King’s Speech: ‘Labour must not echo Tory inaction on conversion therapy ban’

The Tories have been promising a ban on conversion therapy (CT) since 2018, but it notably did not make it into this week’s Kings Speech. It means it’s unlikely to become law before the next election.

Although trans and non-binary people feel let down by Labour’s puzzling abandonment of its policy on self-identification, there is a positive difference between Labour and the Tories on banning CT. Labour has promised to introduce a “full, no-loopholes, trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy”. By contrast, the Tories have proposed a ban but claimed there are “different considerations” and “complexities” for trans people that they are “exploring”.

Conversion therapy doesn’t work – and leaves its victims traumatised

Conversion therapy is, in essence, a form of psychological torture, these days most often directed at trans and non-binary children. It grew to prominence in the latter part of the last century when homophobes maintained they could “cure” homosexuality, although it soon became clear that those so-called “ex-gay” people claiming to have been rendered straight hadn’t.

You cannot change your sexual orientation or gender identity. Conversion therapy is notorious not merely because it is not based on any credible psychological theory, but also because it doesn’t work. All it does is produce traumatised and suicidal victims. Ultimately, being gay or trans is not an illness, so it cannot be cured.

One of the first things I did as a trans human rights campaigner was to protest against conversion therapy, back in the mid-noughties, almost 20 years ago. So the campaign to abolish CT has been going on for a long time. 

Although that protest was specifically about banning conversion therapy targeting trans children, one of the people who turned up was a gay man from Eastern Europe who had been subjected to conversion therapy in the years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. What he told us about how he still suffered from nightmares and stress-related trauma showed the extent of the suffering this practice causes. 

Various other countries have banned conversion therapy

The fact that, in the intervening period, no conversion therapy ban has been put in place in the UK while France, Spain, New Zealand, Germany and other countries have implemented them, says a lot about the resistance to it here. That resistance comes, not merely from the conservative religious right, as one would expect, but from “gender-critical” transphobes, these days more aligned with far-right figures like Trump, Putin, Le Pen and DeSantis.

It is not always clear why the Tories refuse to ban it, but this time they have wheeled out the argument that a ban would affect some religious organisations or some families.

My response to this is; yes it should. In fact, many world religious leaders have supported a ban because conversion therapy is just as damaging whether carried out by priests, parents or psychologists. 

The Tories have also argued that a ban should exclude trans people, suggesting that the issue is “complex”, and it appears the practicality of this exclusion may be one of the reasons for its exclusion from the King’s Speech. 

A trans-exclusionary ban would effectively be a non-ban

An academic colleague from California I met at a conference recently told me that a trans-exclusionary ban would effectively be a non-ban; in California, conversion practices are only banned for cis lesbian, gay and bisexual people, but the omission of trans people has resulted in CT for sexual orientation still being practised there under the guise of gender identity.

Those in favour of continuing the psychological torture of trans children have even attempted to resurrect the dangerous myth that four-fifths of trans children somehow stop being trans. In fact the most up-to date figures show that around 98% of trans adolescents continue to identify as trans into adulthood.

The ingenuity of those who continue to support CT would be impressive were it not for the fact that their intentions are so harmful. It is regularly repackaged, renamed and impressive-sounding organisations set up to give it an air of legitimacy it does not deserve. One could be forgiven for thinking these people are not just a bunch of homophobes and transphobes pushing pseudoscience.

The fight to ban this barbaric practice will continue after the election

What is clear, however, is that the fight to ban this barbaric practice will continue when Labour takes over after the next election. Our right-wing mainstream media will continue to exert maximum pressure to water down any ban, and their anti-trans allies within the party will do whatever they can to block it.

LGBTQ+ people will need to continue to fight for the promised comprehensive ban, and trans people, the main targets of CT, need to be fully involved at every stage in its drafting, passage through parliament and implementation, as we should be in the case of any legislation that affects us.

Twenty years ago, when the last Labour government got rid of section 28, I was working as a schoolteacher. I was suddenly able to help children who suffered homophobic and transphobic bullying without feeling my job would be at risk. Conversion therapy is another form of homophobic and transphobic bullying, but one carried out by adults that children should be able to trust. Ultimately, it needs to be regarded as a form of violence. Let’s make sure a ban is in the next King’s Speech.