Mick Hartley

From Transgender Trend, a letter to Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle about his proposed Conversion Therapy Bill:

No legislation banning conversion practices will be safe for children and young people. In fact, a bill which includes transgender puts them at risk of homophobic conversion therapy. The overwhelming evidence for this was summarised brilliantly in Kemi Badenoch’s letter of February 7^th to the Women and Equalities Committee. Her letter references all the reputable and irrefutable research pointing to the fact that most children with a transsexual identity will grow up to be non-trans gay and lesbian adults. She shows how identity confusion, based on sex stereotypes can become embedded in a young child’s thinking before they experience sexual attraction.

You have said that you believe your Bill has safeguards for this cohort of same-sex attracted young people. We think this is naïve in the current social climate in which every organisation that purports to look after the interests of LGB people also have a foundational belief in the existence of ‘trans kids.’ Stonewall for instance says “Research suggests that children as young as 2 recognise their trans identity.” This flies in the face of all our knowledge of child development and their cognitive understanding. To put it bluntly it is an ignorant lie.

But this lie is repeated ad nauseam by all the major LGBT+ organisations, it is to be found in all the trans toolkits for schools, it is repeated by LGBT+ educational groups. The result is that a belief that has no basis in fact is now embedded in our schools and colleges. This is the idea that a child can have a gender or transgender identity in opposition to their actual biological sex. The major teaching unions also promote their support for this idea. All these groups and organisations advise that ‘trans kids’ must be supported in their belief that they are trans however young they are. This is the social context into which a ban on conversion therapy would land; one highly skewed towards an affirmative approach.

The Cass Review is clear that a narrow affirmative approach led to the problems of diagnostic overshadowing at GIDS, meaning that other co-morbidities were ignored in favour of a transgender explanation for a child’s distress. Not one of the organisations listed above has engaged in good faith with the Cass Review, nor used its finding to inform their thinking.  None of them have incorporated the shocking facts of what went on at the Tavistock’s GIDS into their training, statements, or curriculum ideas….

The most pernicious part of the narrative that’s been created is that those practising ‘conversion therapy’ may appear to be compassionate and reasonable. This will stoke a child’s suspicion towards genuinely loving and caring parents, which is a frightening state of insecurity to create for a child. Trust is important in any relationship, but in the parent-child relationship at a time when a child is navigating the storms of adolescence, it is key.

Imagine the teenage boy who is fully supported and accepted by his parents as gay, but has been relentlessly bullied at school for his effeminacy. If he suddenly announces he identifies as a girl and is trans, his parents may justifiably be concerned. He has already been told that if his parents don’t immediately affirm him they are, at best, unsupportive, and at worst, transphobic bigots. A legislative ban on trans conversion therapy would teach him that they are also potentially criminals.

A recent New York Times article included an interview with a detransitioner who said this: “I transitioned because I didn’t want to be gay. I believed homosexuality was a sin.” How will your Bill protect young gay and lesbian people who are effectively practicing a form of self-conversion therapy? …

Worth reading in full, but I very much doubt that Russell-Moyle will take any notice: the man's a straight-up trans ideologue.