Stonewalls stories are:
Carolyn: happened in the 1950s.
George: seems to have joined one of those cults masquerading as churches at 17; no indication of how recent this was.
Jeremy: didn’t actually experience conversion therapy; sought support in homophobic society through religion.
Maya: The therapy in Israel (so nothing to do with UK law); her problem with UK rabbis is more a lack of support and affirmation not conversion.
Eli: appears to from an ultra orthodox Jewish background and had an obviously very abusive experience. Bad therapy then sent to a camp. Interestingly the details of where he was sent are very vague - may or may not have been the UK. What he describes is clearly already illegal.
Joe: sought out conversion therapy. Therapist based in the USA. Decided to
stop it himself (no coercion)
Justin: brought up in a homophobic religious atmosphere. Chose to leave the family church to join the church where he experienced conversion therapy. (Much?) more than a decade ago.
Emily: I’m struggling to even see this as ‘conversion’ anything. The pastor told her there was nothing wrong with being gay and encouraged her to come out to her parents. She’s clearly had a struggle with religion and sexuality in her life, but I’m not sure why stonewall are telling her story as a horrors of conversion therapy tale.
Ibrahim: Muslim background this time. Voluntarily attended a single appointment with a really bad ‘therapist’.
Liam: raised in a homophobic religious community. Had a bad experience with openly homophobic (and anti-trans) pastors at church. Mother stepped in and confronted the pastors -whole family left the church.
Now, the stories are generally not great and quite clearly indicate the damage that homophobia and internalised homophobia can do in someone’s life. (Hint Stonewall: that is where your activism should be directed!)
But as a compelling set of stories to illustrate the need to ‘end conversion practice’… it’s not a strong evidence base.
I’m not convinced that a bill outlawing ‘conversion practices’ could possibly be the right way to tackle issues where people brought up in deeply homophobic religious communities (and these stories are not of mainstream religious practice at all) who seek out support and even conversion from religious groups they know to be extremely homophobic.
I think too that, in part, you are starting to bump up against some real difficulties in reconciling different rights that potentially
impact upon the equalities act. There are tensions between freedom of (some) religious belief and freedoms around sexuality that the stories clearly indicate. And, potentially, tensions around race and ethnicity.
Stonewall might not need to to consider nuance or tread sensitively in their activism. But the UK government does need to think through the implications and tread very carefully before they start legislating against cultural and religious views in (ultra) Orthodox Judaism, or Islam, or a range of churches (many of which are may well be heavily associated with black African or African American communities).