Following a series of delays and U-turns, the UK government has announced that it will follow through on its commitment to outlaw conversion therapy, a very harmful and thoroughly disproved treatment that aims to “convert” people to become heterosexual and/or cisgender. However, the restriction on conversion treatment will not apply to transgender people. This is despite the fact that, according to Ban Conversion Therapy, 13 percent of Tran’s people in the UK have reported being subjected to damaging conversion therapy.
Following an early promise in their 2018 LGBT Implementation Plan, the UK government committed to outlaw all conversion therapy in May 2021 but continued to postpone action. The government appeared to be considering scrapping the ban altogether, according to leaked documents viewed by ITV News, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a swift U-turn after facing anger over the leak, stating the ban will go through with some substantial constraints after all. On Trans Day of Visibility in 2022, the government declared that it had altered its mind and would only ban conversion therapy for gay and bisexual persons, excluding Tran’s people.
Given the evidence that conversation therapy attempts have a significant negative impact on the trans community, many LGBTQ+ rights organizations argue that this decision was influenced by politics and the current “culture war,” rather than research. “As a trans person, it’s difficult to articulate how I feel about this,” End Conversion Therapy Scotland’s Sophie Duncan stated in a statement.
“This isn’t a U-Turn,” says the narrator. Tran’s people are once again being overlooked and left behind. This is the government’s way of telling us that we aren’t deserving of protection. Again.” Homosexuality was removed from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) list of mental diseases in 1990. Despite this, attempts to “cure” someone of their sexual or gender identity as if it were a mental health illness are nevertheless common – and legal.
Lobotomies and aversion therapies, such as giving patients electric shocks while they looked at pornographic material, were used in early conversion therapies. Nowadays, it is more likely to rely on pseudo-scientific behavioral approaches, which are frequently combined with prayer. There is no evidence that so-called conversion therapy can change a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation. Conversion therapy is well-known to be harmful to LGBTQ+ people, with several studies tying it to psychological anguish, poor mental health, and suicide attempts. Experts at the United Nations Human Rights Council have compared the practice to “torture” because of its negative impact on mental health.
“It’s devastating to hear that the UK government is breaking its promise to our communities, walking away from its commitment to end conversion therapy, after years of delay in which LGBTQ+ people in the UK have continued to suffer as a result of conversion practices,” Stonewall, an LGBT rights charity in the UK, said in a statement. “Conversion practices cause LGBTQ+ persons a great deal of pain, which can last a lifetime. Around the world, countries are taking steps to prohibit homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic harassment, and it is disgraceful that the UK government is not one of them.”
