'Parents would need a KC at the kitchen table' - Conversion therapy plan faces stiff opposition over gender identity proposals

There were heated scenes at Stormont on Tuesday as unionist MLAs sought answers from Eóin Tennyson about how many genders exist.

He also faced questions on claims his Bill would criminalise ordinary parenting – with the UUP leader Jon Burrows saying a parent “would effectively need a KC at the kitchen table before having conversations with their child”.

However, the Alliance MLA said his law would “respect the rights and dignity of every person in our society, protecting LGBT people from torture and degrading treatment, whilst also upholding fundamental freedoms of religion and expression”.

The Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill proposes a ban on “conversion practices aimed at changing or suppressing an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity” including through conversion therapy and coercive behaviour.

It has faced strong opposition from churches and religious organisations over claims it would infringe on faith and family matters. Concerns have also been raised about the impact of bringing the concept of gender identity into the criminal law in this manner.

DUP MLA Phillip Brett told MLAs: “These benches are very clear that people are free to describe themselves however they wish. However, subjective self-description by a person, either in their own mind or how they feel, cannot become part of the basis of law, which another citizen is then investigated for, prosecuted, and potentially imprisoned without a jury trial, as proposed...”.

Party colleague Diane Dodds raised the fact that no equality impact assessment has been undertaken. The Upper Bann MLA said the equality and human righ6ts commissions “are public bodies with considerable levels of funding, high numbers of legally qualified people, and they actually chose not to comment on the bill…”.

She said a decision not to have an equality impact assessment taken is “all the more extraordinary because actually this bill poses a really extraordinary imposition on free expression, free association, and freedom of belief”.

She added that it is “absolutely time for a clear out of some of these organisations so that we can actually rely on them to actually interrogate controversial legislative proposals”.

In the Bill’s explanatory notes, it says that engagement between the Bill Sponsor and the Equality Commission on the outline proposal “did not raise any potential adverse effects and suggested that the Bill may positively affect some groups”.

TUV MLA Timothy Gaston asked whether a bill had ever been discussed in the Assembly despite having a term which is not defined, namely gender identity.

Fellow North Antrim MLA Jon Burrows said there are “so many flaws that it simply does not stand any penetrating or forensic scrutiny whatsoever”.

“I think one of the outcomes of this is that a parent would effectively need a KC at the kitchen table before having conversations with their child… it is cold comfort to say that there are defences in the bill, because defences only apply after a complaint has been made and it has been investigated and a file has went to the Public Prosecution Service.

At the time of going to print, MLAs had yet to vote on the bill at its second stage. There is currently a majority for the law passing to further scrutiny at committee.