‘Gay cure’ therapy will be outlawed
PM tackles ‘burning injustices’ faced by homosexuals
‘ I believed that this was a demon being cast ’ out of me
SO-CALLED ‘gay conversion’ therapies are to be banned, the Government has announced.
Ministers have pledged to bring in new laws to prevent charlatans from advertising ‘abhorrent’ treatments that offer to ‘cure’ people of their homosexuality.
Thousands of gay people have been offered the therapy, which claims to be able to make them heterosexual, a survey for the Government found.
Gay people experience prejudice every day, with more than two in three feeling unable to hold hands in public with a same-sex partner, the poll revealed.
The Government’s LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) action plan – backed by £4.5million from Whitehall – also promises to hold a consultation on making it easier for people to legally change their sex.
Ministers originally promised to allow adults to change their gender legally without a doctor’s approval last year, but the plan has been repeatedly delayed amid growing criticism.
Last night Prime Minister Theresa May said: ‘ We can be proud that the UK is a world leader in advancing LGBT rights, but the overwhelming response to our survey has shone a light on the many areas where we can improve the lives of LGBT people.
‘I was struck by just how many respondents said they cannot be open about their sexual orientation or avoid holding hands with their partner in public for fear of a negative reaction.
‘No one should ever have to hide who they are or who they love. This LGBT action plan will set out concrete steps to deliver real and lasting change across society, from health and education to tackling discrimination and addressing the burning injustices that LGBT people face.’
The action plan said the Government will consider ‘all legislative and non- legislative options’ to prohibit ‘promoting, offering or conducting conversion therapy’.
It said: ‘We will act so that LGBT people feel safe in their own homes and in their communities. Our survey shows
‘Lasting change across society’
that many LGBT people do not report hate incidents they experience and that the abhorrent practice of conversion therapy is still alive in our country.
‘We will bring forward proposals to end the practice of conversion therapy in the UK, and take further action on hate crime as part of our upcoming refresh of the 2016 Hate Crime Action Plan.’ One man, named only as Dean, told yesterday of how he had gone through two exorcisms to get rid of a ‘gay demon’ which had apparently found its way inside him.
He had to burn photographs, music and other belongings which were associated with his gay past.
Dean was told if he fell back into old habits, the demon would return – this time accompanied by seven others.
‘I remember the experience involved a lot of coughing, a lot of noise, a lot of deep growling,’ he told ITV News.
‘And at the time I believed this was a demon being cast out of me. And I remember the next day waking up and thinking I don’t really know what that means now. Does it mean I’m a straight man now? Is that demon gone? Did that demon really exist?’
Over the years he became depressed because the therapy was not working and eventually began praying that he would die. Dean has now accepted his homosexuality.
Laura Russell, of the LGBT campaign group Stonewall, said it was ‘heartbreaking’ so many people had been offered conversion therapies.
The survey of more than 100,000 LGBT people also found that 23 per cent said work colleagues had reacted negatively to them being LGBT.
Hate incidents had been experienced by 40 per cent of people in the survey, with more than nine in ten of the most serious offences going unreported.