British government forced to back down on conversion therapies for gay people

The British government reversed on Friday and assured that it will ban conversion therapies that aim to change the sexual orientation of homosexuals, after provoking an avalanche of outraged reactions by announcing that it was abandoning the project.

The conservative executive Boris Johnson had announced in October that he would create a criminal offense to ban these practices.

The bill should make it a criminal offence, subject to up to five years' imprisonment, to apply these practices to persons under 18 years of age in all cases and to adults who have not freely consented to participation or have not been fully informed of the possible consequences.

But on Thursday, a government spokesman said ministers were finally considering “non-legislative” measures to combat such therapies.

The announcement generated such a stir — with activists and politicians from all sides denouncing the abandonment of the legislative bill — that the conservative prime minister finally “changed his mind” a few hours later, according to a government source quoted by British news agency PA.

According to that source, the ban will continue, but it will only affect conversion therapies based on sexual orientation and not those based on gender identity, aimed at transgender people renouncing to change their identity.

“The only consequence this will have is that the most vulnerable will remain the most vulnerable, trans people are twice as likely to be subjected to conversion therapy,” Jayne Ozanne, a lesbian and leading figure in the Church of England who has been doing campaign against these therapies since 2015.

According to government figures, 5% of LGBT people have been offered conversion therapy in the UK and 2% have undergone it. However, associations denounce that these figures are not representative of reality.

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