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Trans ‘conversion therapy’: Government ignores calls for evidence

By:   []

Date: 2022-06 

The UK government has ignored requests to publish evidence justifying its decision to exclude trans people from its ban on conversion practices.

The petitions committee had asked ministers to share the evidence that had informed its decision to U-turn on protecting trans people in the ban, ahead of a debate that took place in Parliament on Monday.

But ministers failed to produce any documents, and the debate went ahead without them.

Shadow equalities secretary Anneliese Dodds told MPs in Westminster Hall. “I believe that’s because such evidence does not exist.”

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She added: “Are we going to be back here in another year’s time, asking exactly the same questions? If so, I do genuinely fear for the impact on trans people in the interim, who only want to live their lives in dignity and free from abuse.”

The petitions committee chair, Catherine McKinnell, and Tory MP Elliot Colburn, who opened the debate, sent a letter to equalities minister Mike Freer on 17 May asking to know what evidence had informed the government’s decision to exclude trans conversion therapy from the proposed ban.

They also asked for more details of the “separate work” the government has said it will do to consider trans conversion practices, and when it intends to publish a response to its public consultation (which ran from 29 October 2021 until 4 February 2022 to gather feedback about the then-current proposals for a ban).

McKinnell and Colburn asked the government to respond by 9 June, in time for the Westminster debate, but received none of the materials they’d requested.

During the debate, Freer was again asked whether the government had any evidence that a trans-inclusive ban could impact the provision of “legitimate talking therapies”, including statements from medical bodies expressing concerns. He reiterated his claim that “clinicians and therapists have expressed some concern”.

All recent legislative bans, including those implemented in Canada, France, Greece and New Zealand, include both sexual orientation and gender identity. “There is no rationale for exclusion,” Dodds said. “Ministers have had almost four years to work up a ban on all forms of conversion therapy which does not inadvertently restrict access to legitimate non-coercive forms of treatment […] They could have looked at the examples of other countries that have managed to produce bans without any evidence of such unintended consequences.”
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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/government-ignores-calls-for-evidence-behind-conversion-therapy-u-turn/
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