Following Labour’s stated desire to press on with a ban on so-called 'conversion therapy' for LGBT-identifying people, Christian Concern's Paul Huxley has suggested that any such law would likely breach human rights to solve a non-existent problem.
Huxley noted that many of the abuses highlighted by campaigners – electroshock therapy, chemical castration and “corrective” rape – are either already illegal or have not been witnessed in Britain for decades. In the case of “corrective” rape, no instance of a therapist recommending this treatment has ever been recorded.
Writing for Christian Concern, Huxley questioned the meaning of the government’s proposed ban on “abusive conversion practices”. Practices that are genuinely abusive are already illegal. This begs the question as to whether the proposed ban is simply a sop to the LGBT lobby or an attempt to label all conversion practices as inherently abusive.
If the government intends to take the latter path, it will come up against the legal challenge of banning activities such as prayer, counselling or even simple conversations, while somehow respecting freedom of speech.
It was this legal barrier that led the Conservatives to abandon their own plans to introduce a ban on conversion therapy.
As Huxley puts it, “The idea of a ‘conversion therapy’ ban is not only wrong, but essentially impossible without breaching human rights commitments. Does Labour really want to commit its next three years to this unnecessary, doomed project?”
Huxley went on to argue that there should indeed be a ban on “conversion therapy”, but not of the sort Labour and the Conservatives have envisaged.
“There are indeed abusive, harmful practices being done, even paid for by taxpayers, that seek to convert boys into girls and girls into boys," he said.
"A complete end to chemically castrating young people with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones would be a great start for a ban.
"We could also ban mastectomies that are carried out for the purposes of gender, along with ‘bottom’ surgeries on genitalia.
“These practices are genuinely harmful and abusive, with a growing evidence base to demonstrate it.”
