A conversion therapy ban threatens to leave unhappy children medicalised, sterilised and sexually impaired
by Maya Forstater, Conservative Home:
Why is talking therapy being conflated with torture?
“Conversion therapy” is a term used for barbaric acts of abuse, such as electric shocks, starvation, chemical castration and corrective rape, intended to change or supress a person’s sexual orientation,. The UN Independent Expert on the topic has called for a global ban, citing “beatings, rape, electrocution, forced medication, isolation and confinement, forced nudity, verbal offense and humiliation.”
“Gay conversion is torture; the UK must ban it” say campaigners, and the Government has responded with a proposal to legislate and a rushed, six week consultation. But is there any evidence that these acts of violence are taking place in the UK?
Is there any evidence of physical acts of conversion therapy in the UK?
Police reports say no. Sex Matters has seen the responses to Freedom of Information requests for details of arrest or detention for electrocution or ‘corrective rape’ in the last five years from 24 police forces. All reported that there had been no such arrests or detention in that period.
Responses from Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, Humberside Police, Leicestershire Constabulary, Metropolitan Police Service, Northumbria Police, Staffordshire Police, Bedfordshire Police, Derbyshire Constabulary, Suffolk Constabulary, Cheshire Constabulary, City of London Police, Cleveland Police, Dorset Police, Hertfordshire Constabulary, Norfolk Constabulary, North Yorkshire Police, Northamptonshire Police, South Yorkshire Police, Warwickshire Police, Gwent Police, North Wales Police, British Transport Police, Ministry of Defence Police and Port of Dover Police all stated this was not a crime they had seen.*
Press coverage says no. Nor have we been able to find any recent accounts of physical abuse in the name of conversion, undertaken in the UK, in the press.
International reports say no. There are no reports of abusive practices from the UK in the UN Independent Expert’s report. Research by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) does not cite any cases in the UK.
Read also: The Silent Treatment by Tim Dieppe, The Critic
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