Young gay people have been told that their gender non-conformity means they are ‘trapped in the wrong body’ and that they need drugs and surgery to fix them.
This Conversion Practices legislation means that any parent, friend , organisation or therapist who asks whether that young person might simply be gay rather than trans and suggests that they don’t need to make changes to their body could be accused of a conversion practice and sent to prison for up to five years. This legislation harms gay people. Here’s how:
This legislation will silence the growing numbers of LGB detransitioners.
Young gay people who were encouraged to identify as transgender are increasingly speaking out about their experiences. Many now regret the medical interventions they underwent and want others to hear their stories.
Poorly drafted legislation risks creating fear around those conversations. Detransitioners, families and support groups could become reluctant to discuss alternative pathways or encourage young people to take time before making irreversible decisions.
Since our foundation, LGB Alliance has campaigned against the life-long medicalisation of young LGB people who are led to believe they can only be happy if they make irreversible changes to their body.
It is no coincidence that this Bill should arrive at the precise time LGB detransitioners are finding their voice and speaking out against the abuse they suffered through ‘gender-affirming care’.
With no harm threshold and no definition of ‘abuse’, the Conversion Practices Bill will silence detransitioners by threatening them with prosecution. They face an unlimited fine and potentially a prison sentence just for talking about what they endured, and why.
It’s okay to talk. It’s okay to question. It’s okay to be gay.
This legislation will criminalise parents who want to support their gay child.
Parents should be free to support their children with love, patience and honesty.
The minister for equalities has confirmed that there will be no ‘carve-out’ to protect parents who fail to affirm their child’s gender identity. Many parents do not believe that immediate affirmation is always the right response when a child is distressed about their sex or identity. They may want to explore wider issues including sexuality, bullying, autism, trauma or mental health.
Meanwhile, the government has stated that it will be up to the courts to decide what constitutes abuse.
Together, these clauses turn the Bill into a charter for the angry and aggrieved, enabling anyone with a grudge to bring a malicious prosecution – including ex partners in custody cases, and children against their parents. If this Bill is passed, the courts will likely be inundated with cases brought on the basis of subjective injury to feelings (including ‘deadnaming’), or against parents who refuse to fund binders, puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones for their child.
Parents should not have to wonder whether helping their child could one day be used against them.
LGB Alliance is particularly concerned this law would have a seriously detrimental effect on young people struggling with their gender identity, since a large proportion of adolescents presenting with gender dysphoria are same-sex attracted, while the large majority desist if given time
It’s okay to talk. It’s okay to question. It’s okay to be gay.
This legislation will punish therapists who want to behave ethically and professionally.
Good therapy asks questions. It explores feelings, experiences and possible explanations for distress.
The Bill exempts ordinary therapeutic support, but removes that protection where conduct falls “grossly below expected standards”. Who sets those standards, and how courts will interpret them, remains unclear.
Proponents of a ban define conversion practices to ‘deadnaming’ or even a parent trying to set their child up on opposite-sex dates. With such an impossibly broad definition, therapists will be unlikely to risk undertaking best-practice talking therapies, which seek to discover the root causes of a young person’s distress rather than automatically affirming their gender identity.
It is also unclear whether therapists who hold lawful gender-critical beliefs — beliefs protected under equality law as philosophical beliefs — will feel able to practise in accordance with their professional judgement and in the best interests of the child they are treating.
Faced with legal uncertainty and the risk of complaints or prosecution, many practitioners may conclude that the safest response is simply to affirm, or not to treat at all.
Young people deserve thoughtful, ethical care – not fear-driven practice.
It’s okay to talk. It’s okay to question. It’s okay to be gay.
This legislation will herald a new era of 'no debate' that hurts all of us.
Poorly drafted laws create uncertainty. By leaving key concepts such as “abuse” and “conversion practices” open to broad interpretation, this Bill risks creating a chilling effect on free discussion and professional judgement.
When the boundaries of the law are unclear, people become cautious. They stay silent. And that creates danger for the children and young people who find they need support.
This Bill will exert a powerful chilling effect that prevents parents, therapists, teachers, social workers and other guardians from speaking the truth.
Open discussion has helped countless lesbian, gay and bisexual people understand themselves and accept who they are.
We should not create a society where people become afraid to tell a young person.
It’s okay to be gay.
Join us in Parliament
It’s OK To Be Gay. Say no to a Bill that makes conversations about sexuality harder.
Tuesday 1 September 2026 | Houses of Parliament, London
The Government’s Draft Conversion Practices Bill is being presented as a law that will protect lesbian, gay and bisexual people. We believe it could do the opposite.
It could make parents afraid to ask questions, therapists afraid to explore same-sex attraction and young people less likely to hear: You might be gay. And that is absolutely ok.
On Tuesday 1 September, LGB Alliance supporters from across the country will come to Parliament to meet their MPs and explain why this Bill must be rejected.
We need you there.
Why we are going to Parliament
Many young people who identify as transgender are same-sex attracted. Some are struggling with puberty, their developing sexuality or the pressure to conform to stereotypes about how boys and girls should behave.
They need time, careful exploration and adults who are free to talk honestly with them.
The Bill could place those conversations under legal suspicion. Parents and professionals could fear complaints, investigations and even criminal penalties for questioning whether a young person has been born in the wrong body.
It could also silence lesbian, gay and bisexual detransitioners who want to speak openly about what happened to them.
We will not stand by while gay children are converted by stealth.
What happens on Lobby Day?
