly empowers the courts to issue a protective order against someone who hasn’t been charged with a crime.
In fact, the government itself implicitly confirms that it will suppress speech if the law is enacted: “In the government’s view, endorsing or promoting any instance of conversion therapy in broadcast media or through advertisements would most likely breach the current regulatory framework. . . . The government is considering how best to tackle the promotion of conversion therapy online through the Online Safety Bill and associated work,” says a government website about the new legislation. Somewhat hilariously, the government anticipated concerns about free expression, and therefore includes this informational subsection:
Are you banning freedom of speech?
No. Talking conversion therapy cannot be reasonably understood to include communication such as casual conversations, exchanges of views or pure speech acts.
Here’s a succinct translation: “We’re not banning speech because we’re not going to classify this type of speech as speech.”
This bill will almost certainly be weaponized against free religious exercise, particularly toward faiths that have remained firm in their traditional understandings of marriage and sexual ethics. It seems to me that, if the bill passes, a church leader might go to prison for telling a man who is experiencing same-sex attraction that he should consider marrying a woman for various reasons, whether they are based in scripture or merely reflect realistic observations about the potential for having children. Ultimately, the “Conversion Practices Bill” risks treating gentle advice or guidance or mere suggestions as coercive “abuse.”
But perhaps the most egregious flaw in this legislation is that it dubiously redefines “conversion” for the purposes of advancing an extreme leftist agenda. Per the bill, a form of “conversion” therapy would be to encourage individuals to embrace their sex and reject dangerous medical interventions; in other words, saying “you’re a man, not a woman” to a man who thinks he is a woman might constitute a “conversion practice.” But who is surprised that people who redefined “woman” also want to redefine “conversion therapy”? This bill might as well be a long-lost chapter of Orwell’s 1984.
As I noted, the bill is frustratingly imprecise; perhaps some helpful clarifications will emerge as the legislation is reviewed and debated. But even then, the bill shouldn’t pass, because the absurd notion that “transgender” constitutes a legitimate identity category must not be further entrenched in the law or culture.