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

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, back in 2020, I was asked to chair a legal forum on this very issue. It involved a number of parliamentarians and leading lawyers, and it was sponsored by the Ozanne Foundation. It produced a report, called the Cooper report, named for a very distinguished lawyer who unfortunately died suddenly, still young, of a heart attack—Jonathan Cooper. He was the founder and instigator of many of the changes that we have heard discussed today to basically remove the terrible discriminations faced by the LGBT community.

The Ozanne Foundation is led by a woman called Jayne Ozanne, who is an evangelical Anglican and Christian of deep faith who campaigns for LGBTI inclusion and does a lot of incredible work with faith organisations across the piece. She herself has written and speaks very powerfully about her experiences of being treated to the most terrible form of conversion therapy within her own evangelical community. She was to be cured of her perversion, which had terrible consequences for her mental health—and as a young woman, she had a breakdown. She is an impressive advocate for change, as is the noble Lord, Lord Herbert. I know that he knows her. She has shed the shame that she was filled with, and she can give much of the evidence, to which he referred, of the terrible damage done to young gay people and young people questioning their gender identity by virtue of the sort of therapies that we have heard discussed.

One of the key purposes of law is to prevent harm, which is not confined to physical harm. It is interesting that we have introduced the whole understanding of coercive conduct into domestic violence and abuse and recognised that it does not have to be about battering someone—but noble Lords would be surprised at the number of domestic violence and abuse cases that involve the first beating for being gay coming from a member of the family, from fathers outraged at the horror of their sons possibly being gay, and indications of that, or from older brothers or other family members, or from schoolmates or others in the community. The shame that carries with it lives on, at huge cost to the individual and to society as a whole—that self-loathing that has been described.

The mental health consequences are very real. I could give you case after case of research projects conducted on young people, and their suicidal thoughts, their attempts at suicide and self-harming, and how it is a much greater problem than it is for ordinary children in our communities, who already show higher signs of it in these days of social media. We cannot possibly deny that there are problems around this issue. I am in the Butler-Sloss school on it. We have to do something about it. However, I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, for his speech; I echo his important sense that we have to stop the business of there being sides to the argument. I have argued and fought for women’s rights all my life, but I also did the first transgender case—or transsexual case, as it was called then—in 1995 before an international court. The case was to end discrimination in the workplace against transgender people. I have lived alongside people and, over the years, have acted for people who have transitioned their gender and have gone on to experience the most vicious assault, including rape. Let us not minimise the consequences of cruelty in our society in our efforts to find ways to deal with it.

There are people calling themselves therapists, healers, counsellors, even hypnotists, and they promise a cure. Be very clear: we are not talking about praying so there is no temptation, we are talking about people promising a cure. Often, people are urged to go to these people and their numbers are passed along to them, and no efforts are being made to prevent the faux therapy or quackery that is involved.

The House should also be aware that people from minority communities are sent abroad—just as we discovered happened in FGM—to have conversion therapy. When we say we do not hear about any of it, it is because it is closeted. We do not hear about it because it is kept closely under wraps. We should be clear that it is a serious problem. I want to take part in debates around health issues, research that needs to be done about the possible consequences or hormonal treatments and so on—these things should be discussed. However, they are separate issues from whether we should allow people to be faced with this kind of disgraceful and punitive so-called treatment.

Finally, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hunt. I thought her speech was moving, affecting and she delivered it with great humanity and compassion. Let us find our humanity and compassion. Let us not be divided on the issue. We must find the best ways to prevent people from being harmed: that is what it is about.