Gender-confused teens need time and space
by Janice Turner, The Times:
Politicians looking to ban therapy around trans identity for easy plaudits ignore the value of ‘watchful waiting’.
Why is a ban on conversion therapy suddenly a hot political potato, with Rishi Sunak declaring one minute that the policy is “off the table” and the next that his government is pressing ahead? If gay people are still enduring electro-shock treatments, chemical castration and pastors praying for their damned souls, these wicked practices should have been outlawed years ago.
Except the conversion therapy ban is a solution in search of a problem. In Britain, thankfully, attempts to “cure” homosexuality are vanishingly rare. A government call for evidence found only cases conducted abroad or decades ago. Even LGBT groups did not see it as a modern-day problem: scrutinising Stonewall’s annual reports and strategic documents from 2015 to 2020, the think tank Sex Matters found conversion therapy barely mentioned. Moreover physical and mental torture such as Alan Turing endured are already crimes under existing laws.
Demanding this ban is a political signifier, a badge saying “I’m one of the good guys”. Which is why Sunak now supports it, ignoring sundry complexities I’ll deal with later. A ban says: “I’m a modern Tory, not a culture wars headbanger.” He hopes, bless him, it will win back young voters. Plus, like David Cameron and Theresa May, he knows pro-LGBT policies win plaudits while being wonderfully cost-free.
Read The Times (£) here
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