However, the authors argue that parents could face five years in prison for refusing to finance a child’s gender reassignment or for trying, in their words, “in good faith and with love and care – and without any malice or bad intention” to stop a transition they fear could harm their child.
The authors also warn that complaints against parents could trigger safeguarding investigations, even if no criminal charges followed.
These could potentially lead to child protection plans, care proceedings and, in the most serious cases, children being taken into care under separate family law powers.
The report raises the extraordinary prospect of children as young as 10, the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales, being prosecuted over their treatment of schoolmates.
It warns: “Even children who are still at primary school may be liable to criminal prosecution for abusive conversion practices against their schoolmates where they have made comments or asked questions without malice or harmful intent.”