Education Sector damaged by ‘conversion therapy’ research
by Carys Moseley, Christian Concern:
This year, the Government Equalities Office launched new research into “the effects of conversion therapy in the UK”, asking LGBT activist Adam Jowett from Coventry University to recruit people to interview. Following criticism over how he was conducting the research, Carys Moseley now comments on how this government study presents an “ethical, moral and legal dilemma.”
In May 2019, the Government Equalities Office (GEO) announced that as part of the government’s commitment to ending ‘conversion therapy’ in the UK, psychologist and gay activist Adam Jowett from Coventry University was recruiting people to interview on their experiences of attempting to change sexual orientation and gender identity. This kind of research was clearly envisaged and planned for in the second version of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the United Kingdom, published in October 2017.
“Within the next five years, if funded, signatory organisations will seek to ensure appropriate research into the prevalence and effects of conversion therapy in the UK, and into how best to work with gender and sexually diverse clients.”
However, it will be impossible for this research to discover the prevalence of efforts to change sexual orientation; doing so would require a random representative sample of the UK population, and this research does not set out to do this. Whether or not this research will succeed in discovering “the effects of conversion therapy” is a question I will address later.
Gay activist psychologist heads pro-government ‘conversion therapy’ research
Adam Jowett has spent most of his career writing and teaching about LGBT issues. He is chair-elect of the Psychology of Sexualities section of the British Psychological Society – one of the most influential mental health professional bodies that has signed up to the Memorandum. He is therefore hardly an independent, let alone an impartial and disinterested observer, of the issues involved.
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