It’s still legal for LGBTQIA+ people in the UK to be subjected to conversion therapy. Can you help to ban this practice before 4th February 2022?

This article was submitted by Mari, a 21-year-old bisexual woman in Cardiff.

What is conversion therapy?

According to Stonewall, conversion therapy is “any intervention that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Conversion therapies work towards one goal, and that goal is to ‘cure’ someone from being lesbian, gay, bi, trans, ace, intersex and/or queer.”

Conversion therapy is an immensely dangerous and harmful practice that tortures LGBTQIA+ people (or people suspected of being part of the queer community). Torture is not an overstatement for these practices that can include emotional, mental, physical and sexual violence. Conversion therapy increases the risk of suicide in queer people to a shocking amount. In fact, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims officially classes conversion therapy as torture.

How can you help to ban conversion therapy?

The process of banning conversion therapy has been consistently delayed and ignored by the government but this dangerous practice needs to be banned NOW. The government is currently leading a consultation to find out what people think about this appalling practice.

If you’d like to leave your thoughts to help ban conversion therapy in the UK, you can do so here.  

This consultation closes on 4th February 2022.

Stonewall has also released a brilliant guide to this consultation as it is full of jargon and be very difficult to know what to say and when. It is very useful to have this guidance open in a tab alongside the consultation.

We need to get as many people as possible to fill this consultation in to prove that this practice must come to an end NOW. This issue has such urgency and severity that I also implore you to encourage anyone you know to share this and take part in the consultation.

Related Information

Visit TheSprout’s LGBTQ+ information page for information on where to find support.

There’s lots of information about banning conversion therapy on this Instagram page.

Need to talk to someone? Talk to Meic between 8 am-midnight every day.

The National Conversion Therapy hotline can be contacted between 10 am-4 pm on Monday to Friday on 0800 130 3335 or via email at CThelp@galop.org.uk.

TheSprout aims to amplify young people’s voices. This article was submitted by Mari, a 21-year-old bisexual woman in Cardiff. We love to hear your opinions on things that matter to you, so if you’d like to submit something to TheSprout, please get in touch.