The draft bill to ban conversion practices is the most vindictive attack to date on the rights of parents of gender distressed children to parent freely and without fear. If made into law it will destroy those families’ lives at a time when the parents are facing their most difficult task, holding their child in reality and safeguarding their physical and mental health. Parents who are now facing the daily crises with teens over pronouns and hormones will have the threat of jail in front of them.
There are many reasons we oppose this legislation. In this piece Shelley Charlesworth looks at only one of them: the poor research behind the draft bill.
Previous attempts at legislation
There have been two previous attempts to introduce a conversion practices ban, both of which failed.
In 2021 the then Minister for Women and Equalities, Liz Truss, published a Banning Conversion Therapy consultation inviting responses to their draft proposals. Like the Labour’s draft bill it attempted a ‘both ways’ approach as if attempts to persuade someone they are gay is a problem equal to persuading them they aren’t.
“An attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or to change them from being transgender will be treated in the same way as the opposite and reverse scenario. Our proposed interventions are therefore symmetrical and universal, protecting everyone.”
In reality this is fiction. There are no conversion practices shaming heterosexuals for being straight and not gay.
When transgender is included in the legislation the ‘both ways’ approach is even more incoherent. There is no symmetry, the only conversion therapy is to affirm a transgender identity. The belief in affirmation now has deep roots in all areas of social and political life; schools, hospitals, mainstream media, the arts and social media platforms. Those who oppose it are silenced and shunned. To claim there is symmetry requires proof that conversion therapy is happening now, is harmful and cannot be dealt with by other legal means. This is why providing research of harmful trans conversion therapy has become the holy grail for those who want a ban.
The 2021 draft relied on figures from the 2018 large self-report government LGBT survey. This has many flaws not least in that it didn’t define conversion therapy. Overall, faith organisations were found to carry out most conversion therapy, with 53% of all LGBT respondents saying this is where it took place.
Of the trans respondents who’d been given conversion therapy 45% reported it happening in a faith setting, 29.1% in a healthcare setting, and 18% by a parent or family member
Attempting to gather more evidence to back up the 2021 attempt to ban conversion therapy the government commissioned research by Coventry University. It was a dismal failure, finding only 6 trans and non binary people who’d experienced conversion therapy despite much outreach to LBGT groups for people to come forward. Two interviewees described attempts by their medical practitioners to treat their schizophrenia and PTSD as ‘conversion therapy.’
In early 2024 Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle introduced a private members bills to ban conversion therapy. This too relied on evidence from the 2018 survey. It failed at second reading prompting an election pledge from Labour to bring in a ban.
The latest attempt to bring in a ban
The Labour government’s bill says it will ban “any conduct” which changes or attempts to change a person either to or from a sexual orientation or transgender identity.
The government lead for the 2026 draft bill is Equalities Minister, Olivia Bailey. She told the Commons that there was evidence of serious and ongoing conversion practices:
I have just come from an event this morning, and a report published by Galop—I have it here today. It contains hundreds of case studies of people it has spoken to on its helplines over the past few years, and of the appalling abuse that is happening right now in this country.
The term “conduct” is a gift for activists. It could cover any ordinary familial dispute such as normal boundary setting by parents who want to hold the line against social transition, potentially setting child against parent. This is made clear in this example of a conversion practice in the Galop report.
Some of these cases involved intentional refusal to use a chosen name or pronouns (repeatedly, or in a derogatory or controlling way) – including by forcing others to use the client’s deadname.
Galop is not a household name but in May 2022, the LGBT+ anti-abuse charity was given £300,000 of government funding over 3 years for a dedicated helpline specifically for victims of conversion therapy. They should have been able to pull up data from this unique resource. But instead they had to mine data from their general Advocacy & Support services, from November 2022 to November 2025, using retrospective content analysis of case notes. This suggests that despite funds and government backing Galop did not receive enough calls to the specialist helpline to build a picture of harms from ongoing conversion practices.
