The British Government has been lobbied for over a decade to end what is commonly called conversion therapy. It has developed proposals which include a new criminal offence, as well as civil measures even though there is still no clear global definition of what exactly conversion therapy is.
The Government claims to have analysed ‘available evidence’ and ‘listened to stakeholders’. It professes to have ‘learnt from international counterparts’ and ‘identified gaps in Britain’s legislation’.
Let me assure you: the content of the draft bill recently released demonstrates categorically that the Government has only listened to one side of the story. As a former gay activist, I know this to be true.
I was the first person to come out in my London university in the Eighties. After committing my life to Christ whilst in a long-term gay relationship, I found myself undergoing several forms of therapy alongside a spiritual journey of transforming prayer. Together, these opened up choices I had never previously considered which led me out of the gay community and into the heart of the Church.
Therapy and prayer definitely converted me. They literally saved my life and enhanced it beyond recognition. This led to me eventually embracing heterosexual potential which I had never believed could have existed within me. I eventually married and became a father.
I spent two decades walking alongside men and women across Europe who, mostly privately but sometimes publicly, struggled with same-sex attraction, gender dysphoria, crippling memories and flashbacks from childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual assault.
The inner torment and pain which manifested were indescribable. I knew, however, that in Christ there was real hope which led beyond each of these issues because I had suffered every one of them and had found resolution and redemption beyond the layers of trauma.
After moving permanently to Australia in 2013, I took it upon myself to continue this same service in a nation drowning in sexual abuse and shame. I founded the Survivors’ Support Network offering free, peer-based assistance to those in need.
Existing quietly under the radar, many have found a safe space and a trustworthy community - both lay and professional - to journey with them along the pathway of sexual recovery.
No one was harmed, and everything was running smoothly until LGBTQ+ lobbyists browbeat politicians into enacting state and territory-based laws outlawing what they termed as conversion practices. The rot then set in, and the suffering of the most vulnerable both inside and outside of the LGBTQ+ community increased exponentially.
In the State of Victoria, which is known for its radical allegiance to wokeism, the penalty for engaging in change or suppression practices can lead to ten years' imprisonment. Even advertising to help those who suffer can incur a fine of £5,000. The message? Don’t dare to engage in any way with those questioning their sexual attractions or identity.
Victoria’s Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021 and similar laws passed in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory have all seriously impacted - and, in places, now legally deny - any access to exploration or even basic discussion of the ongoing traumatic effects of sexual abuse and sexual assault on an individual's sexual attractions or identity.
Many members of the Survivors’ Support Network - the majority of whom identify as LGBTQ+ - have had therapeutic doors tightly shut by previously caring professionals who are now fearful of broaching anything to do with trauma's effects on sexual attractions and identity.
I could relate numerous stories to you but one particularly harrowing story rises to the fore - that of a gay man in his early twenties in rural Victoria. He was grossly sexually abused as a child and has tried suicide nine times since this Act was passed. He, as one among many others, now feels trapped in his sexual trauma because of the heavy penalties this Act threatens to those in the caring profession.
The reality in Australia is that men, women and children now suffer more grievously and express fear of discussing even dissociation, betrayal, body-based trauma responses, shame and self-blame, and particularly sexuality and intimacy matters, in the diminishing therapeutic and counselling environs which remain open to them.
Even though suffering is increasing amongst Australia’s most vulnerable, the state governments in Tasmania and Western Australia are now being pressured heavily to enact similar laws. Lobbyists’ contempt never rests.
Where trust and emotional regulation previously blossomed for victim-survivors, many have now regressed and experience a greater loss of meaning and trust: in society, in governments which promised to protect LGBTQ+ youth above all, and in the LGBTQ+ community as a whole, as it is their own members who have pushed for laws which now deny their own kind the life-giving support they need and used to be able to access.
Even more bizarrely, the State of Victoria has recently undertaken an independent statutory review of the operation and effectiveness of its 2021 Act. Why? Because five years after enacting such an oppressive law, no one has been arrested, fined, incarcerated, or even questioned for offering to attempt to change or suppress another person’s sexual attractions or sex identity.
Put simply, copious amounts of taxes, political working hours and advertising have resulted in nothing but more pain to those already traumatised. Is this the same scenario British taxpayers wish to see government funding spent on?
I ask you to consider very carefully the estimated 1.7 million adults (not to mention the number of children) who experience sexual assault in the UK in any single year. Spare a thought too for the conservative estimate of at least 250,000 girls across the UK who were subjected to gang rape, trafficking, torture, and coerced pregnancy over several decades.
If the UK follows Australia’s draconian laws then many of these victim-survivors will not be permitted to discuss how their trauma has affected them as a sexual being. They will remain imprisoned in their personal hell, and perpetrators will once again win the day.
The British Government clearly has not analysed all available evidence as it claims. Neither has it listened to what is possibly its largest proportion of stakeholders. Nor has it learnt from international counterparts and identified gaps in Britain’s legislation.
In times of unrest and great need, it was the Christian community that founded hospitals and schools, and ended slavery. The Church led the way in reaching out to and standing up for the poor and the vulnerable.
Historically, Christians have spoken up and taken the lead. Now is the time before it’s too late for Britain’s Christian community to once again speak up loudly and clearly on behalf of the most vulnerable of society - for those inside and outside of the LGB community and the TQ+ community who respectively question their sexual attractions or their very identity, as well as for every victim-survivor of sexual abuse and assault.
