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Manchester Pride is committed to supporting the LGBTQ+ community in our continued fight to create a world where LGBTQ+ people are free to live and love without prejudice.
We welcome the news that the UK government is intending to ban ‘conversion therapy.’ The historic and systemic oppression of LGBTQ+ people, also known as ‘heteronormativity’ and ‘cisnormativity,’ involves institutional structures and belief systems that insist that anyone who is not straight and/or cisgender does not and should not exist.
Within this system, when LGBTQ+ people are indeed found to exist, they are treated like a threat to the foundations of a civil society, and various attempts are made to limit our rights, freedoms and voices. As such, LGBTQ+ liberation requires us to completely stamp out any practices which seek to erase and silence us.
We must assert and celebrate our value on every level of society with resolute Pride. This resistance work includes eradicating so-called ‘conversion therapy,’ a practice that is not therapy, and instead seeks to suppress, ‘cure’ or change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
While ‘conversion therapy’ does not work, it is still extremely harmful, causing severe psychological damage to victims and survivors of this practice, and reinforcing the myth that there is something inherently wrong with being LGBTQ+ and that we can and should be brought out of existence.
When ‘conversion therapy’ is permitted to continue in any capacity, then the belief systems of heteronormativity and cisnormativity continue to be reinforced pre-existing stigma against LGBTQ+ people and leading to increases in anti-LGBTQ+ hate and violence.
Whether directly impacted by ‘conversion therapy’ or not, its existence undermines the value of LGBTQ+ people, and can thus influence the mental and physical wellbeing of LGBTQ+ people across the country. Thus a ban on ‘conversion therapy’ must be a total ban, no matter where or when it occurs, no matter what form it takes and no matter whether someone consents to it.
We are proud to be a part of the Ban Conversion Therapy campaign, a coalition of LGBTQIA+ and faith communities and organisations, and mental health practitioners united in calling for the Government to Ban Conversion Therapy and support victims and survivors.
This week, the Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition will send a letter to both the Minister for Equalities and the newly announced Minister for Women, Nadhim Zahawi and Katherine Fletcher.
The Rt Hon Nadhim Zahawi MP
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
Minister for Equalities
Katherine Fletcher MP
Parliamentary Secretary (Minister for Women)
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State
Government Equalities Office
Sanctuary Buildings
20 Great Smith Street
London
SW1P 3BT
Tuesday 4 October 2022
Dear Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Parliamentary Secretary,
Congratulations on your appointments to the roles of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Minister for Intergovernmental Relations and Minister for Equalities, and Parliamentary Secretary (Minister for Women) at the Cabinet Office and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Transport.
We are members of the Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition; a broad coalition of LGBTQ+ charities, human rights organisations, local and national prides, and charities and organisations that provide particular support to LGBTQ+ communities. We work together, alongside our sibling coalitions End Conversion Therapy Scotland and Ban Conversion Therapy NI, to end the abhorrent abuse of sexual orientation and gender identity conversion practices across the UK.
We would very much welcome the opportunity to meet with you both at your earliest convenience, in anticipation of a Government Bill to ban conversion practices intended to be tabled this month.
As you will be aware, it has been the standing commitment of Conservative Governments to ban conversion practices for over four years. Prime Minister Theresa May promised to ban conversion practices following the publication of the Government’s National LGBT Survey in 2018, that found that 2.4% of LGBTQ+ people had been subjected to conversion practices, rising to 4.3% of trans and non-binary people. Prime Minister Boris Johnson committed to legislating to ban conversion practices in the Queen’s Speech of this year. The Prime Minister, in her former role as Minister for Women and Equalities, has been consistent in her commitment to ban conversion practices in the UK, as clearly set out in her Ministerial Foreword to her proposals to ban sexual orientation and gender identity conversion practices published last October.
We agree wholeheartedly with the Prime Minister that conversion practices are abhorrent and have no place in the UK, and with her stated conviction that all LGBTQ+ people should be able to live their lives free from harm. In your roles as Minister for Equalities and Minister for Women, we would like to work with you to protect the most vulnerable members of our community from this abhorrent abuse. We would like to help you to ensure we have a ban that protects all LGBTQ+ people – lesbian, gay, bi, trans, non-binary and anyone who is not heterosexual or cisgender – in all situations, particularly the most prevalent: faith and religious settings, and by parents, family and community members.
We look forward to hearing from you and working together to bring about this historic ban to support and protect survivors, victims and all those at risk of the abhorrent abuse of sexual orientation and gender identity conversion practices.
Yours sincerely,
Members of the Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition.
To learn more about the harms of ‘conversion therapy’, please consider reading the following resources:
https://www.banconversiontherapy.com/
https://www.ozanne.foundation/cooper_report/
https://www.hrc.org/resources/the-lies-and-dangers-of-reparative-therapy
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/ban-conversion-therapy-why-we-need-ban-no-exemptions-and-no-excuses
