The Consultation on Conversion Therapy in the UK closed recently, on Friday 4th. It was incredibly long, time consuming and complex to fill in. I feel that the wording and structure of it was skewed towards people with biases against LGBT+ people and those who support conversion therapy loopholes which would allow it to quietly continue. Frankly, I think the entire concept of holding a consultation on conversion therapy (and therefore on basic human and LGBT+ rights) is outrageous and morally reprehensible, irrespective of how the consultation and questions are set out.
Why?
Because Conversion Therapy is an abuse of human rights, irrespective of how it's conducted and whether it involves consent. We already know this, both as a global community and locally within the UK. Victor Madrigal-Borloz (Independent Expert) presented a report to the Human Rights Council’s 44th session (in 2020) outlining the horrors of conversion therapy and the ways it which it infringes several basic, fundamental human rights.
Stats show that 4/5 people who undergo conversion therapy around the world are under 25 years old, and about half of those are between 18-25. That means I was extremely vulnerable to homophobia, gender conformity and conversion therapy during all my uni years except one, despite being categorised a mature student! Therefore, my uni harassment and stalking problems should have been taken extremely seriously, not dealt with so casually, and stopped. But they were not!
We also know, in the UK, that it should be banned and criminalised with no loopholes, including consent and religious freedom. Here are some pertinent quotes from an article in 2021:
"The Forum, chaired by Helena Kennedy QC, says all practices, including prayer, that seek to suppress, “cure” or change sexual orientation or gender identity must be criminalised. There should be no defence that a victim appears to have consented."
Why?
Because in this case, as with other human rights abuses such as FGM and IGM, consent is nonsensical because no one can consent to harm. Furthermore, we have already seen that:
"People who “actively sought out and ‘consented’ to these practices … have since provided evidence of the severe, long-term, negative psychological impact”."
Therefore, a conversion therapy ban:
"demands a broad definition of conversion practices to prevent loopholes, saying it should cover “any practice that seeks to suppress, ‘cure’ or change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity”."
This article also makes it clear that a full ban would not legally infringe religious freedom in any way. On the contrary, any religious exceptions would be based on a false premise and would undermine the ban:
"...an exemption for religious practices would undermine prohibition. In an article published by the Guardian, Kennedy writes: “The government is undoubtedly under pressure from some religious institutions to severely limit such a ban on the fallacious grounds that it would interfere with religious freedom.”"
So, I ask, why were we asked to constantly provide proof, evidence and publications to support our answers in the CT consultation when the evidence out there is already clear and concludes that there must be a global, total ban on conversion therapy? The government already has all the research to hand, it doesn't need to ask the public to spend time seeing whether or not they can find it for themselves on the internet and refer to it as though the government has no access to this information themselves! 🙄 Especially since some of the data they asked for, such as financial impact, is not even available on the internet, as far as I can see. So why ask us if we can find it for them?!🤷
For the full article containing these quotes above, see:
Imagine if the victims were not LGBT+ but were targeted because they belonged to a different group that doesn't suffer from discrimination in the UK, for instance, Christian religious groups. I think the wrongness of the so-called conversion therapy act would then seem more readily apparent to most people. And there would be an outcry that the general public are being consulted whether they mind if that group are abused, harmed and tortured. As I remember learning in Sociology, many people seem to be only capable of seeing what's unacceptable about something if it's within a culture or society to which they do not belong. The exception to this, I think, is perhaps that people are quicker to spot when something is unacceptable in their own culture or society if it impacts negatively on a dominant group within their society which doesn't usually suffer prejudice.
So here's a thought experiment (although not completely far-fetched, given some past historical religious conflicts, including the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition against heresy, leading to the persecution of Jews and Muslims to convert them to Catholicism):
Suppose the Church of England (C of E) declared that, as the state religion, everyone in the UK must belong to the C of E. Anyone who doesn't already, must convert into it. Any means possible can be used to convert anyone who doesn't belong to the C of E, including beating them up; sexually assaulting them; forcibly medicating, isolating, electrocuting them; shaming them and abusing them mentally, emotionally, sexually and physically, including outright violence. If a non-C of E person attempts to invoke laws against violence, they are unlikely to be taken seriously, the prosecution rate is inadequate. At best, the violence will be only condemned in a general way, the motivation to override their personal religion or non- religious beliefs and to convert them to C of E will never be taken into account.
