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

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Winston.

If my family, the state or the Church were to insist that I be homosexual, but I am not homosexual, that would be not only ridiculous but clearly detrimental to both my physical and mental well-being. But that is, effectively, what conversion therapy seeks to do in reverse, and what the Bill seeks to stop: practices that work to cure, change or remove an individual’s rights over their own feelings and sense of themselves. An intervention, the purpose of which is to make LGBT people averse to their own natural feelings, is dangerous and cruel.

During the coalition, I was a Home Office Minister and Equalities Minister for two years under Theresa May. During that period, I was both the originator and architect of the same-sex marriage law, and I also produced the first transgender action plan in the United Kingdom. I worked extensively with both the LGB and T communities, as well as the religious communities. I have some issues with some of the religions, which in my view have quite a lot to answer for. I had an article published in the Telegraph in which I wrote, accurately, that the Church did not own marriage. The torrent of emails I received the next day were a salutary example, not of love, charity and hope, but of the hatred and vitriol that the LGBT community bear on a daily basis. All manner of hideous bile against homosexuality rained down on me: how I was undermining marriage and how people would marry dogs, tables, their relatives or multiple human beings, among many other absurd missives. My message in the article about love, acceptance and compassion, and my plea not to polarise the debate, clearly never landed.

The great organised religions of the world went into overdrive. Cardinal Keith O’Brien said on the “Today” programme:

“If marriage can be redefined so that it no longer means a man and a woman but two men or two women, why stop there? Why not allow three men or a woman and two men to constitute a marriage?”


Within a year, he had to resign after allegations of inappropriate sexual activities alleged by three priests and one former priest. There were many leading religious institutions and religious leaders who said the most hideous, vile and unkind things about homosexuality.

I bring this to the Chamber because, although this is a measured debate and my noble friend has introduced it in a measured way, in the secret recesses of our land and other lands conversion therapy can be a hideous process. I received multiple death threats. However, since same-sex marriage came into being, I have to say that the world is still turning—apparently.

I worked very closely with the trans community to produce the first trans action plan ever in this country. At that time—this was 14 years ago—trans was barely heard about. It had not yet become a punchbag as part of the culture wars, and the action plan was largely focused on access to medical care because there was so little in place for that community. I have never met a community so vulnerable and up against what must be one of the hardest situations to find yourself in. It is a community that needs to be supported, not vilified.

Because the changes that may be made during gender transition are so serious, it is right for us to ensure that care is taken, particularly when a child presents as gender dysphoric. There is no legal surgery in this country before the age of 18, but it may be the case that puberty blockers are beneficial for a boy who is definitely trans and who will later become female, so that he does not have to later face the issues of having gone through puberty and having developed the masculine features which later will be so challenging for him in his new identity.

There is a genuine and great need for services to support young people who are expressing gender dysphoria. It is a great shame that the Tavistock clinic failed in its duty—and fail it clearly did. However, the desperate need remains, and the current provisions are nowhere near good enough. Developmental psychotherapists who can work with children who need proper support absolutely must be available. With something as fundamental as your very being, that means sessions every week over whatever period is needed. Such a developmental psychotherapist, or other appropriate care support, is there not to advocate for or against anything but to hold that child safe until they find their own way forward, without bias, prejudice or pre-conceived rights or wrongs, and without the influence of religion, societal norms or anything else—just the best interests of the individual, their well-being and mental health.

I am so glad that my noble friend Lady Burt won the ballot and was able to bring forward this important Bill to stop the hideous and dangerous practice of conversion therapy.