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

Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green Excerpts

Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green (CB)]

My Lords, it is a testament perhaps to the strength of this House that I am able to follow the noble Lord, Lord Morrow. I may not agree with him, but I welcome the fact that there has been an opportunity for a range of views to be expressed in this House, and I hope to offer an alternative perspective now.

As has been said, the Government have been considering how to criminalise conversion practices since 2017, so it seems a good moment for the House of Lords to contribute to the ongoing debate. In my view, we need clarity on what exactly constitutes conversion practices and what does not. In similar legislation across the world, the law states explicitly what is included and what is excluded. Our legislation must do the same. We may not immediately agree on where conversion practices begin and end but, given that since 2017 three consecutive Conservative Prime Ministers have all stated that conversion practices are abhorrent, I am hopeful that we can confirm this position.

I want to talk about my experience of the different types of responses to sexual orientation and gender identity: affirmative, curious, and furious. I want to set out how these three responses differ from abusive conversion practices. An affirmative response is when an LGBT person is listened to, believed, their experiences are respected and they are loved for who they are, not what others determine they ought to be. An affirmative approach, in my view, gives people the time and space to consider all their options, knowing that whatever they decide they are supported.

A curious response is equally supportive and helps people keep options open. A curious approach describes how a clinical practitioner, parent, teacher or faith leader can respond sensitively when a person shares their thinking about gender and sexuality. The practitioner is open-minded and inquisitive, supports the individual to know and learn, asks questions and is interested in the answers. They can offer alternative perspectives and ideas. Curiosity permits an individual to change their mind and allows collaboration and assurance for all. It does not make a person feel bad about who they might be. Young people exploring their gender identity need a curious response.

A furious response is where an LGBT person is made to feel ashamed of who they are. For me, Section 28 epitomises a furious response. The prevention of the promotion of homosexuality meant I grew up believing that I was inferior. I had to find my own way to affirmation and navigate the indignity and shame that surrounded me. However, even that furious response would not, in my view, be covered by a ban on conversion practices. Freedom of expression means people are free to hate me for who I am. I would rather they did not, but their fury does not in and of itself constitute conversion practice.

What would become an offence, in my view, is active attempts by those in a position of power to suppress and change a person’s identity by force. It is not a curious response but an abusive response. It does not work, it has not worked, and, in my view, it should be banned.

We have heard a little about religious freedoms today and I want to share my experience, which I appreciate is not universal, but it demonstrates what is possible and in part shaped my position today. I continue to practise being a Catholic, and at the age of 13 I spoke with my priest about my increasingly distracting interest in girls and my growing indifference to boys. My priest in 1993 was not affirming. He did not take me to a LGBT youth group, and he did not buy me a flag. He listened to me with curiosity, kindness, gentleness and love. He prayed with me and gave me a copy of Revelations of Divine Love and so introduced me to Julian of Norwich. He told me that all would be well. He implored me to do one thing: to do the very best I could in my GCSEs. It was what I needed to hear. I followed his advice, and I carry his kindness in my heart today.

As a young adult, I listened to debates held here and in the other place about LGBT issues. The fury, the contempt, the lazy mockery I heard compounded my shame, the glimmers of affirmation and respect give and gave me hope. Today LGBT people, their friends, families, and their faith leaders are listening to how we and those in the other place navigate these issues. What we say here and how we say it matters. I believe it is possible for us to find a way to agree on what constitutes conversion practices, be clear that we should ban those abhorrent acts, and collectively play our part in creating a world where curious trumps furious.

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[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, on introducing the debate. I may not agree with her analysis, but it has given us an opportunity to have this debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, should not worry about repeating what has been said before; it is the divine right of the House of Lords for everybody to do that. Long may it reign. I will try to avoid it, but I am sure that I will fail.

I declare an interest; I am a board member of the lesbian, gay and bisexual alliance. In fact, I am the only straight member on the board, but I sort of try to get over that by saying, “Well, my late brother was gay”, as though that gave me some added credibility. I am not sure whether it does, but it is an interesting organisation.

