The Threshold
Conversion practices are rarely the dramatic scene the word suggests. Often they are quiet and slow — sustained pressure to change, suppress, or hide who you are, sometimes from people who believe they are helping. This four-part series is about that pressure: what it actually is, what the government’s draft law for England and Wales proposes to do about it, and where it may still fall short.
The first three pieces work through the evidence and the legislation; the fourth turns to what a law built around “serious harm” can miss. Read in order, they build a single argument. Read alone, each stands on its own.
Status at 9 October 2026. The series was written on 25 June 2026, the day the government published the Draft Conversion Practices Bill. It is still a draft: GOV.UK, last updated on 1 September 2026, says it “has been shared with Parliament to undergo pre-legislative scrutiny”, and gives no date for its introduction.
Our work on the Bill. The draft Bill is now before a Joint Committee of both Houses. Our position, the changes we are asking Parliament to make, and our written evidence are collected on The Conversion Practices Bill.
Start here
If you read one piece first, read the first. It takes apart the word itself — why “therapy” is the wrong name, and why the forms the research describes are far quieter, and harder to see, than the stereotype.
The series, in order
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1/4
What Conversion Therapy Actually Is
What the term really means, why “therapy” is the wrong word for it, and why the everyday version is often far quieter than the one people picture. -
2/4
What the Conversion Practices Bill Actually Does
What the UK’s draft law actually proposes — how the new offence works, what it protects, and why the bar for a criminal charge is set deliberately high. -
3/4
Where the Bill Goes Quiet
The heart of the series: consent, young people, religious settings, and the hard question of whether a “serious harm” test can capture slow, steady pressure. -
4/4
Only If It’s Bad Enough
A personal reflection on what a high legal threshold may miss — and why naming something still matters, even when the law can’t reach it.
About this series. These four pieces move from what conversion practices are, to what the law does, to what it may not see — closing with a personal reflection. Each can be read on its own; together they make one argument. Where claims rest on evidence or legislation, the sources are cited in the individual pieces.