Conversion therapy for trans people is wrong

A LETTER to Newbury MP Laura Farris on conversion therapy.

As you have sent the same letter to several people we have decided to respond as a community – from the local trans support group Proud To Be Trans in West Berkshire and from Newbury Pride. LGB with the T.

It is hard to accept your assurance given the statements you then made in your response which are not based in fact or law.

It is also difficult to reconcile the fact that the UK Government has made this decision, yet other major governments around the world have had no similar concerns in introducing such bans for the entire LGBT+ community, most notably this year with France, New Zealand and Canada instating full legal bans. The French ban was introduced unanimously.

The UK Government’s double

U-turn is incomprehensible to most people here as demonstrated by the Government’s own YouGov poll published on April 12 with only three per cent surveyed being in favour of the Government’s current position in creating an LGB exclusive ban.

If more people were aware of what conversion therapy involves, this figure would be even lower.

Being transgender is a natural and healthy variation that has always existed in all societies and does not need nor is it possible to be changed.

It is neither an illness nor an ideology, therefore it cannot be chosen, caught, coerced or converted and it most certainly cannot be cured.

Medical treatment can seek to alleviate the consequences of the condition and the start point for those who choose to do so is a thorough and detailed examination and analysis of the person’s gender identity and degree of gender dysphoria along with any other conditions or illnesses they may be suffering from alongside being transgender.

This is a process that is undertaken by experts in the field of gender dysphoria and identity and is conducted using the best medical understanding and is one of the most tightly controlled medical processes someone can undergo and has one of, if not the highest, satisfaction rates of any medical treatment, leading to more functional and productive lives for those involved.

People are put through multiple independent assessments before any medical intervention is undertaken and remember that no irreversible changes or surgical interventions can occur until the person is an adult. In fact, the degree to which people seeking gender treatment are interrogated in the UK goes against international guidelines as being too severe.

In contrast, conversion therapy is practised by individuals with no medical training and starts from the basis that being LGBTQIA+ is wrong or harmful.

The best outcome for someone going through conversion therapy is PTSD and trauma from the techniques and the stress of repressing their identity.

If the “psychiatrists” you spoke with have concerns about their “robust questioning” then perhaps it would be best for them to re-consider these practices in line with best international practices for gender identity care.

Conversion therapy uses tactics such as shaming, grooming, humiliation, water-boarding, forcing ‘confessions’ to be written in the person’s own blood, freezing baths, encouraging the person to self-harm or even to commit suicide. This is all to force denial of the person’s natural biological condition.

The examples above are all practices that have been in use in this country in recent years and naturally are outlawed in most civilised countries.

The UN classes conversion therapy as torture, and it has repeatedly been shown to cause significant long-term psychological damage to those who experience it.

You should really consider talking to survivors of this process to understand the severe damage it can cause as well as realising that as they are still trans the process does not work – some of these survivors are your constituents and have been trying to talk to you about this subject.

Torture is torture and that doesn’t change depending on who it is practised upon.

ANDREA BROOKES AND GRAHAM REESE

On behalf of Proud To Be Trans In West Berkshire and Newbury Pride