UK considering a ban on ‘gay cure’ therapy

A UK Government survey could lead to making the controversial ‘gay cure’ practice illegal, Gay Star News can reveal.

The Home Office will publish the results of a National LGBT survey later this year. It includes an analysis of how much conversion therapy is happening in the country.

Previously the Government rejected calls to make the practice illegal, saying it had done enough to stop the practice. But now the Home Office will use the results to explore new measures, to stop the practice.

A government spokesperson calling ‘gay cure’ therapy ‘bogus’ tells GSN:

‘This Government is absolutely clear that being LGBT is not an illness to be cured. The practice of conversion therapy is wrong.

‘In 2017, we conducted a national survey of LGBT people in the UK. It included questions about whether respondents have been offered or undertaken conversion therapy. This will help us investigate what additional steps we could take to end this practice.

‘We have already been working with the main registration and accreditation bodies for psychotherapy and counseling practitioners, including the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), to develop a Memorandum of Understanding to put a stop to this bogus treatment.

‘We are currently analyzing the responses to the survey, and will be publishing a response later this year.’

Yesterday the National Union Students LGBT+ campaign voted to renew calls and begin lobbying the government to make the practice illegal. 

It comes just a year after the UK Prime Minister Theresa May rejected a 33,000 strong call to make ‘gay cure’ therapy illegal.

At the time, The Department of Health said they’d ‘already taken the necessary steps to stop conversion therapy in the UK.’ But now, they are investigating what else they can do.

Moreover, a report by UK LGBT charity Stonewall says one in 10 NHS staff have witnessed colleagues express the belief that lesbian, gay and bi people can be ‘cured’ of their sexual orientation.

And countries elsewhere in the world are setting precedents on banning the condemned practice.

Malta became the first country to ban ‘gay cure’ therapy in 2016. And now eleven states in the US have banned the cruel so-called ‘therapy’, including in Washington and Hawaii last week.

What is the reality of ‘gay cure’ therapy?

Raymond Buys was left starving after torture where he had to eat his own feces. Severely malnourished, dehydrated, with burns and wounds all over his body. He lay in intensive care for four weeks until he died.

He was just 15.

Just 10 weeks before, the teen’s parents signed him up in 2011 for the Echo Wild Game Rangers course in South Africa in perfect health with the intention of ‘making him a man.’

Writing for Gay Star News, editor-at-large Joe Morgan says:

‘Many people believe ‘gay cure’ camps are basically full of repressed gay dudes sitting around praying all day. And then going into each others bunks to have sex. But even if you are not murdered in the attempt to make you ‘manly’, the vast majority of the people sent to these camps are vulnerable teens.

‘I shudder to think about the LGBTI teens whose families sent them to find a ‘cure’. Leaving traumatized, and later committing suicide. The number is countless.

‘‘Gay cures’ need to stop immediately, and we need to do everything we can to make sure they do not exist. The danger is very, very real.’

People are joking about ‘gay cure therapy’ but this is the reality

Gay man raped, whipped and covered in feces to ‘punish’ him

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