The controversial ban on conversion therapy has prompted ministers to reconsider their position.
Parents and teachers reacted strongly to the plan, which could lead to criminalisation of those who try to keep children from gender transitions.
They plan to push ahead with efforts to ban conversion therapy that aims to make gay people straight.
However, a ban against conversion therapy to gender identity may be delayed until summer because of fears that it will criminalize parents, teachers, and doctors who ask children about their desire to change.
Fair Play for Women’s Dr Nicola Williams (photo) said that ‘Rushing legislation can lead to mistakes’
This comes after a group gay men warned ministers of the potential for pressure on them to make transition easy for thousands of kids who could otherwise be happy and gay.
The Gay Men’s Network said the plans would silence opposition to gender conversion and could destroy thousands of lives because many children would later regret changing gender.
It is likely that the government will today confirm that it has rescheduled tomorrow’s consultation on these plans to run through February. This allows more people to express their views.
The climbdown comes after threats of legal action from Fair Play For Women, whose director Dr Nicola Williams said: ‘The Government has been rushing to get this bill into law before an LGBT conference it’s hosting next year.
‘Rushing legislation means mistakes get made. If they do not follow the law, it could cause harm to children. It is too important to be rushed.’
Boris Johnson initially agreed to prohibit the cruel practice by therapists to convert gay children to straightness.
But the proposals were extended to stop people trying to persuade children they should consider whether they really want to be the ‘gender they want to be’.
Boris Johnson initially agreed to prohibit the cruel practice by therapists to make homosexual children straight.
A Government source said: ‘One option under active consideration is decoupling orientation therapy and conversion therapy for gender identity.
‘The first is completely uncontroversial… and could be fast tracked. The other could be delayed until the summer after an independent review into gender identity by Dr Hillary Cass reports.’
The Gay Men’s Network wrote a submission to the consultation to urge ministers not to bring in a ban on conversion therapy for gender identity in its name.
This group claims that the movement towards transition is actually erasing people who are gay simply by saying they are not in the right body.
The Government Equality Hub said: ‘This Government is committed to banning the practice of coercive conversion therapy and we want to hear all views on the best ways to do that.’