BANNED IN BELFAST?

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

Shelley Charlesworth, Co-Director, Transgender Trend

Fiona McAnena, Director of Campaigns, Sex Matters

Sara Morrison, artist, writer and activist

Jenny Holland, writer

CHAIR: Jan Macvarish, Director of National Engagement, Free Speech Union

PANEL TWO: When Conversation Becomes a Crime

Dennis Kavanagh, Director, Gay Men's Network; barrister and commentator

James Kennedy, Christian Institute Northern Ireland

Ruth Paterson, solicitor and member of Women's Rights Network Northern Ireland (WRN NI)

Jaco van Zyl, Critical Therapy Antidote

CHAIR: Stella O'Malley, Executive Director, Genspect

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Panel One: WHY “NO DEBATE” IS NOT AN OPTION

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.

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

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.

Ruth Paterson is a solicitor and a member of WRN NI. She has observed first hand the chilling effect that unchecked gender identity ideology has had on freedom of speech and women's sex based rights in Northern Ireland. She is particularly interested in the development of the Conversion Practices (Criminalisation) Bill. She has been quoted and published in the Belfast Telegraph, Sunday Times, Gript, and appeared on BBC's Talkback.

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.

Discounted tickets for FSU Members. Non-members welcome. If you're not an FSU Member, JOIN TODAY to get access to discounted tickets and online events.

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.