Stonewall resurrecting the 'conversion therapy' bill

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/28/stonewall-will-fight-to-ban-all-lgbt-conversion-practices-says-new-chief

Welcome to the new boss, just the same as the old boss. Unrepentant and repeating all the same tropes.

And right on cue, here's the beeb to back up the narrative.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3w1gl530vvo

It may even be we can use the law to target the homophobic trend of transing gay youth.

This is definitely a possibility.

Anyone suggesting a child is 'trans' may well be guilty of homophobic conversion therapy. Oddly, this doesn't seem to have occurred to Stonewall et al.

But it occurs, so it doesn't really matter if the medical community accepts it, because it still happens.

It clearly is necessary because it occurs.

The Metro on Facebook

The problem with articles like the one in Metro is that they are reliant on activists, who want a law brought in because their “community” has said that is the next aim, to tell the truth.

Activists have no scruples about exaggerating or even lying. That has been very clear in recent years.

'It may even be we can use the law to target the homophobic trend of transing gay youth.'

You've given voice to my secret hope, if they do get it through we could use it to say that telling a boy he can convert into girl or a girl to a boy is conversion therapy, we could it to have them all arrested, then we lock them all up and chuck away the key.

Maybe my brain only runs along simplistic grooves or something, but whenever I hear 'conversion therapy' I think 'transitioning'.

I don't see the difference between convincing people they are not really gay or lesbian, and convincing people they are not really male or female.

What am I missing? If anything...

You are missing nothing. It’s just that you have already pulled back the curtain to see the little man - Stonewall is trying to keep it so the rest of the world just sees the Great Wizard!

Yes. Very good question.

Stonewall also are very quiet about the 'learn to cope' encouragement, shaming and shunning of lesbians who are unwilling to provide company, dates and straight sex to a man who identifies as a woman and would enjoy them providing that makebelieve experience. Which is, obviously, conversion therapy in its ugliest form, on top of quite fantastical dehumanisation of women. When a person appears to be incoherent and obviously contradicting themselves without caring, the suggestion of a therapist would be to stop listening to the meaning of the words, and instead look at the purpose all of the different conflicting statements serve for the person saying them. That one central point of coherence is the real aim.

It's been discussed since the start of this bill being suggested: this is largely the TQ+ political movement yet again using other people's history and struggles without concience for their own purposes. In this case, the historic abuse of LGB people, in events that largely are now illegal and no longer occuring. The aim of course being to further the interests and powers of the TQ+ political lobby on several front.

It's a Trojan horse, dressed in a lot of stuff that if you gabble it quickly will make the naive and uninformed go 'gosh how dreadful' and agree with them without realising what they're opening the door to.

So far every time it's got far enough to be discussed in any depth, those involved realise the complete mess involved and kick it back into the long grass. Labour would be truly stupid to engage in this.

Does it? There are psychologists practicing conversion therapy? And against people's will?

If so, they are already in a position to be professionally reprimanded, and if against people's will to face charges.

I don't think that it's happening in any kind of numbers however.

It's part of the trend to legislate as a kind of virtue signaling.

Where are the LGB stories, articles, awareness campaigns bringing people's attention to these horrors happening in the communities in which they live?

Where are any that are not historic? What is happening that is not covered by current law?

Why is it that it's TQ controlled groups pushing for this?

Similarly, they talk about exorcisms, but I've no reason to believe those are happening in any numbers. Not in the local CofE or Catholic parish, at least.

It maybe happens in African Pentecostal storefront churches, but (a) good luck regulating them, and (b) looking at the kind of people who work at Stonewall, I somehow doubt that they're plugged into those communities.

It looks to me like targeting evangelical parents who pray over their confused kids, who because of their unfashionable beliefs are a useful proxy for non-religious parents who say "are you sure?"

The UK is by and large (as far as population behaviour is concerned) extremely secular. Around 3.5 million people attend church regularly. Given the numbers are so low and I would assume are made up in large part by ppl like the ones in my village who are elderly & go because it’s what they’ve akways done, I find it hard to believe that LGBTQ+ ppl in abundant numbers have the sort of ragingly evangelical Christian parents who would try an excorcism or prayer circles to ‘convert’ them. Some - yes of course but in such high numbers a special law is I needed which would handily ensure that any remaining therapists who aren’t captured woukd only affirm??

other religions may well vary but good luck with telling them what to do!

Agreed.

Labour haven't done anything really anti-biology openly so far. Look at their response to the Sullivan and Cass Report. Labour really want to win elections and trans stuff is not that popular. If any law passes it will either be meaningless because it will target things that virtually never happen or possibly gender crits in the government will use it smuggle in pro-biology anti-homophobia positions. Shabana Mahmood is Lord High Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice after all. Then Stonewall will be in a bind because they will have to suddenly have to start opposing it.

In a way this is a double or nothing plan from Stonewall. As many have stated as yet no-one has seen the detail or methodology of this new "report" which claims 10% of gay people have been exorcized. It is obviously nonsense. However they haven't realised that too many MPs are going to question the made up detail because folk like Sex Matters and the Tories are going to point it out and in open Parliamentary debate it will fall down. They still think they can control the narrative. Not in the UK, not even in Scotland. Or in the Lib Dem conference. They are classic sexist/homophobic people who are so secure in their bigotry you can blindside them with reality. Hello Sussex Uni.

They can get puff pieces in some places like the BBC, but there are huge problems with what they are proposing.

Dennis points out the conflicts with Criminal law here:

Stonewall's Duplicity Problem
Why the controversial charity's attempt to rewrite the law of rape risks making lesbians and gay men second class victims

https://dennisnoelkavanagh.substack.com/p/stonewalls-duplicity-problem

So we wait to see what the law looks like and remember amendments are a thing and media scrutiny is too.

