The Tasmanian Conversion Practices Bill

The Greens’ Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill, tabled in Tasmania’s Parliament on 10 September, is presented as protecting LGBTQIA+ people from attempts to change or suppress sexual orientation or gender identity. 

We strongly support protections against genuine attempts to change or suppress sexual orientation. 

But this bill goes much further.

It treats sexual orientation and gender identity the same way (section 5), even though they are fundamentally different. Sexual orientation is rooted in biological sex. Gender identity is a personal identity that someone asserts for themselves and can change over time. 

The bill also changes the legal definition of sexual orientation so that it is framed around “gender” instead of heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality. Each of those terms is defined by sex. The new definition would apply across all of Tasmania’s discrimination law. We fought for same-sex rights, not same-gender rights. 

That matters for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. 

We know that, for many children with gender-related distress, those feelings do not persist into adulthood, and many later grow up to be same-sex attracted (Cass Review, 2024). 

That is why time and open-ended exploration matter. Young people need space to understand themselves without being pushed towards transition or any other predetermined outcome. 

Sexual Orientation Means Sex 

LGB people also need clear, robust definitions of sexual orientation in law. Our rights depend on recognising that sexual orientation is about the sex of the people we are attracted to. 

By redefining sexual orientation around “gender”, the bill weakens that clarity and risks undermining protections based on same-sex attraction. 

A one-way path 

The bill does include protections for therapists, but they are uneven. Registered health practitioners, such as doctors and psychologists, are protected if they act in good faith and meet professional standards. Counsellors, psychotherapists and social workers are not registered health practitioners, so that protection doesn’t apply to them. They must instead show they were “genuinely facilitating” a young person’s exploration. The bill clearly protects practitioners who help a young person explore their identity, but only if they do not direct, predetermine or “seek to influence” the outcome. Cautious practice, such as encouraging a young person to slow down, is left uncertain. 

When getting it wrong can mean complaints, investigations and enforcement action, therapists and counsellors may choose the safest legal option rather than the most cautious clinical one. That means either: 

• affirming a young person’s gender identity rather than allowing enough time to understand what is driving their distress; or 

• choosing not to work with young people in distress at all, as we have seen in Victoria.  

The result risks becoming a one-way path towards gender medicalisation, where affirmation is legally safer than careful exploration or watchful waiting. That path can progress to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery. 

Sexual-orientation conversion practices should be prohibited. But protecting gay and lesbian people does not require redefining sexual orientation, conflating homosexuality with gender identity, or creating laws that may discourage careful therapeutic exploration. 

Complex and overreaching 

At 88 pages, this heavy-handed bill goes beyond the consultation draft. It gives no examples of the conduct it bans, instead listing things that are not conversion practices. It imposes a legal duty on every person and organisation to take steps to eliminate conversion practices by themselves or anyone acting on their behalf. It creates a new Commissioner who can investigate serious or systemic matters even when no one has made a report. It makes employers and volunteer-run groups, such as sports clubs and churches, liable for conversion practices by their staff or volunteers unless they can show they took reasonable precautions. Anyone can make a report, even a third party who wasn’t involved. And there is no time limit on personal injury claims for conversion practices directed at a minor, so claims could be brought decades later. 

Support the petition 

Tasmanians are already protected from coercion and abuse by existing criminal, health and child-protection laws. A law with consequences this serious should not be rushed and its unintended consequences must be properly investigated. That is why we support Women Speak Tasmania’s call for a parliamentary inquiry. 

We believe the bill is unsalvageable in its current form, and we call on Parliament to reject it.