Your editorial (17 April) does not fully address the reason campaigners from across the political spectrum warn against including gender identity alongside sexual orientation in plans to ban “conversion therapy”.
Evidence shows that the majority of gender-distressed children who are not “affirmed” in their cross-sex identification outgrow those feelings. The proposals that you endorse would make it harder for therapists to explore what may lie behind gender distress. Common underlying causes include the stirrings of same-sex attraction, undiagnosed autistic-spectrum disorder, trauma from sexual abuse and, for many teenage girls, living in a sexist, porn-saturated world.
