Conversion Therapy Prohibition (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) Bill [HL]

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, I recently had the privilege of hearing Keira Bell speak about her experiences of so-called gender transition. It was profoundly moving. Her experience led her to challenge the Tavistock gender identity clinic in court. As a girl, she had been deeply unsettled by the changes to her body during puberty. She suffered anxiety and depression, as well as parental abandonment. She was led to interpret her distress to mean that she would be happier as a boy. She was put on puberty blockers at 16 and testosterone at 17, and she had a double mastectomy at 20. The medical assessments she underwent before each of these profound and irreversible interventions were, at best, cursory.

Writing about her experiences, Keira said that

“the further my transition went, the more I realized that I wasn’t a man, and never would be”.

Even though Kiera lives as a woman again, there are many consequences that she will live with for the rest of her life. She lists

“possible infertility, loss of my breasts and inability to breastfeed, atrophied genitals, a permanently changed voice, facial hair”.

Keira acknowledges:

“I was adamant that I needed to transition”.


But now she is angry at what was done to her, and she believes she ought to have been challenged.

Then there is Dagny, a young woman from the US. Like Kiera, she found puberty a deeply disturbing experience. Due to the influence of trans friends and social media, she concluded she must be trans and began identifying as such. This social media community affected how she viewed those who did not affirm her new identity. Dagny says that

“I saw my parents as bigots because Tumblr”—

meaning people on the social networking site—

“told me to; because they held out for so long to prevent me from starting hormones … No matter how much genuine concern others may have had for me—by now, a miserable 16-year-old—they were committing an unforgivable act if they just asked me, ‘Why? Why do I want to be a boy? Why do I want to change my body?’”

But now her perspective has changed and she believes her transition was a mistake. Dagny says it should be normal to challenge young people who deny their biological sex. The Bill rests on the view that there is something wrong with that challenge. It implies that the experiences of Dagny and other young people like her are invalid.

It was instructive to read the experiences of Sascha Bailey, reported in the press just last month. He describes how, even as an adult, he became so unhappy with life as his marriage broke down that he saw transitioning as a way of reinventing himself. He received a doctor’s affirmation that he was transgender and was given a prescription for female hormones. But he is very thankful to have changed course and stayed living as a man. He says that, when he was considering transition, his family was supportive, but it was a problem that they were supportive of him to a fault. He says that

“it’s almost like society has a gun to its head, because if they’re not supportive of it, the only choice is to be cancelled. You are either for it, or you’re transphobic; there is no middle ground”.

These are the words of a young man who thankfully came back from the brink of disaster but who recognises that he should have been challenged more than he was over his expressed desire to change gender, including by his family.

The Bill would add the force of criminal law to the societal gun to the head that Sascha referred to. It would further reduce the chances of confused and vulnerable people being invited to think again, instead of being placed on a one-way ideological conveyor belt to the world of gender identity and the pain that often follows. It would also lead to more Keira Bells, Dagnys and Ritchie Herrons. I therefore oppose the Bill and urge the House to do the same.