Gender-critical activists, including Suella Braverman MP and Olympian Sharron Davies, have signed an open letter warning Sir Keir Starmer that Labour plans to ban trans conversion therapy would risk ‘criminalising’ parents opposed to their child’s transition.
More than 140 people including peers, MPs, doctors and psychotherapists, signed the open letter to the Prime Minister with ‘grave concerns’ about the government’s plan to resurrect a prohibition first proposed by the Tories.
Other signees include Labour MP Graham Stringer and Dr David Bell, the former governor of gender identity clinic the Tavistock Centre, which was shut down earlier this year after treating more than 1,000 children.
Labour used the July King’s Speech to propose a Conversion Practices Bill, which would block action to ‘change, ”cure’ or suppress’ someone’s sexuality or gender ID.
The letter says professionals have vowed to ‘stop working with children with gender dysphoria altogether, for fear of being criminalised’, adding that ‘a slippery slope towards criminalising parents awaits us’.
The reforms, to be overseen by equalities minister Anneliese Dodds MP, have been backed by campaigners as helping people to freely ‘explore their sexual orientation and gender identity’.
A ban on conversion therapy, which aims to suppress or change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, was first promised in 2018, by former Conservative prime minister Theresa May.
It was later downgraded under Boris Johnson‘s leadership not to include transgender people, but the Conservative government under Rishi Sunak said in January 2023 that it would ban conversion therapy for ‘everyone’, including transgender people.
