Asked about the controversial move – which forced the government to cancel an LGBT + conference – the prime minister urged his critics to consider the “complexities and sensitivities”. Mr Johnson said the decision did nothing to “reduce our resolve to tackle prejudice where we can”, despite the fact that some leading Tory lawmakers took part in the outcry. And, when asked why he is giving up, he pointed out the need for parents to be fully involved in their children’s decisions about whether to undergo “irreversible treatments”. Speaking at a hospital, the prime minister raised the issue of “Gillick ability”, a term in medical law to decide whether a child can consent to treatment, such as gender reassignment. “I do not think it makes sense for children to be so-called Gillick capable of making decisions about their gender or the irreversible treatments they may have. “I think there should be at least parental involvement,” he said. Mr Johnson also argued that “biological men” should not compete in women’s sports and that hospitals, prisons and locker rooms should have areas “dedicated to women”. “It simply came to our notice then. “If this brings me into conflict with some others, then we have to resolve everything,” he said. Apocalyptically, the prime minister said he was learning about what he called “new concepts”, saying: “This is something that, honestly for people like me, was not something I thought I should look into in great detail.” However, Keir Starmer accused the government of “distraction tactics” in creating the controversy over conversion therapy, insisting that the int should be banned in all its forms. And a former LGBT government adviser accused the government of “sad excuses” that wrongly “merged two very different things”. Jayne Ozanne, who resigned as an adviser on the “hostile environment” created for LGBT + people, said their trust in ministers had now been “completely shattered”. “Conversion therapy is to tell you that you can never be trans, that there is an ideology in the heart that stops someone from being who they are,” he said. “Of course these issues are complicated, but that is why other international countries have found a way to get through it.” Johnson said he was “saddened” by the criticism that forced the government to take the embarrassing step of canceling the international conference in June. “We will have a ban on gay conversion therapy, which is completely disgusting to me,” he said. “But there are complexities and sensitivities when you go from the realm of sexuality to the issue of gender. “There, I am afraid, are things that I think still need to be resolved.”
