FFLAG welcomes the publication of the Government’s draft legislation to ban conversion practices as an important and long-overdue step to enhance legal protections for LGBT+ communities.
As a member of the Ban Conversion Practices Coalition, and as the longest established UK charity devoted specifically to supporting parents and carers of LGBT+ children, we welcome the opportunity to contribute to the pre-legislative scrutiny process.
Every year we support hundreds of parents of LGBT+ children of all ages with thousands more accessing our support resources online. We believe that gives us a powerful perspective on what are often polarised debates, speaking directly from our lived experience of bringing up our own LGBT+ children. We know what it feels like when your child comes out. We have felt the confusion, fear and worry that often follows. We know from first-hand experience that our children’s sexual orientation or gender identity is never a matter of choice. Their only choice was in letting us see who they truly are.
But we know that not every child benefits from the love and acceptance of their families, and it breaks our hearts to see children rejected or, even worse, seen as people that their families think need to be “fixed” or “cured” as if they are broken or ill.
That’s why FFLAG supports the draft Conversion Practices Bill.
Although there are areas we want to see tightened or clarified, we believe this is a vital piece of legislation that will provide much needed protection for LGBT+ people against the lifelong harms caused by conversion practices.
We completely reject the claims being made by some that it will criminalise well-intentioned and caring parental conversations, that it will restrict therapy or that sufficient protection is available under existing legislation. Conversations between parents and children would not be captured provided that they do not pose a real risk of serious harm, and we don’t accept that any genuinely caring conversations would meet that bar. And whilst existing legislation does offer some protection, it does so only in specific circumstances – for example an offence of coercive control requires there to be a specific type of personal relationship which would exclude conduct by religious figures and therapists.
In the same way that controlling and coercive behaviour was rightly worthy of its own place in legislation, so too should conversion practices towards LGBT+ people have their place.
We also completely reject the claims made by some that people who are trans are actually just same-sex attracted but have been encouraged to become trans.
Of all the support conversations we have ever had, not once has a parent of a trans person told us their child is actually gay but has for some reason ‘chosen’ to be trans under encouragement from others. We are not aware of any credible evidence that it is the case, and if it were happening then it would be a conversion practice rightly covered under this Bill. It is wrong to try and conflate sexual orientation and gender identity – we know from our own families that sexual orientation and gender identity are separate and different characteristics and it is right that both have equal but separate protection under this legislation. This draft Bill must remain fully trans inclusive.
There are, however, some changes that we wish to see made which we think will further improve this draft Bill.
● On the definition of what constitutes a conversion practice, we would like the scope to extend to suppression as well as change of a sexual orientation or gender identity. Forced suppression is just as harmful as attempts to change.
We also find the use of the phrase “abusive conversion practices” troubling as it implies that some conversion practices are not abusive.
● On the partial exemption granted to those providing “health care services” we believe it is too broad without a robust definition of what would reasonably be considered to be a healthcare professional. As currently drafted it appears that anyone could claim to be providing health care services in order to claim that exemption. We believe it should only apply to healthcare professionals on registers accredited by the Professional Standards Authority.
● On the threshold for harm, whilst we recognise this largely follows the format of legislation dealing with controlling and coercive behaviour, we worry that the threshold is too high. We would prefer the draft Bill follows the risk-based approach that we see in other jurisdictions which also allows for consideration of actions likely to cause serious harm.
● Finally, we note that the draft Bill does not explicitly mention consent as a legal defence, nor does it explicitly rule it out. We would like to see it made clear that consent to conversion practices is never a defence against a practice that would otherwise meet the thresholds for abuse, serious harm or serious alarm or distress.
We believe our suggestions are reasonable and they are rooted in our lived experience as parents of LGBT+ people ourselves and of those that we support.
This is an important piece of legislation that will grant all parts of the LGBT+ community much needed and long-overdue protection from harm and we look forward to celebrating its passing in the near future as a comprehensive and trans inclusive Conversion Practices Bill.
Des Johnson – Chair of Trustees, FFLAG
26th October 2026