by Daniel Martin, Telegraph (Image: Unsplash)
Company directors could be held liable if employees try to suppress or change person’s gender identity, warn campaigners
Bosses risk jail if their staff use the wrong pronouns to address trans people under the Government’s new conversion therapy law, campaigners have warned.
The contentious draft Conversion Practices Bill states that company directors and leaders of other organisations can be held liable if one of their employees tries to suppress or change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, its opponents have said.
Unless they can show they have taken “all reasonable steps” to stop this from happening, directors could face up to five years in prison and their company could be hit with an unlimited fine.
The Telegraph has launched a campaign for the bill to be scrapped. MPs, peers and experts have backed the campaign over fears that the bill could criminalise parents who question whether their children are trans, and be weaponised by activists against employers.
Campaigners have said that activists could use the law to prosecute an employer who fails to stop their staff from repeatedly using the wrong pronouns, such as by referring to a biological man as “him” when they have transitioned and want to be referred to as “her”.
The Government has admitted that British firms and the public sector will be hit with a combined £61m bill to change workplace practices to comply with the new law.
Read also: I would have used conversion law to call police on my parents, Telegraph