We’d love you to ask your MP to meet you in Parliament on Tuesday 1 September.
It’s good to contact your MP as soon as possible to request a meeting. You can find out who your MP is and find their email address here: Find my MP.
Please copy contact@lgballiance.org.uk into your email.
We will provide everything you need, including:
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- a template email to send to your MP;
- a clear briefing on the Bill
- guidance on what to say in your meeting;
- practical information about visiting Parliament;
- support from the LGB Alliance team.
If your MP does not agree to an appointment in advance, you will still be able to ask for them when you arrive by completing a Green Card.
Your central message is very clear – It’s OK to be gay. Please reject the Conversion Practices Bill.
We would also appreciate you asking you MP to attend our parliamentary drop-in on Tuesday 8 September, where they can speak directly with lesbian, gay and bisexual people, parents, clinicians and detransitioners.
You do not need political experience. You only need to be willing to tell your MP why this Bill concerns you.
Join us
Complete the short attendance form and we will send you everything you need to take part.
Can’t attend? You can still help by telling someone else about the Lobby Day, sharing our campaign or writing to your MP.
LGB Detransitioners speak out
Hear powerful and deeply moving stories from young people who were harmed by the unquestioning affirmation of their trans identity by friends and professionals.
The real purpose of Conversion Practices legislation is to create an affirmation-only landscape and to criminalise anyone who asks whether a young person who is struggling might simply be gay.
Read Nicky's story
I grew up severely abused with intense dissociation around my body. I hated all parts of me that made me female – my breasts, my hips, my genitals.
I never had community until I found the trans movement online. Suddenly, my hatred for my body had a name – I hate being a girl and therefore I am a boy. It all fit together. The gender dysphoria I had experienced since the beginning of puberty all made sense. I thought transition would solve all my problems.
Due to my childhood abuse, I had mental health issues present practically all my life. Despite this, I managed to get a HRT prescription before any psychological intervention. When I was first prescribed testosterone. I thought it was my ticket out – start a new life and forget everything that came before. But my childhood quickly caught up to me. After multiple psychiatric hospitalisations, I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder – a disorder involving the presence of multiple identities within me, each with their own lived experience of our life and all with varying degrees of traumatic life experience. My whole perspective on life changed. I had never been just one person, but a collection of identities each just trying to survive.
Getting this diagnosis made a lot of things make sense but also made me question my transition. I never had a sense of self and was clinging to any semblance of who I thought I was in hope that it would save me.
But transition did not save me. It left me with permanent changes to my body and health. Damage that could have been prevented if I received proper mental health care. Instead, all it took was a 10 minute appointment with a counselor and no direct communication with a doctor to prescribe life-altering gender treatment that has permanently changed my life.
Read Jo's story
I was 19 years old when I started transitioning.
Before then, I was a care-free and adventurous child who loved to play football and climb trees.
My distress began in my teenage years. It began with the same problems many young women battle with – body image issues, eating disorders, being sexualised, objectified, being shamed for having a sexuality.
I was inundated by mainstream ideas of femininity that seemed so unnatural to me.
I also grew up in a homophobic culture with a complete lack of representation of lesbian and bisexual women. I felt alone, and at many times, conflicted by my same-sex attraction.
In my first relationship, my feelings of insecurity grew, and I started exploring transition. This was spurred on by my partner, who was attracted to men. I nosedived into transition social media content and suddenly thought I found a neat solution to all my problems.
I sought support from a gender specialist who immediately affirmed and encouraged me. The doctor’s experience, credentials, and confidence, instilled a sense of trust in me.
I left the appointment feeling like my thoughts of medicalising and believing there is something wrong with my body were not only legitimate, but that they were the ONLY explanation and solution to my distress.
It wasn’t long after my first experience with a specialist that I wholeheartedly adopted the belief that I am born in the wrong body.
Once I adopted this frame of reference, it became almost unshakeable. I held onto it as if my life depended on it, it truly felt that way amidst the confusion.
Transitioning brought me some relief.
Most of all, it felt like taking respite from being a woman in society. I could escape and hide. I was no longer sexualised and belittled on a regular basis. I was no longer perceived as a lesbian, and I did not have to confront the stigma and my internalised prejudice that came with it. My traumas around womanhood could be stored away in the backroom – out of sight, out of mind.
I felt like I could completely reinvent myself, start from scratch.
It was an alluring experience.
But I was aware that I was becoming a lifelong medical patient. I became consumed by planning surgeries. My whole life revolved around transition and finding ways to go against my body. At one point, I was applying hair loss treatments to my face and double binding every day, causing some nasty side effects. This was before having irreversible surgery.
As I matured, all the beliefs which made me transition, fell apart. I could no longer justify what I originally believed – I knew it’s impossible to be born in the wrong body.
It was more that I TARGETED my body as a response to trauma and society. Changing my body and identity were easier than confronting distress on deeper levels.
It was through educating myself, hundreds of hours of self-reflection, therapy, time in nature, and a loving relationship in which it was okay to question, that I fully broke out of gender ideology. I built a community of people in which nonconformity is truly accepted, not pathologized. I learned how to accept and appreciate my biology and its natural cycles. I became so grateful to just let my body do what it was meant to do.
Watch our co-founder, Bev Jackson, and Patron, Dr Az Hakeem, discuss the potential impact of Conversion Practices legislation.
Read our Policy Bulletin to MPs on Conversion Practices.
You can download a copy here: LGB Alliance Conversion Practices Bulletin