Parents could face up to five years in prison for failing to help children change sex under Labour's proposed anti-conversion laws, according to critics. Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies said the legislation was "criminalising ordinary conversations" between parents and children and "is an unconscionable intrusion into family life".
Critics slam proposed legislation
Davies backed a new study by Baroness Falkner, former chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which said the plans were "oblivious to human rights law in Britain". The peer has produced a report warning that the proposed law "breaches numerous rights, including the right to a fair trial, the right to a family life, the freedom to hold religious or other beliefs, while curtailing freedom of expression".
MPs and members of the House of Lords are currently considering the draft Conversion Practices Bill, which would outlaw attempts to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.
Report highlights risks to parents
A government study in 2021 found practices range from psychological therapy to pastoral counselling, prayer or exorcism. The British Psychological Society says this type of therapy is "unethical and potentially harmful".
However, critics of the legislation warn that the way it has been written means parents could be arrested for refusing to comply when a child insists they are the opposite sex or wants to be called by a different name.
A report by Baroness Falkner and leading barrister Akua Reindorf KC, published by Policy Exchange, said conversion therapy had historically referred to "cruel, coercive or violent attempts to persuade same-sex attracted people to change their sexual orientation". But the planned legislation meant parents could be prosecuted if they discouraged their child from "transitioning" to the opposite sex or undergoing surgery, with a maximum punishment of five years' imprisonment.
Concerns over criminalisation
The report warned: "The draft Bill will criminalise parents just when they are grappling with a uniquely challenging and high-stakes quandary.
"A child who declares a transgender identity may be embarking on a one-way path of experimental medicalisation and surgical body modification which will imperil their long-term physical and mental health, impair their sexual function and destroy their fertility.
"A parent considering whether to try to dissuade their child from this course of action, or to refuse to pay for it, should not have hanging over their head the possibility of criminal conviction and imprisonment at the behest of an angry and frustrated adolescent."
Baroness Davies, an Olympic and Commonwealth medal winner who joined the House of Lords in January, said: "Policy Exchange's report is essential reading and makes clear that this proposed legislation is ideological, authoritarian and unworkable.
"Criminalising ordinary conversations between parents and children, or teachers and children, is an unconscionable intrusion into family life and will see gender self-ID being effectively introduced 'by the back door'.
"This legislation is dangerous for parents – and most importantly for vulnerable children."
