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September 8, 2024 - 8:00am
Scotland has scrapped controversial plans to legislate for a ban on conversion therapy in favour of working collaboratively with the UK Government on its own proposals. This could signal the dawn of a new era of cooperation between the two governments — a move away from reflexive combativeness and a return to carefully considered legislation. It could also be nothing more than a tactical decision to abandon a practice of introducing contentious bills on social issues which has repeatedly caused the SNP more trouble than initially anticipated.
Earlier this year, the Scottish Government announced a consultation on draft legislation banning conversion practices, defined as attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, or their self-perception of their sexual orientation or gender identity. To some, this was a vital step towards a more tolerant society in which harmful and dangerous practices would be outlawed. To others, this was an ill-thought-through intervention into a fraught debate that would hang a sword of Damocles — in the form of a 7-year prison sentence — over the heads of therapists, and even parents, encouraging gender-distressed young people to think carefully before undergoing social or medical transition.
This proposed legislation should not be viewed in isolation. The last ten years have seen the Western world consumed by a “culture war” over gender identity issues. That label is often thrown around as a term of abuse to describe toxic sloganeering and inflammatory rhetoric pitting social groups against each other, but it can also be framed as a cultural conflict of ideas where some ideological groups attempt to impose their own worldview on mainstream society.
Now, it is not uncommon for those proposing controversial social and legal change, backed up by civil and sometimes criminal law sanctions for those who dissent, to portray all opposition as culture-war rhetoric. That might work as effective sloganeering on social media, but it has no place within a legislature. It is itself emblematic of a culture-war mindset that careful lawmakers tackling complex social issues should eschew.
What made the social-justice legislation introduced in the Scottish Parliament politically damaging was not so much its content — which was bound to provoke disagreement — but the rhetoric that came with it. Leading politicians would behave like petulant children, plugging their fingers in their ears and refusing to listen to anyone who raised concerns, even if they were respected medical professionals, lawyers, or human rights campaigners. All were dismissed as bigots or culture warriors.
Examples abound but one need look no further than the response to the Cass Review from some senior Greens in Scotland — the ones proposing and championing both this legislation and the intolerant way in which it was debated. Green co-leader Patrick Harvie refused to accept the Review’s findings, prioritising the views of activists within his party over the collective weight of four years of careful research and analysis by a world-leading paediatrician. Ross Greer, a senior Green MSP, amplified voices calling the Review a “transphobic and conservative document”. Whatever criticisms the review may be open to, it is shameful that politicians decrying culture-war rhetoric should encourage this kind of attack on the motives or character of a distinguished healthcare professional in doing her job.
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