Mick Hartley

It's all very confusing. First the government decided that it would drop the ban on so-called conversion therapy – and then it backtracked, but not for gender dysphoria. 

It's necessary to point out in any discussion on conversion therapy that the definition has recently been transified. So the original conversion therapy, as promulgated nowadays by basically nobody outside some extreme right-wing Christian organisations, aimed to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality and was a huge waste of time. It's now totally discredited. The new transified conversion therapy is aimed at gender-dysphoric youth, and aims to talk to them and try to understand why they're so keen to transition. In other words it's a humane and sensible approach to the alarming growth in the trans industry. For trans activists, however, any whisper by a child that they're unhappy with their body must be immediately validated and encouraged, with no-questions-asked access to puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy.

So is this good news? Yes, I think it is. But you'd be hard put to understand what's going on from the press reports. The BBC just quotes the horrified reaction of the usual suspects…

Reacting to the initial announcement of a total drop of the ban, LGBT charity Stonewall tweeted that it was "devastating to hear that the UK government is again breaking its promise to our communities".

It called on the governments of Wales and Scotland to end the practice in "their own jurisdictions", saying "LGBTQ+ people in the UK deserve better than this".

Jayne Ozanne, chair of the #BanConversionTherapy coalition and conversion therapy survivor told the BBC that the news "emboldens perpetrators and allows them to act with impunity".

"It lets them know that the government is on their side and does not want to hold them to account," she said.

She called it a betrayal of those who bravely told their stories in the hope the prime minister would act. "I do not understand why he is throwing young LGBT people under the bus," she said.

…leaving the clear impression that conversion therapy is some vile attack on the LGBT community. 

The Times is no better, with its lamentable efforts to define conversion therapy:

Sometimes known as “reparative therapy” or “gay cure therapy”, the practice involves someone trying to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

It normally involves talk therapy, which can include counselling or psychotherapy, but also aversion therapy, in which an individual is subjected to physical pain to correct behaviour.

Jayne Ozanne, a former government equality adviser, said she had been aware of much more extreme forms of therapy involving “exorcisms, physical violence and food deprivation”.

Stonewall, the LGBT charity, says the practice is based on the assumption that being trans or gay is a mental illness that can be cured.

The NHS says conversion therapy is “unethical and potentially harmful”.

Its use, though rare, has mostly been seen in more devout religious groups, sometimes with people forcing others to pray away their sexual orientation or gender identity.

This, of course, is playing straight into the trans narrative by pretending that conversion therapy for sexual orientation is no different from conversion therapy for gender dysphoria.

A comment sums it up well:

The recent developments look like a mess & are certainly confusing. But the outcome is right. There are existing strong provisions in place against conversion therapy for homosexuality. There is little evidence of it being a significant problem now, but there is probably no harm in further strengthening of the protections against this. The important change is the removal of the provisions associated with gender transition.

The effect of the original legislation would have been to impose an entirely affirmation-only approach for gender dysphoria. This would have effectively banned normal diagnostic procedures, applied to both physical & mental illnesses, whereby alternative causes are considered for the symptoms presented. A deeply unhappy child, who located the source of their misery in their gender, would not have been able to have therapy which sought to assess whether other factors, such as previous abuse of trauma or autism might have contributed to these feelings. We don’t have an affirmation only approach with anorexia nervosa – we don’t tell sufferers that they are too fat – & we shouldn’t tell those with gender dysphoria that their bodies are abhorrent. Exploratory, supportive therapy is preferable to placing a child on a conveyor belt to transition, regardless of whether this is likely to resolve their despair.

The government at least gives the impression that it does understand the difference, even if the press doesn't.