The SNP is once more blundering into ordinary life
with its usual lack of understanding of the complexity of human beings. Instead
of recognising that issues around gender identity and homosexuality are complex
and matters for individuals and families to deal with privately, the SNP seeks
to enforce its own dogmas with the full force of the law.
The issue of conversion therapy for people in Scotland
is a non-issue. There are not large numbers of transwomen being forced by evil
converters to become men again. Likewise, there are not large numbers of gay men
and lesbians being forced by evil converters to be straight again.
What there are instead are difficult conversations
between parents and children, couples and friends which now may become illegal
and subject to imprisonment of up to seven years in jail.
I think it is fairly commonplace to meet someone who
was once in a heterosexual relationship or marriage who later decided to have a
homosexual relationship. Let’s say a man is having a conversation with his wife
and she wonders if she might in fact be a lesbian. His attempts to persuade her
to stay with him could be viewed as conversion therapy.
So too it is well known historically that in single
sex schools both girls and boys had flirtations and sometimes relationships
with members of the same sex. If a parent of such a child said something like
you are not really homosexual you were just going through a phase or learning
about sex with the only people available, that could be deemed as conversion
therapy.
This is really nonsense. Homosexuality just like
heterosexuality is complex and not fixed. If heterosexuals can become homosexuals,
then homosexuals can become heterosexuals or indeed people can be both
homosexual and heterosexual (bisexual). But it cannot be a criminal offence for
a wife to try to persuade her husband not to have a homosexual affair any more
than it would be a criminal offence for her to try to persuade her husband not
to have a heterosexual affair.
So too it cannot be a criminal offence for someone to
point out to that husband that going off with another man would break his
marriage vows and would be sinful. Nor indeed can it be a criminal offence for
a priest or indeed an Iman to advise a questioning teenager that according to
his understanding of Christianity or Islam that homosexual practices are
sinful. You might disagree with these religious views, but freedom of religion
requires that they cannot be illegal.
It ought in a free society be a free choice whether
someone has a homosexual relationship. But equally in a free society people it ought
to be possible to have honest conversations about the implications of choices
and to persuade people to choose this path rather than that one.
The SNP assumes that sexuality is fixed. If a child
once expresses that he might be gay, then he is for life. But asking such a
child “Are you sure darling?” is hardly coercive, not least because sexuality
has a degree of fluidity and covers a spectrum. In the end parents and friends,
husbands and wives must accept other people’s choices on sexuality, but we must
be allowed to have honest conversations without risking prosecution.
The situation with regard to gender is if anything
even worse. No one questions that there is homosexuality, but many people
question whether it is possible to genuinely change gender. In my view the idea
that a man can become a woman involves a logical contradiction. I find the idea
that gender is a feeling in your head rather than something fixed at birth to
be absurd.
But this means that if a five-year-old boy tells you
after a lesson at school that he is really a girl, I could be prosecuted for
saying don’t be silly you are a boy.
If faced with a teenager boy who thinks that he is
trapped in the wrong body, I were to argue that there is no such thing as being
trapped in a wrong body and that it is impossible for boys to become girls, I
might be prosecuted by the SNP’s legislation for attempting to convert the boy.
If I were a doctor faced with such a boy, I might be
prosecuted for honestly explaining the medical consequences of hormone
treatment and surgery. I might say for instance that you won’t be able to have
children or that the treatment will be irreversible, and you might change your
mind. I might also point out to the boy that another explanation for his gender
dysphoria is that he is gay and that it is not necessary to change sex to have
a relationship with another boy. All of these statements would risk prosecution
as would merely suggesting he wait and see for a few years before deciding.
But just as with homosexuality gender dysphoria is
complex. Children especially change their minds. Adults who have fully
transitioned sometimes regret the decision. But if it is possible for someone
to change their mind, then it ought not to be illegal to have honest
conversations that might lead them to change their minds.
The SNP would make it illegal for a wife to try to
persuade her husband that he is not a woman trapped in a man’s body. It would
make it illegal for a parent to argue with their child that I’m sorry you are
stuck being a little boy because of your body.
Of course, in a free society a man should be allowed to
identify as a woman. I have no objection to his changing his appearance,
changing his name and pronouns. I am happy indeed to go along with this and use
them too. But if such a person asked me, do you think that I am really a woman,
I would honestly answer No. But even this could be deemed by the SNP as me
trying to convert him, which would mean my only alternative to prosecution
would be to lie.
Living in a free society means that homosexuals and
transgender people should be free to decide how they live, and no one should coerce
them to be what they are not. But we already live in that society. All the SNP
is doing is once more to try to criminalise the sorts of ordinary conversations
that happen between Scots who don’t always share their dogma.
I don’t want any Scottish homosexual or transgender
person to be coerced or converted contrary to their free choices, but I also
don’t want to criminalise free speech where people for a variety of reasons
express their disagreement. Human sexuality and gender are complex and there
are legitimately different views and disagreements. If people can change, there
can be nothing morally wrong or illegal in having a conversation about it which
might involve persuasion.
Once more the SNP shows that it is the most illiberal
and intolerant party and an enemy of free speech. Get rid of it quickly before it
puts us all in jail.
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