The conversion practices draft bill: right and helpful or fatally flawed?

Mark Bratton writes: The long-awaited draft Bill on conversion practices (‘the draft’), recently released for pre-legislative parliamentary review, is fundamentally flawed. According to the Preamble, the draft aims, among other goals, to establish new offences related to abusive conversion practices on individuals. However, rather than preventing abuse, the draft risks reinforcing harmful conversion practices, particularly … Continue Reading

The Supreme Court ruling on ‘sex’: no more ‘Humpty Dumpty’

Mark Bratton writes: In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty scornfully says to his conversation partner Alice, “When I use a word, it means what I choose it to mean – neither more or less” “The question is”, said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is”, … Continue Reading