© Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images
On Thursday, Olivia Bailey, the Equalities Minister, published a draft bill to ban conversion therapy, which aims to suppress or change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.
The bill states that people who use physical or psychological abuse to prevent children from saying they are gay or transgender could face up to five years in jail if convicted.
Critics warn this could put parents and teachers at risk of police investigation and possible jail time for having honest conversations with children.
Under the new law, someone found guilty of conducting abusive conversion practices could face an unlimited fine, a custodial sentence of up to five years, or both.
Bailey insisted the new law would not outlaw the expression of beliefs about LGBT identities, or ban exploratory conversations and questioning about someone's identity.
She stressed the bill included safeguards for healthcare professionals, therapists and counsellors and a "high threshold" for criminality to protect free speech, so that only acts deemed abusive and likely to create real harm to the person would lead to prosecution.
However, critics say the definition of abuse is drawn too wide and covers "controlling or coercive words or behaviour", "use of economic pressure" and "use of psychological or emotional pressure" - all of which could be used against parents, teachers and health professionals.
Maya Forstater, the Chief Executive of women's rights charity Sex Matters, said:
"This is a dangerous proposal that will harm the people it purports to protect."Opponents of the bill have long warned that the new law could criminalise doctors, teachers and parents for having conversations with children about whether they really wish to change gender.
"Turning 'seeking to change someone's transgender identity' into a crime will leave teachers and others who must recognise biological sex in order to do their job open to accusations of criminal harm," she said.
"Parents who are trying their best to help their child through a difficult period will be at risk of police investigation.
"It's reckless for the Government to push on with this when it's well known that many young people who adopt a transgender identity as children or teenagers grow up to be gay instead, if they are not affirmed and put on a pathway towards lifelong medicalisation and sterilisation. The real abuse is that this was ever done in the name of medicine."
The Free Speech Union has launched a petition calling on the Government to scrap the conversion therapy ban.
The campaign group wrote on X: "Any parent who 'misgenders' their confused adolescent daughter, or tries to talk them out of embarking on an irreversible medical pathway, could face criminal charges for trying to 'convert' them.
"It won't just be parents and medical professionals who will risk imprisonment for trying to talk gender-confused children out of mutilating themselves.
"Any religious leader who shares the teachings of their faith on issues like homosexuality and gay marriage, could also face prosecution. That's what this authoritarian Government wants to ban - any dissent from radical progressive orthodoxy when it comes to sex and gender."
Comment: The hypocrisy of attempting to change a child's sex, rather than accepting the possibility of them being gay is utterly lost on these people. It's closet homophobia at its most deranged.