An incoming Labour government will enact legislation that could prevent gender-questioning children getting the help they need to come to terms with their biological sex. That is the only conclusion it is possible to draw from Labour’s manifesto, released this morning, which says:
Labour’s approach is wishful thinking at best, and reckless abandon at worst
‘So-called conversion therapy is abuse – there is no other word for it – so Labour will finally deliver a full trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices, while protecting the freedom for people to explore their sexual orientation and gender identity.’
There is a glaring omission in this word salad. What actually is conversion therapy? If it is abuse, as Labour seems to claim, then no new legislation is needed. Harmful, coercive and abusive practices are already illegal, and rightly so. Ten years ago, that seemed to be a settled issue and it would have seemed ridiculous for a political party to talk about it ahead of an election.
But in more recent years, the rainbow lobby has pushed hard on securing a conversion-therapy ban. At the same, children have been encouraged to question their gender. These children may end up being the collateral damage from Labour’s plans.
The worry is that Labour’s new law will have a chilling effect on therapists whose job it is to help children work through their issues. If a therapist questions a child who wants to change their gender identity, they could easily end up fouling foul of this kind of law. Labour might promise to prevent that from happening, but it won’t be Starmer in the dock when – possibly many years later – a former client complains that their therapist was trying to prevent them from changing their gender identity.
It does not help that gender identity is impossible to define without resorting to circular reasoning or citing sexist stereotypes. I might be transsexual but I have no secret knowledge of what mysterious quality defines someone’s gender identity. And I wouldn’t trust anyone else claiming to know either. ‘Gender identity’ is a lazy label applied to explain away the distress that some people have with their sexed bodies, which can be caused by a host of different conditions.
If Labour’s law is passed, parents, teachers, youth group leaders, and indeed anyone who works with children might need to watch their language when talking to children. Say a mother is told: ‘Mum, I think I am a non-binary, trans-femme demi-sexual nymph’, and she replies, ‘Don’t be stupid, that’s nonsense. You are a boy, now get on with your homework.’ That could end up being defined as conversion therapy. It may seem unlikely, but until recently the UK prison service had a policy that placed male rapists in women’s jails. It is never safe to take common sense for granted.
In the next breath the Labour manifesto talks about the Gender Recognition Act. The party pledges to modernise this ‘intrusive and outdated law’. If it is outdated, then why not repeal the Act? It’s not as if anyone needs a GRC to live their best life following gender transition. Everyone now has the right to marry someone of either sex, and the Equality Act protects transsexuals from discrimination and harassment. It’s not clear to me why anyone needs to turn their birth certificate into a piece of legal fiction.
Labour does at least see the importance of a diagnosis from a specialist doctor before someone changes their legal identity. This is a good thing. If the state is going to allow people to change all their legal documents, then some gatekeeping is needed. But the safeguards are limited when a specialist report can be bought for a fee.
Also in the manifesto is a promise to support the implementation of single-sex exceptions. That’s easy for Starmer to say, it’s rather harder for service providers to hold the line when faced with a transwoman who swears blind that they really are a woman and they have all the documentation to prove it. Even a phone call to the authorities would not help. Under Section 22 of the GRA it is a criminal offence for the official at the far end to disclose this information.
Labour’s approach is wishful thinking at best, and reckless abandon at worst. The party might mean well but when it comes to sex and gender either it does not understand the issues or it does not want to understand them. Voters cannot say that they were not warned when they go to mark their crosses on 4 July.
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