Why did I get interested in this topic? I was not interested in it at all; in fact, I had no knowledge of it whatever until JK Rowling said: “People who menstruate? Wasn’t there a word for this? What was it? Oh, it was women, wasn’t it?”. The very people she had made multi-millionaires, whose careers she had fostered, then turned on her and accused her of being transphobic. This lies at the heart of some of this debate. If you assert that there is a biological identity of people—male and female—you are liable to be accused of transphobia. Actually, it has not happened to me; the people who get accused are mainly women.

Transgender people are a very small section of our country and community, as the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, reminded us. That does not mean to say that they should be ignored or in any way discriminated against, and I hasten to add that I would defend to the death their right not to be discriminated against. But that does not mean to say that we should underestimate or ignore the impact on other groups, if we pass the wrong legislation or do everything that some transgender people want us to do. The groups that concern me are obviously children and women. It is women’s safe spaces that have been put at risk. Time and again this has been done, whether in hospitals, mental hospitals or women’s refuges; there have been real risks.

My noble friend Lady—sorry, I have changed his gender—Lord Cashman said that transgender people do not do any harm. By and large the bulk of them do not do any harm, but some actually do. There was an appalling situation. Unfortunately, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, is not here; she lauded the Scottish legislation. Really? Self-identification at 16? There was the case of the transgender woman, who had already been convicted of sexual crimes, who managed to persuade prison authorities and then raped a woman in the prison. Nicola Sturgeon’s response was, “Well, that’s just one incident”, but there have been other incidents. This is not some marginal issue.

I will tell you something else about this that noble Lords may not be aware of. This is a cult—it really is—and it has invaded government departments and the BBC. It is there. It will be interesting to see, in 10 years’ time, whether people will hold the extreme views that are held today.

I congratulate this Government—not the people who have said that we need this Bill; that is not true at all, in my opinion—on two very important things that they have done. I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, is in her place. One of the most important things they did was to appoint her as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She had the courage to assert this question of male and female sex. What happened to her? There was a concerted attempt to remove her as chair, which was eventually happily defeated.

The other superb thing that this Government did was the Cass review. The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, is not in his place, so I cannot congratulate him, but he wins the prize because he was the first person who mentioned the Cass review—a fundamentally important piece of work that the Government commissioned. What a wonderful woman Hilary Cass is. I looked at the review, and this is her letter to children and young people:

“Children and young people accessing the NHS deserve timely and supportive services, and clinical staff with the training and expertise to meet their healthcare needs”.


That is what we ought to focus on, not some vague idea that there might be people at risk. They are not the challenge that we face.

I do not want to go over my time by too long, but what happened in the Tavistock clinic was a travesty. Significant numbers of people who were dealt with using puberty blockers were on the autistic spectrum and needed very careful handling. We saw a massive increase in young girls who decided that they were suffering from being in the wrong body. If you talk to clinicians who know about this, they will tell you that social media had a huge impact on that. We need to be careful about how we proceed in this area.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hunt, is in her place. I did not expect to hear Julian of Norwich quoted today and I am grateful to her for that—an amazing woman, who said:

“All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well”.


We also heard the noble Baroness’s interesting experience. Let me say this: the ability for somebody who is transgender to be here to represent these views is an important part of what we represent. We have moved on from the kind of homophobic situation that was described—

[Baroness Hunt of Bethnal Green (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the kind remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Young, but I am not trans, although I like accessorising. There are many ways to be a woman. I thank the noble Lord for his comments.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

I sincerely apologise. I knew I was on dangerous territory when I said that. I should not have referred to it, but the compliment was nevertheless genuine, and I sincerely apologise.

I was grateful for the reminder of Section 28 and what we should learn from that. It is ironic, because Stonewall, which started out opposing it, then became an organisation that was captured by the cult I have just described.

My noble friend Lady Donaghy said we cannot criticise a Bill for not being well drafted; most government Bills are not all that well drafted and that is why we are here—to improve them. However, I finish by saying that we do not need another Bill in this area. There are plenty of things we can do to improve the rights of women and young children, and another Bill like this is not one of them.