Transgender Conversion Therapy

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) on leading this debate. I also congratulate Sammantha Harris, whom I met last week, on starting the petition.

As Sammantha told me, the exclusion of trans people from a conversion therapy ban would imply that they did not count. Well, trans people matter to me, speaking as a member of the LGBTQ community. They matter to me as members of my family, and as members of the community I represent, as do the 208 people in Darlington who signed the petition.

This debate is somewhat premature, given that draft legislation is yet to be published, but I can well understand the shock, disappointment and dismay of the trans community and their allies at learning that the abuse they face may not be included in legislation, while the abuse faced by their gay, lesbian and bisexual brothers and sisters will be. Since being elected in 2019, I have had the privilege of working with great people on the issue of conversion therapy. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), who we have heard from; she is an absolute champion. I also record my thanks to Jayne Ozanne from the Ozanne Foundation for her incredible and tireless work on this issue. Jayne, please know that your efforts are appreciated. Keep doing what you are doing.

Our country has come a long way on LGBT issues—further than I ever would have imagined. Banning conversion therapy—or, to call it what it really is, abuse, control and coercion—is the next logical and rational step on that journey. To seek to do that for only part of the LGBTQ community is divisive and irrational. Sadly, there are some who do not believe that such practices exist, and some who believe that the law already provides enough protection. These abuses do exist, and the law does not currently provide a framework to protect the most vulnerable members of the LGBT community. The upcoming legislation is a great opportunity to right that wrong. I firmly believe that a ban on conversion therapy that includes all members of the LGBTQ community is essential. This abuse has no place in a civilised society, and I am personally committed to seeing all forms of abuse of LGBTQ people banned.

Conversion therapy encompasses a wide range of practices, which all share the belief that someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity can and should be changed. It relies on the erroneous belief that LGBTQ people are sick and in need of a cure. These practices are cruel and harmful, and there is no evidence of them working. Having recently met members of the local LGBTQ community in Darlington, I know that they share my concerns about the potential exclusion of trans people from a future ban on these practices.

Today’s debate is not about women in sport, safe single-sex spaces, or the appropriate age for treatment for a person experiencing gender dysphoria.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I am so glad that my hon. Friend and other Members have made that point. Even as a member of the LGBTQ community myself, I recognise that there are some real challenges in those areas, but that is not what this is about. This is about something very simple—that someone cannot force someone to change their gender identity or sexual orientation, and that trans people need to be protected in the same way as other members of the community.

[Peter Gibson]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I could not agree more. This is a difficult topic, and it is important that we are having this debate now; it is important that all politicians are able to have an open, frank and honest discussion about this.

This debate is about sending a signal to the most marginalised in our society, who already experience prejudice and discrimination: “Your lives matter, and you should be protected from abuse, coercion and control just as much as the next person.” To not include trans people in a ban on conversion therapy—to allow loopholes in the legislation that allowed these abusive practices to continue to ruin people’s lives—would be a great wrong. Trans people already face more discrimination than gays, bisexuals and lesbians, and seeking to divide the L, G and B from the T will only marginalise trans people further.

This issue is very close to my heart, as a gay man with friends and family who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans. I can see just how much this issue affects real people’s lives, in my own family and in my constituency. I know that the Minister is a good man and a strong member and ally of the LGBT community. I know that he will be listening very closely to this debate and I hope that he will do all he can to ensure that a conversion abuse ban covers trans people too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I think the hon. Member is actually agreeing with my general thesis, which is that we should not use the term “therapy” in the Bill. Legitimate care pathways are exactly the things we should be ensuring that people can access, so that they get the right decision for them. As we know, if people cannot access those pathways through the national health service, there is a wild west out there on the internet, and people will start getting very harmful interventions that are not properly supervised.

[Dr Mullan]

Is not the key to all this the intention of whatever is going on? Conversion therapy sets out with a predetermined objective of stopping someone being something or forcing them to be something else. All the other therapies that my hon. Friend talks about are an exploratory process that may or may not, through the choice of the individual, lead to their taking puberty blockers or other things. The therapists themselves will not be entering into it with the intention to force them to do that, or to stop them being something else.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Again, I think my hon. Friend is agreeing with me. It is the term “therapy” that I am objecting to in the legislation because we are dignifying these practices with that description. Therapies are exactly the things that I have been describing. There is no doubt that we need better care pathways for people to explore their gender. My hon. Friend the Minister will probably have something to say about that as well.

That is really as much as I want to say. We must make sure that we call this practice out for what it is, we must make sure that the Bill only eradicates those harmful practices, and we must make sure that good, benign and positive therapeutic interventions will not be outlawed by the legislation.