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BANNED IN BELFAST? Free Speech, Conversion Therapy and the New Northern Ireland
Friday 25 September 2026, central Belfast.
Time: 7.30pm to 9pm: two panels and Q and A.
Northern Ireland is currently considering the Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill, proposed by the Alliance Party's Eoin Tennyson. Framed as protecting vulnerable individuals from coercive attempts to redirect their sexual orientation or gender identity, the Bill has been described by critics as ‘jelly fish-like’ – impossibly vague, subjective and ill-defined, yet with a ‘sting in the tail’ that threatens to imprison parents, teachers, therapists, religious communities and even friends.
This has worrying consequences for interpersonal relationships across the board, but in particular, where sensitive conversations take place between adults, children and young people. Genspect staff, supporting over 600 detransitioners through the Beyond Trans programme, report that many wish they'd been allowed more open questioning before medically transitioning – a careful approach this Bill could make legally fraught for any therapist to offer.
Religious communities are concerned that the expression of traditional views about sex, relationships and identity could be criminalised because the law would view them as attempting to persuade an individual to depart from their ‘true’ sexuality or sexual identity.
While there is an Assembly consultation on the proposals and there will be debate in Stormont, the wider public is very often discouraged and even punished for raising questions about the trans phenomenon. This summer alone, a women's rights event was dropped from the Féile an Phobail festival under activist pressure, and individuals like arts worker Sara Morrison have faced serious consequences for raising concerns about children's welfare and women's rights.
Join the Free Speech Union and Genspect for an evening where expert speakers will explain their reasons for raising the alarm about attempts to criminalise intimate conversations and the broader chilling of public discussion caused by the dogma of ‘no debate’.
The Assembly's call for evidence on the Bill closes on 1st October – you are encouraged to make a submission. Come to the event to find out more.
Full text of the Bill as introduced: Conversion Practices Criminalisation Bill (PDF)
Venue details will be provided to ticket-holders 24 hours before event.
PRESS ENQUIRIES: [email protected] or [email protected]
PANEL ONE: Why “No Debate” is Not an Option
Nora Calder, Women's Rights Network Northern Ireland (WRN NI)
Fiona McAnena, Director of Campaigns, Sex Matters
Sara Morrison, artist, writer and activist
Jenny Holland, writer
Jan Macvarish, chair
PANEL TWO: When Conversation Becomes a Crime
Shelley Charlesworth, Co-Director, Transgender Trend
Dennis Kavanagh, Director, Gay Men's Network; barrister and commentator
James Kennedy, Christian Institute Northern Ireland
Jaco van Zyl, Critical Therapy Antidote
Stella O'Malley, chair
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Panel One: WHY “NO DEBATE” IS NOT AN OPTION
Nora Calder is a member and spokesperson for Women's Rights Network Northern Ireland (WRN NI), where she represents the organisation's position on issues including violence against women and girls, justice and prisons, women's sex-based rights, and equality policy. Nora has represented WRN NI across a range of media platforms, including BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback and The Nolan Show, as well as other broadcast outlets. She has a strong commitment to ensuring that women's voices and sex-based rights remain part of the public conversation.
Jenny Holland is an Irish-American writer based in Belfast. She spent several years working in mainstream media in the US, including three years working at the New York Times, before returning to Northern Ireland. She now runs the Saving Culture (from itself) Substack, and YouTube channel, @savingculturefrom itself. She has written for spiked, the Critic, Newsweek, the Epoch Times, and the Spectator US.
Fiona McAnena grew up in Northern Ireland, read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, and worked in brand management and marketing strategy in multinational businesses for thirty years. She is Director of Campaigns at Sex Matters, a UK-registered charity which promotes human rights where they relate to biological sex, and with her colleagues engages with law-makers and policy-makers across the UK and beyond. Her book, Terf Island: How the UK Resisted Trans Ideology, was published in 2025.
Sara Morrison is a writer, commentator and activist from Belfast. She spent years in arts inclusion and community outreach before helping re-establish Northern Ireland's rape crisis service. Sara writes on women's rights, free speech, and the unfinished business of the peace process.
Dr Jan Macvarish is Director of National Engagement at the Free Speech Union. Before joining the FSU in 2020, she was an academic sociologist specialising in the study of family life.
Panel Two: WHEN CONVERSATION BECOMES A CRIME
Shelley Charlesworth is co-director of Transgender Trend, the organisation set up in 2015 to counter the harmful idea that children can be born in the wrong body. Transgender Trend calls for evidence-based healthcare for children with gender-related distress and for factual teaching about sex and gender in schools. Her background is in TV news; as a news researcher at ITN and Channel Four News and as a broadcast journalist at the BBC. She has investigated the ideological capture of therapy, primary education and children’s publishing, and the growth of adult gender treatment.
Dennis Kavanagh is a non-practising barrister specialising in criminal law. He is a gay-rights activist who contributes to the debates on sex and gender.
James Kennedy is Northern Ireland Policy Officer for the Christian Institute. He has been heavily involved in the campaign against 'conversion therapy' laws in every part of the UK and Ireland for the last six years.
Jaco van Zyl, MA (Clinical Psychology), is a South Africa-trained clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice, now based in Ireland. His Master's thesis explored the experiences of men who had undergone attempts to change their sexual orientation. He has published peer-reviewed articles on trans-identification – most recently challenging the banning of conversion practices for trans-identified individuals from a psychoanalytic perspective. Jaco is also a co-director of Critical Therapy Antidote, an organisation concerned with the political and ideological capture of the mental health field.
Dr Stella O'Malley is a psychotherapist, author and Executive Director of Genspect. She founded Beyond Trans, Genspect's professionally facilitated support programme for detransitioners, desisters, medically transitioned and trans-identified people, and their families. She holds a PhD from the University of Dundee, where her research examined parents' perspectives on childhood and adolescent gender dysphoria. She is the author of several books and peer-reviewed papers.
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Genspect is an international organisation that advocates for a psychological approach to transgender ideation and defends open inquiry and freedom of expression in discussions of sex and gender.
The Free Speech Union is a non-partisan, mass membership public interest body that stands up for the speech rights of its members and campaigns for free speech more widely. We champion the right of people from all walks of life to express themselves without fear of punishment or persecution.