Ban Conversion Therapy.
Ban Conversion Therapy
Your action can make the difference.
Overview
No one should be told their identity is something that can be cured.
Yet many lesbian, gay, bi and trans people are being poorly treated by health and social care services, including by staff who believe that sexual orientation or gender identity is something that can be ‘cured’.
On the basis of this and wider evidence, we are calling for central government to publicly condemn this practice and take further steps to ensure the practice is unavailable.
We are also calling for health and social care leaders and regulators to communicate a clear message to psychotherapists and counsellors that trying to ‘cure’ lesbian, gay, bi and trans people is both harmful and dangerous.
What is ‘conversion therapy’ or ‘cure’ therapy?
Conversion therapy (or ‘cure’ therapy or reparative therapy) refers to any form of treatment or psychotherapy which aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or to suppress a person’s gender identity. It is based on an assumption that being lesbian, gay, bi or trans is a mental illness that can be ‘cured’. These therapies are both unethical and harmful.
In the UK, all major counselling and psychotherapy bodies, as well as the NHS, have concluded that conversion therapy is dangerous and have condemned it by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (PDF). We are working to make sure that this covers gender identity too.
How often does it happen?
Evidence suggests that lesbian, gay, bi and trans people continue to experience these harmful therapies.
Our LGBT in Britain - Health report found that one in twenty LGBT people (five per cent) have been pressured to access services to question or change their sexual orientation when accessing healthcare services. This number rises to nine per cent of LGBT people aged 18-24, nine per cent of Black, Asian and minority ethnic LGBT people- and eight per cent of LGBT disabled people.
One in five trans people (20 per cent) have been pressured to access services to suppress their gender identity when accessing healthcare services.
Where to get help
For further information please contact Stonewall’s Information Service on
08000 502020
email info@stonewall.org.uk
You can help ban conversion therapy.
LGBTQ+ people have nothing to be ashamed of and there is nothing wrong or broken about who we are. Our sexual orientations and gender identities are diverse and should be celebrated. Yet conversion practices are still legal and still happening in the UK today.
According to the UK Government’s own research, 7% of LGBT people have been offered or undergone conversion therapy. People are targeted in medical, psychiatric, psychological, religious and cultural settings. These are places everyone should feel safe.
CLICK HERE
Enter your postcode to email your MP and ask them to commit to passing a full and comprehensive ban on conversion practices that leaves no one behind.
At Stonewall, we stand for lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer, questioning and ace (LGBTQ+) people everywhere. We imagine a world where all LGBTQ+ people are free to be themselves and we can live our lives to the full.
We are part of a vibrant global movement for change made up of LGBTQ+ people, our allies, families and friends. Since day one, we've fought for freedom, for equity and for potential.
Over the last 30 years, we have helped create transformative change in the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the UK. Today, we have equal rights to love, marry and have children, and our lives, families and relationships are represented as part of the national curriculum in most of the UK.
Our campaigns drive positive change in public attitudes and public policy. We ensure LGBTQ+ people can thrive throughout our lives by building deep, sustained change programmes with the institutions that have the biggest impact on us, whether we’re learning, working, praying or playing sport. We make sure that the world hears and learns from LGBTQ+ communities, and our work is grounded in evidence and expertise. And we’re committed to empowering people to create change in their own communities.
We face rising intolerance degrading our hard-won rights. But we won't be silenced. Not until all of us are free to be proud, free to be loved, free to be together, free to be who we are. Our work continues until the world we imagine is the world we live in.
----------------------------------------------------------
For more information on the
STONEWALL RIOTS
that was the start of an LGBT movement for change