Sajid Javid has said “we need to be more careful” when it comes to transgender people as he backed the government’s position on conversion therapy.
The health secretary said it is “absolutely right” that conversion therapy is banned “for LGB people” but said a “more sensitive approach” needs to be taken when it comes to those who are transgender.
Last week, the government changed plans for banning conversion therapy – attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity – that had first been set out in 2018 by then prime minister Theresa May.
Govt changes plans for banning conversion therapy
But the government now plans to ban only gay conversion therapy, not trans conversion therapy – saying that in the case of the latter only that it would carry out further work to consider the issue.
“When it comes to conversion therapy, it is absolutely right, as the government has said, that we ban the so-called conversion therapy for LGB people,” Mr Javid told Sky News.
“When it comes to trans. I do think that we need to be more careful.”
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Referencing a report by an experienced paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, he continued: “She just published an interim report just a few weeks ago and she talked about how the children and young people, when they say they have gender dysphoria, it is right for medical experts to to be able to question that and to determine what the cause might be.
“Is it a genuine case of gender identity dysphoria or could it be that that individual is suffering from some child sex abuse, for example, or could it be linked to bullying?
“So I think it is it is right to take the approach that we have, which is to ban conversion therapy for LGB, but to take a much more sort of sensitive approach when it comes to trans.”
UK LGBT conference set to be cancelled
Mr Javid’s comments come as plans for a landmark global LGBT conference in the UK this summer are set to be cancelled after more than 100 groups pulled out following changes to plans to ban conversion therapy.
Organisations including Stonewall said they would no longer support the Safe To Be Me event due to take place in London following the decision to exclude transgender people from the ban.
The government admitted on Monday it meant the conference due to be held in June and July was now in doubt.
Now Sky News understands that the event is set to be cancelled.
The conference would have coincided with the 50th anniversary of the capital’s first official Pride marches.
It was billed as the UK’s first ever global LGBT conference when it was launched by senior ministers Liz Truss and Dominic Raab last year.
Reacting to the event’s cancellation, Conservative MP Dehenna Davison tweeted: “We had such a huge opportunity to prove the UK (and the Conservative Party) is a defender of freedom.
“As a Conservative member of the LGBT+ community, it is so wrong it has come to this.”
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UK’s LGBT+ champion resigns
The decision to not ban transgender conversion therapy prompted the UK’s LGBT+ business champion Iain Anderson to resign, saying it was “profoundly shocking”.
A government spokesperson repeated the position from Monday that it was “considering how to proceed” over the conference.
Earlier this week, A Tory MP announced he is trans in a highly personal Twitter post.
Jamie Wallis, MP for Bridgend, said he had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, adding: “I’ve felt this way since I was a very young child.”
Mr Wallis also rallied against ministers’ plans to limit a ban on conversion therapy for gay people.
Posting on Twitter, he said it was “wrong to exclude protections for a whole group of people from a practice described as ‘abhorrent'”.
A national LGBT survey done by the government in 2017 suggested that 5% of LGBT people have been offered conversion, and 2% have undergone the therapy.
These figures were higher among trans people, with 8% saying they had been offered the therapy, and 4% reporting having undergone it.
