The Ban Conversion Practices Coalition has welcomed the publication and laying of a draft ban on conversion practices in the Assembly later today.
There is currently no legal ban on conversion practices, covering acts including talking therapies which intend to change or suppress someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The draft legislation published last week by the UK Government does not currently extend to Northern Ireland.
The Private Members’ Bill, brought by Éoin Tennyson MLA, would create criminal sanctions with a maximum custodial sentence of two years for carrying out conversion practices or removing an individual from Northern Ireland for the purposes of conversion practices. The Bill includes protections for freedom of speech, belief, and the delivery of legitimate healthcare and therapy.
Scott Cuthbertson, CEO of The Rainbow Project – a convenor of the Ban Conversion Practices Coalition – said,
“The publication of Northern Ireland’s ban on conversion practices is long overdue, and we have been working closely with Éoin Tennyson MLA to get it to this point. Not only do we know that conversion practices simply do not work, and do not change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, but we also know that they are comparatively more prevalent in Northern Ireland than the rest of the UK. It is vital that this Bill passes, and that all people in Northern Ireland are protected from these harmful, abusive practices.”
The UK’s National LGBT Survey, conducted in 2018, found that while these practices occur across the UK, they are over twice as prevalent in Northern Ireland, with 12% of individuals being offered conversion practices here compared to 5% for the whole of the UK. The Survey also found that transgender people were significantly more likely to be offered or subjected to conversion practices, while more recent reports have reaffirmed that finding.
Cara McCann, Director of HereNI – another convenor of the Coalition – said,
“Good care should always support a person’s wellbeing, and never place them at greater risk of harm. Conversion practices are inherently harmful because they are based on the false premise that a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity can be, or needs to be, changed or suppressed. This legislation sends an important message that every LGBTQIA+ person deserves to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect, and to access support that affirms who they are rather than causing further trauma. We hope the Assembly will now come together to ensure these harmful practices have no place in Northern Ireland.”
Steve Williamson, Director of Cara-Friend – another convenor of the Coalition – said,
“This Bill will provide important protections for young people, who are significantly more likely to be subjected to conversion practices. A United Nations report on conversion practices found that 4 in 5 of those subjected to these practices worldwide are under 24 – with around half of those being under 18. Young LGBTQIA+ people are at heightened risk, and therefore will benefit greatly from this ban if passed by the Assembly.”
‘A Study of Conversion Practices in Northern Ireland’, a study conducted by Fidelma Ashe and Danielle Mackle, commissioned by the LGBTQIA+ sector and funded by the Department for Communities, explored in-depth the experiences of ten individuals who had been subjected to conversion practices over the past decade in the region. Of the ten participants, seven were offered and underwent these practices before they turned 20, with some being subjected to these harmful practices within a youth service setting.
A spokesperson for Christians at Pride NI said,
“Christians at Pride NI supports a clear and inclusive ban on conversion practices. We reject the claim that such a ban amounts to ‘an attack on faith’. LGBTQ+ people do not need to be fixed, cured or made acceptable to God or anyone else.”
Steve Ames, Minister of Harbour Faith Community and member of Christians at Pride NI, said,
“As a Christian minister for over 20 years and pastor of Harbour Faith Community, I welcome this Bill as a necessary step toward protecting LGBTQ+ people from practices that should never have been tolerated in the first place. I’ve sadly witnessed first hand the harm caused not only by bad psychology, but by toxic fundamentalist theology.
“At Harbour, we know LGBTQ+ people do not need to be repaired by the church. If anything, it is usually the church that needs repairing. The Christian faith clearly teaches us that love does not coerce, it does not shame and it does not erase. A ban on conversion practices is therefore no threat to genuine faith – it is, in fact, an outworking of it. It is a call for faith communities to practise the care, honesty and humility we should have been offering all along.”
The Government’s National LGBT Survey found that the majority of individuals who had been offered or undergone conversion practices had done so within a faith context – this was most prevalent in Northern Ireland, where 63% of those who had been subjected to conversion practices had been offered these practices within a faith context, and 52% had them delivered within those contexts.
Next Steps
The Bill will be laid in the Assembly this evening, and will return for second reading following summer recess. The Coalition will monitor the Bill’s progress closely, and will work to ensure it is as robust as possible, including lobbying for the inclusion of a ban on the advertisement of conversion practices, which is a matter reserved to Westminster.
Notes:
- In previous mandates, work had been ongoing with the Department for Communities to progress a ban on conversion practices, however this work has stalled in recent years. The Department funded the commissioning of research into these practices, ‘A Study of Conversion Practices in Northern Ireland’, which can be found here: https://www.rainbow-project.org/news/conversion-practices-research/
- The Government Equalities Office National LGBT Survey, published in 2018, is available in full here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-lgbt-survey-summary-report
- The UN Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity published a ‘Report on Conversion Therapy’, which can be found here: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/ConversionTherapyReport.pdf
- Galop, a national LGBT organisation, commissioned and published a survey from YouGov: ‘There was Nothing to Fix: LGBT+ survivors’ experiences of conversion practices’ in 2022. It indicated that ‘trans (43%) and non-binary people (36%) are significantly more likely to be subjected to conversion practices’ in the UK. It can be found at: galop.org.uk/resource/there-was-nothing-to-fix-lgbt-survivors-experiences-of-conversion-practices