Conversion therapy
[ch 7: page 61]One of the key union campaigns running as this booklet was being produced was to support a government ban on the use of “conversion therapy” for LGBT+ people.
According to the British Psychological Society (BPS), conversion therapy – sometimes called “reparative therapy” or “gay cure therapy” – tries to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. In practice, it means trying to stop or suppress someone from being gay, or from living as a different gender to their sex recorded at birth. The BPS and other professional bodies, including NHS England and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, have warned that conversion therapy of all kinds is “unethical and potentially harmful”.
In 2022 the UK Government announced that it was banning conversion therapy based on sexual orientation but not on gender identity, excluding trans people from the new law. The action led the TUC to pull out of the government’s Safe to be Me flagship LGBT+ conference due to be held later in the year.