This scenario would immediately strike everyone as deeply and morally wrong, undemocratic, an infringement of their freedoms, human rights and abusive. People would wonder why they needed to complete a questionnaire about whether or not they feel it is somewhat unacceptable and whether it should be stopped in certain cases but allowed if there's consent. Yet people do not blink an eyelid when the same questions are posed when it comes to LGBT+ people. 😡
Furthermore, the consultation itself contains a loophole which means they can prioritize the opinions (informed or not) of non-LGBT+ people, whom it will possibly never affect, when deciding whether LGBT+ people should have their full human rights and legal protections against conversion therapy. How dehumanizing is that!
How?
Well, right at the beginning of the consultation, the average LGBT+ person who has not yet been offered or undergone conversion therapy is deprioritised compared to, for instance, anyone who is not LGBT+ but has a religious belief. Yet every LGBT+ person is at risk of being offered or pestered into it in the future if there isn't a total ban on conversion therapy. So their views are much more relevant than a person who holds religious beliefs of some sort but who may not even be LGBT+ so may never suffer the consequences of any legalization or loopholes concerning conversion therapy. In the 'About You' section at the beginning of the consultation, it is stated that they are "particularly interested in hearing from people with relevant experiences".
On the surface of it that sounds acceptable, until you look at the list of options and think a little harder about it.
Firstly, since apparently only 7% of LGBT+ people have been offered or undergone conversion therapy (although this may be much higher given that many instances are conducted convertly so not recorded), that leaves most of the LGBT+ community deprioritised in this consultation. Yet it is their lives which is the most impacted by the existence and legal acceptance of conversion therapy because it could be offered to them, or they could be pressurised into it, in the future. By only being interested in previous experience not potential future experiences and general current and future risk of being offered or undergoing it, the consultation deprioritizes all LGBT+ people who do not have a different reason. Simply being LGBT+ and therefore at risk is not considered relevant.
So an LGBT+ person who has not yet come across conversion therapy themselves must have some other experience for their views to be considered important. Perhaps someone in their family has experienced it. But that's still a small overall percentage of people. Besides, this would be indirect experience not their own personal experience. This broadly worded category would of course also include non-family members who had suggested or 'pushed' that LGBT+ person into the conversion therapy in the first place. These people may well be biased in favour of the very conversion therapy they suggested. Or the LGBT+ person must have some job deemed relevant, such as, working for a charity or religious organization helping the LGBT+ community. Although any non-LGBT person with possible bias would also qualify for this category.
However, if you are a religious person, you automatically fit with one or two priority categories, irrespective of whether you actually have any relevant experience. Given that religious people and places commit over half of all conversion therapy, many perpetrators will be able to have their opinions and voices prioritized in this consultation. Even if they have not been involved in conversion therapy, it still allows any cis heterosexual, with any type of so-called religious belief, to have their views prioritized over most LGBT+ people, irrespective of that religious person's accompanying biases and prejudices against LGBT+ people. Obviously not all people who hold some religious beliefs are cis or heterosexual or prejudiced against LGBT+ people. But this consultation does not distinguish, so those with bigotries can use religion as an excuse to have their discriminatory attitudes promoted over the average LGBT+ person. 😡
Either nobody should be prioritized or LGBT+ people should be prioritized in this consultation because they are the most likely to be affected by CT whether in the past, currently or in the future. And why are the views of perpetrators allowed to be relevant and impact on LGBT+ human rights? Yet those who are LGBT+ allies, and are non-religious or don't have a relevant job working with LGBT+ people won't be heard because they don't fit one of the categories laid down in the consultation.
So the most relevant deprioritised people who are at the bottom of the pile in this consultation are LGBT+ people who are atheists and haven't yet been offered, or undergone conversion therapy. Yet these are the very ones who are the most likely to be targeted, especially by certain religious zealots who may be homophobes and/or transphobes whose mission is to convert people into being Christian, cis, heterosexuals who observe a strict gender binary code at all times. What the 🤬?!
A recent 24 hour opinion poll on Instagram (2-3 Feb) quickly showed that the general public thought that there should be a total ban on conversion therapy (88%); that there shouldn't be a consent loophole (84%) and that more should be done to protect the LGBT+ community from conversion therapy (97%). But how effectively these people have managed to navigate this complex consultation to be able to express their views in a way the government deems relevant is debatable. 😡
As Layla Moran (LibDem MP) says in the Gay Times:
"the government must ban conversion practices in all forms: including a criminal ban on all forms of conversion therapy; including those claiming to be psychiatric, psychological, therapeutic or consultative; or a religious practice such as prayer or exorcism; or any other medical, scientific, or cultural activity seeking to suppress or change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.
Proposals must include protection for trans and intersex people, and any pressure to exclude these groups must be resisted."
For these quotes, the poll and the full article, see:
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