That's an excellent nuanced piece by Dennis, highlighting the usual mangling of language and meaning by Stonewall in the interests of their trans obsession.

LWD are not caught napping. Stonewall are not going to get away with this kind of stuff in 2025.

LabourWomen’sDeclaration 🦖
Is this puff piece & last gasp from discredited Stonewall hoping to aid imminent publication of ConversionPracticesBan?
Evidence base for these "stats"?
We hope 10DowningStreet
will heed our warnings of risks to young people esp lesbians & pause

Stonewall have just published this on the "new research" report they commissioned on evidence of need for a Conversion Practices Ban
Some rather surprising stats..
Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to link to the actual report, methodology, definitions..

According to BBCNews, Stonewall's research on evidence of need for a ConversionPractices Ban was carried out by OpiniumResearch

However, no record yet on their website..
Reputable charities don't usually publish reports without linking to the data..

2021 govt assessment of evidence:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/conversion-therapy-an-evidence-assessment-and-qualitative-study/conversion-therapy-an-evidence-assessment-and-qualitative-study#who-undergoes-conversion-therapy-and-why

It maybe happens in African Pentecostal storefront churches, but (a) good luck regulating them, and (b) looking at the kind of people who work at Stonewall, I somehow doubt that they're plugged into those communities.

Quite.

In fact while the request is out there for non-historic evidence of massed conversion therapy for LGB people - it was not by any means much of an issue when I was coming out as a teen, and that was with knowing a number of gay teens actively thrown out of their homes when their family realised they were gay and even then the horror stories from the LGB books we all read came from older generations or the Oranges are Not the Only Fruit fiction book and tv series, and while it did absolutely happen, it was rare enough that no one immediately knew anyone it had happened to - I'll add a request for any non-historic evidence at all of Stonewall caring about or working with anyone or anything that does not immediately serve their own purposes and agendas.

In all honesty. I'd like to see it. As with most of this awful stuff, I would love for someone to come and show me I have this all wrong. Show me as in evidence, not just shout mantras and abuse at me.

I hadn't twigged that, although the phrase "conversion therapy" is often used, the proposed legislation is actually about conversion practices - a much wider range of things than just the interventions of registered therapists.
Even in Victoria (Australia), where similar legislation has already passed, I couldn't understand why parents and hobby volunteer coordinators and such were thought to come under legislation about theraputic interventions.
I'm going to have to get up to speed with what's actually going on. I don't know yet what I think about religious practices and similar being made illegal. I don't think it's a good thing that believers in certain traditions attempt to perform exorcisms on same sex attracted people, but can it be made illegal without interfering with freedom of religion?

Lots to think about.

Yeah, I think legislation that makes praying over people illegal has some serious questions around it. Even for minors, and I think if it's adults who are choosing to be part of the group, it's fundamentally wrong to restrict it.

In the document @ArabellaScott linked (the 2021 evidence):

Did anyone notice that a large portion of the people who said they had undergone conversion therapy had done so on purpose - as in, had sought it out themselves (eg, because they themselves were religious and therefore conflicted about their sexuality)? Not saying this is a good thing, but it’s a far cry from random children being kidnapped off the street and tortured.

'No robust data exists on the number of LGBT people who have had conversion therapy and which sections of the UK population are most likely to have it or be offered it.'

Here's the 2017 report cited. The questions about 'conversion therapy' are under 'Safety'.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-lgbt-survey-summary-report

2.4% of all respondents (107850 people) said they'd had conversion therapy.

That's over 2,000 people.

Of the 14,260 'trans' respondents, 4.3% said they'd had conversion therapy. (Or 'reparative' therapy).

That's around 600 people.

And it's important to note that people identifying as 'trans' might have been reporting LGB conversion therapy, not therapy to change their 'gender identity'. In that context, this note from the government assessment of the evidence seems kind of crucial:

'...in addition to the survey not being a representative sample, it did not distinguish between transgender respondents who had conversion therapy to change their sexual orientation and respondents who had it to change their gender identity.'

So although the survey split respondents by sexual orientation and by 'trans' identity, it's impossible to know how many people who identify as 'trans' received conversion therapy for sexual orientation.

The rest of the assessment leans almost entirely on data from the US and/or other countries. Very different politically, religiously, socially, culturally.

'Evidence suggests that most people have conversion therapy voluntarily, although it can be initiated by parents or family members, members of their community or in some cases by therapists.'

(from the 2021 assessment linked upthread)

Are Stonewall proposing it be banned even for the majority of people who participated voluntarily? I guess they are.

Ironically, TheOtherRaven, the biggest LGB horror story of the moment is the anti-lesbian attitude of the trans movement, backed up by Stonewall.

It's lesbians being called sexual racists, it's the 'cotton ceiling', it's the being kicked off Pride parades, it's the invasion of women-only venues, it's the denial of our right to self-identify as biological women attracted to biological women..

In other words, the kind of things Stonewall was set up to oppose, they are now supporting.

It seems thoroughly confused with many groups of people blurred in together until the information becomes useless. Which is rather a match to the thread on how 'inclusive' data is in fact data rendered pointless and purposeless to all.

The blurring might also seem rather tactically useful, in inflating apparent 'evidence' as a reason to push government to carry out the preconceived and desired action. It's always the cart seeking a horse to pull it.

By now people must also be aware of the fogging of statistics by definitions being blurred and generalised, for example 'domestic abuse' turning out to be in fact a wife calling her ex by the name under which she had a marriage with him and lumped in alongside women whose exes tried to kill them, and 'hate crime' meaning the stating of an uncontended fact that someone didn't like hearing and lumped in alongside actual criminal offenses.