“Anti-Conversion Therapy” Laws

I was disappointed to see the photograph of you holding a placard that says “I support a trans-inclusive ban”.

This sounds like a clear slogan to get behind – but this is not a straightforward issue. I urge you to think again.

Affirming that a child is “trans” is not similar to sexual orientation. Childhood gender distress often resolves, and extreme treatments that involve social transition, cross-sex hormones and a pathway to surgery and sterilisation should never be routine.

I am sending you two reports that I hope you will read. One is by Dr Hilary Cass, former President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, on NHS gender identity services for children. The other is by Sex Matters, based on its research on the campaign to ban conversion therapy.

Dr Cass’s interim report sets out serious concerns about how children are being treated – not using normal clinical standards for exploring the causes of gender distress, but being declared as “trans” by their school and doctors after self-diagnosing. Her report highlights that a high proportion of those presenting at gender clinics are children and young people in care, with autism or experience of abuse, and those who would likely grow up to be lesbian or gay.

Threatening teachers, parents, foster carers, clinicians and youth workers with prison, fines and a criminal record if they disagree with a child’s self-diagnosis is not the way to get these children the support they need.

The call to “include trans in the ban” is presented as a simple moral test, but it obscures the complexity and uncertainty about the cause of so many children declaring themselves trans. Inclusion in a new criminal law will make it harder for children experiencing gender distress to get careful therapy, or to get support in school and in the community that does not simply “affirm” them as being “born in the wrong body” and needing a lifetime of hormone treatment and surgery.

I would like to meet to discuss this.