The Galop researchers had a large data base of over 13,500 clients and 14,800 cases to do a keyword search which identified 191 clients (1.4% of all those contacting Galop for help) who met their criteria for being victims of conversion practices. It’s not clear why these clients were not referred by Galop to their own dedicated conversion therapy hotline. It’s reasonable to assume that fewer than 191 used the special hotline over the 3 year period of government funding.
In contrast to other surveys Galop claim that the majority of conversion attempts were family based.
In the vast majority of cases, the conversion practices were perpetrated or initiated by family (n=149; 76%) – especially by a parent/s (n=123; 63%)
Drawing retrospectively on the case notes Galop found 63 people who had been subject to conversion attempts for being trans.
The date at which the conversion practices took place was not recorded making it impossible to judge how prevalent such practices are now.
The most common category of abuse was ‘controlling and coercion’ followed by the sub category ‘emotional and psychological abuse’ equalling 81% of the cases that Galop found.
The affirmation only context
Unusually for a report of this sort there are no compelling case studies, just a series of quotations. 42% of the clients were under 24. Some of the highlighted quotes from cases involving trans identified people suggest they are young women or teenagers still living at home.
Parents found out about trans identity about a year and a half ago. They were pushing for conversion practice since. [Client] was not given a choice. His parents made comments, ‘You are going to go there’. [Client] was threatened with being kicked out of his parents’ home if he would not engage with conversion practices.
Dad makes frequent comments that ‘[Client] is not trans’ and that he is a woman. […] [Client] disclosed his parents want to take him to counselling to ‘convince him he is a female’. […] [Client’s] friend came to his house and called him by his chosen name and pronouns. Mum heard them. [Mum] is forcing [Client] to cut off all relationship with friends who call him by his chosen name and pronouns. [Mum] is also telling the child to bring friends over to confirm they are using the dead name.
One trans+ client “disclosed parents want to take him to counselling ’to convince him he is a female‘
Another trans+ client stated that a therapist ”insinuated conversion therapy” when they ”suggested that healing trauma could lead to [Client] no longer being transgender“
These quotes come from the generation who have grown up with the relentless messaging of trans lobbyists, in school, mainstream media and online, telling them that bodily discomfort and same sex attraction is likely to mean they are trans. It’s the same cohort observed by Dr Levy in his review of adult clinics: a change in the sex ratio with young women beginning to outnumber young men, 57% of referrals were in the 18-25 age group and had a
higher proportion of additional neurodevelopmental conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and a broader range of biopsychosocial issues, such as mental health conditions, trauma or abuse during childhood, compared to patients referred in the past.
Over the last ten years, gender distressed teenagers have been told by Stonewall, Mermaids and groups like them that “no debate” and misgendering or deadnaming are transphobic, existential threats. They’re told that conversion therapy is rife making them fear any kind of talking therapy. Galop’s quote above, from the client who experienced a therapist’s attempt to investigate trauma as conversion therapy, reveals the deep hold of these socially transmitted messages.
Worse, they are told that without affirmation of a trans identity they are likely to kill themselves. Many are already in conflict with their parents. If this bill becomes law, it will enable these teenagers and the bad faith actors offering help, using the threat of fines and courts, to intervene in ordinary family disputes. Parents are at the top of Galop’s list of those most likely to attempt conversion therapy.
This may be committed by family members, community members or groups, religious leaders or organisations, health workers, counsellors/therapists, or other practitioners within the ‘well-being sector’
Undoubtably Galop provides a necessary service to LGB people who are victims of a wide range of abuse But like similar groups, what began as a service for same sex attracted people in 1982 changed into an LGBT group, campaigning for a trans inclusive conversion therapy ban. It is in their interests, as an income source and as part of their belief system to find examples of conversion therapy.
Galop warns in asides that “This sample is not statistically representative of the broader LGBT+ population, and these findings should not be considered to be prevalence data.” This could be seen as cover for the weak data in the report. But harm will be done if Olivia Bailey and the bill’s supporters take away from this report not this disclaimer, but the headline finding that parents are the perpetrators of most conversion therapy.