Conversions and consultations
Politics Notebook #10: Critics of the SNP’s new gender law claim it could see parents sent to prison for stopping their children from changing gender.
The Scottish Government has launched a consultation on criminalising ‘conversion practices’.
Until recently, ‘conversion practices’ has been understood to mean any attempt to ‘convert’ a gay man or lesbian to heterosexuality. You might have heard of this by its colloquial name: ‘Pray the gay away.’ However, gender identity activists have worked hard of late to broaden the definition to include any attempt to dissuade someone confused about their gender from undergoing transition.
The two are plainly different. One is about trying to change people into something they are not; the other is about trying to divert people from an ideology that tells them they must change into something they are not.
This is why some feminists, gay rights campaigners and other opponents of gender ideology argue that gender transition itself is a conversion practice. Gender ideologues, as they see it, are trying to ‘trans the gay away’.
Needless to say, the Scottish Government’s consultation fully buys into the broadened definition. This is not surprising, for the conversion ban was part of the Bute House deal struck with the Greens in exchange for them propping up the minority SNP government.
The legislation being proposed would create a criminal offence of engaging in conversion practice, either by provision of conversion services or a ‘coercive course of behaviour’. The offence would have to relate to a specific individual, involve intent to change or suppress either sexual orientation or gender identity, and cause physical or psychological harm. Someone found guilty would face penalties ranging from up to one year in prison and/or a fine of £10,000 or less all the way up to seven years in jail and/or an unlimited fine. It will not be a defence that the person consented to undergo conversion.
Ministers also want to introduce an offence of removing a person from Scotland for conversion practices. Anyone convicted of this offence would face either a fine, a prison term of up to three years, or both. Additionally, the Scottish Government wants to legislate for preventative civil orders to protect an individual or the wider community. The consultation gives a number of examples where such orders could be issued, including the following two:
Prevent an individual from holding or leading group or individual prayer sessions related to changing or suppressing sexual orientation or gender identity of the individuals attending them.
Prevent an individual from carrying out advertising and promotion of their service which purports to be able to change or suppress people’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Things are still at an early stage. New provisions may be added and existing ones removed. The terms of the proposed legislation could be tightened — or broadened. However, given the SNP-Green government’s commitment to radical gender ideology, as seen in its currently blocked Gender Recognition Reform Bill, and its authoritarian attitude towards ideas and expressions of which it disapproves, as seen in its Hate Crime Bill, there are already concerns about what a conversion ban could mean in practice.
For example, the Daily Telegraph reports that the proposals could see ‘parents who refuse to allow their children to change gender’ face jail terms or fines. Again, we’ll have to see how the consultation goes and what the draft legislation looks like but there are already some groups worried about how the proposed law would affect parents.
Marion Calder of the women’s rights group For Women Scotland says:
We have grave concerns that these plans will criminalise loving parents, who could face years in jail simply for refusing to sign up to the gender ideology cult. They will also hand activists and social workers unprecedented powers to meddle in family life, while having a chilling impact on therapists and counsellors. If the SNP and Greens insist on pushing this through, it is likely to go the same way as the toxic self-ID and named person laws and be blocked in the courts.
Michael Veitch of Christian Action Research and Education (CARE) Scotland says ‘abusive or coercive’ behaviour aimed at changing a person’s identity ‘are wrong and a source of deep hurt to those who experience them’, and contends that such actions can already be reported to the police and charges brought. However, he flags up concerns from legal experts that the proposals ‘risk being overbroad in their application’ and could infringe on the right to a private and family life; freedom of thought, conscience and religion; and freedom of expression. Veitch warns that the ban ‘could lead to the subjective policing of speech about sexuality and gender’.
My own view is that the criminal law has a role to play in addressing coercion but, beyond that, my libertarian instincts kick in. It is no business of the state what goes on between an individual and a clergyman or therapist or family member. A competent adult should be free to seek out conversion services and a competent adult should be free to provide such services. Of course, the corollary is that I should be free to point out that it’s so much wishful woo-woo and that you have as much chance of praying away your sexuality as you have of praying away your sex or race or eye colour.
If you think a few Hail Marys and a Glory Be will stop you getting the hots for Jamie Dornan, have at it, but don’t expect it to lead anywhere other than misery and self-loathing. You can’t change your sexual orientation. If you don’t like it, you’ll have to find a way to live with it, because you’re stuck with it.
But the real issue is not gay conversion therapy, where there is broad agreement, but the plan to redraw the definition of conversion therapy to include gender identity. That is a brazen overreach and could have a chilling effect on speech in broader debates about gender and legal sex.
The Greens are pushing this legislation so it is unlikely to die quietly after the consultation is over. Opponents of gender ideology and proponents of free expression and liberty of conscience will have to suit up in preparation for the battle to come. The major areas of conflict over this legislation will be:
The law’s impact on opposition to the doctrines of gender identity
Its impact on parents and how they raise their children
The effect on freedom of belief
The consequences for freedom of expression
Expect a parliamentary stooshie and a trip or two to the courts with this one.