The harm threshold rests on the complainant's distress 

Clause 2(1)(b) makes “serious alarm or distress” that has a substantial adverse effect on a person’s usual day-to-day activities one route to criminal liability. The prosecution must prove that the abusive conversion practice caused that distress.

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The threshold is taken from the coercive control offence (s.76(4)(b) Serious Crime Act 2015), but without its limits. Coercive control applies only to behaviour that is repeated or continuous, and only where the defendant knows or ought to know it will have a serious effect. Under this Bill, a single incident can meet the threshold, and the defendant need not have known or foreseen the harm.

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The Bill does not explain how pre-existing distress is to be distinguished from distress caused by the alleged conduct. The Crown Prosecution Service’s guidance on coercive control gives examples of a “substantial adverse effect”: deteriorating physical or mental health, withdrawing from social activities, self-harm, and not eating properly. Many young people experiencing gender-related distress present with these difficulties already.

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The alternative route, “serious harm” to physical or mental health (cl. 2(1)(a)), also sets a low bar. The Explanatory Notes compare it to actual bodily harm, which means harm that is more than “transient or trifling” (R v Donovan [1934] 2 KB 498) and can include a recognised psychiatric condition.

Effects: Where a young person already experiences significant distress, disputes may arise over whether a parent's or practitioner's conduct caused the legally relevant harm. This creates uncertainty, particularly where ordinary disagreements about treatment or identity occur within already distressed families. A parent’s ‘not yet’ could become the subject of a prosecution. Note also, practitioners may struggle to show what happened in a private session, because the client's account of their own distress is close to the whole case.

At a minimum