Letter to Kemi Badenoch MP Minister for Women and Equalities
Dear Kemi
The Inclusion of ‘trans people’ in the Conversion Therapy Bill
I am writing to you on behalf of the Lesbian Rights Alliance, because of your role as the Minister for Women and Equalities.
Our organisation aims to defend the legal rights of lesbians; to end lesbian discrimination and the erasure of lesbians through trans ‘gay’ conversion therapy. We are particularly concerned that gay conversion therapy is mainly targeted at teenage lesbians and is being mainstreamed in learning programmes on Sex and Relationship education in schools and in the media. Schools are also supporting ‘social transition’ of girls and young women who are attracted to their own sex, as well as recommending that they seek very harmful and irreversible medical intervention.
The whole point of the original conversion therapy bill was to eliminate homophobic gay conversion therapy. Now, however the government appears to have done a U turn on the very flimsy grounds that two pro-trans conservative MPs object to it.
In our submission to the original consultation on the Bill, we outlined the irreversible harm that is done to the bodies of these girls and young women as a result of gay conversion therapy. We also point out that many are de-transitioners, now in their early 20s, who regret the decisions they took when they were too young to understand the full implications of what was being done to their bodies. This can be accessed here https://lesbianalliance.org.uk/
Further, some young lesbians who have managed to avoid trans gay conversion are now coerced by heterosexual men, self-identifying as lesbians, to agree to have sex with them. These males are not poor victims of transgender discrimination but rather are men who get an erotic kick out of calling their penises lady sticks and insisting that actual lesbians have sex with them. They do not have their male genitalia removed and do not take cross-sex hormones. As is illustrated in prison statistics a large number of them are sex offenders https://fairplayforwomen.com/campaigns/prisons/
In addition, the inclusion of ‘trans people’ in the bill will undermine the protected characteristics of sex and same sex sexual orientation in the Equality Act 2010.
Transgenderism and gender identity are not protected characteristics in the Act, the one relevant characteristic is ‘gender reassignment’ and this applies to adults only, not to young people under the age of 18. However, the government does not seem to have considered that it is the intention of trans lobbyists such as Stonewall to replace sex and sexual orientation with gender identity doctrine. Gender identity is not a fact but an invented concept based on very traditional and sexist stereotypes of women and men.
Nevertheless, the teaching of gender identity as fact is currently happening in many schools and has impacts specifically on girls and adolescents who are autistic, or have other psychological problems, such as anorexia, or have suffered trauma through being sexually abused by men and boys. Statistics from the GIDS clinics show that at least a third of girls who seek to transition are autistic. The recent Cass review has recognised this and has already recommended that children who are ’gender’ confused should have a holistic assessment by paediatricians. The Cass review also recognises that if same sex attracted girls are left alone, they will accept their lesbian sexual orientation as they get older. https://cass.independent-review.uk/ Thus, the continued teaching of gender identity as fact can only be considered as child abuse, because it is not safeguarding vulnerable children.
Finally, if ‘trans people’ remain in the Conversion Therapy Bill, it is not enough to say that parents will not be criminalised for questioning their daughters’ decisions to transition; nor for objecting to the teaching of gender identity doctrine to their children. This is child abuse and should be regarded as such.
We understand that the vast majority of Cabinet ministers and back bench conservative MPs do not agree with the inclusion of ‘trans people’ in the new conversion therapy bill. The government should therefore reverse its decision. It seems inconsistent for the Government to block the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill, while at the same time allowing gender identity ideology to be taught in schools in England and Wales.
Yours sincerely
Dr Lynne Harne founder member of the Lesbian Rights Alliance
