Here’s how you can help ban gay ‘conversion’ therapy in the UK
There's still time to make your voice heard before the government's consultation closes on 4 February 2022.
By Will Stroude
Words: Darren Styles
Dear Friends of Attitude,
We need your help to ban the cruel, damaging so-called ‘conversion therapy’ in the UK once and for all.
As many of you will know, the Government has proposed a bill to ban LGBTQ+ conversion therapy in the UK. The notion that someone’s sexuality can be altered through therapy, while fundamentally and scientifically absurd, is also fantastically harmful on multiple levels – and nobody needs to feel that loving who they want to love is something for which there should be a ‘cure’.
A ban on conversion therapy is something Attitude magazine has long campaigned for, and we now have the chance to make our voices heard and finally end this abusive and deeply damaging quackery.
Each of you has a chance to contribute by responding to the consultation, which can be found online here.
We need as many people as possible to respond and make clear to the Government that the public and the LGBTQ+ community supports a ban on conversion therapy. This is our chance, and we cannot waste it. Those who would speak against us have already mobilised and offered their view, our community’s responding can counter that.
The consultation closes on 4 February 2022 – so please make sure to respond before then.
The Coalition Against Conversion Therapy and Stonewall have both created guides to help you respond to the consultation and maximise our collective impact on the eventual bill. Here is the Coalition Against Conversion Therapy’s guide and Stonewall’s response can be found here at ‘Consultation guidance — Ban Conversion Therapy’.
Both documents are extremely useful and include specific considerations for each question. I highly recommend basing your responses on these guides as, together, we can demonstrate our community’s unity in calling for a full and complete ban of LGBTQ+ conversion therapy.
Remember – the deadline for responding is 4 February 2022. Please make sure your voice is heard, our community is protected and LGBTQ+ conversion therapy becomes a thing of the past. We owe it to each other.
Thank you for your help in shaping this incredibly important and overdue change in the law.
Yours sincerely,
Darren Styles OBE
Publisher, Attitude magazine