Theresa May promised to ban the controversial practice in 2018
The government is set to announce that it will ban ‘conversion therapy’ as part of its Queen’s Speech on Tuesday.
The banning of the practice, which attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, was first promised in 2018 by then-Prime Minister Theresa May, but looks set to be finally outlawed on Tuesday.
ITV reports that the details of the move are yet to be confirmed, but that Boris Johnson is said to have made the policy a “personal priority.”
This will be welcome news to LGBTQ+ groups, although many will still want to see religious practices included in the ban.
There had been concerns in March that a ban on the therapy may not materialise, after two prominent LGBTQ advisers to the government quit. Jayne Ozanne, who was one of the advisers, said that parliamentary debate on conversion therapy was a key factor in her resignation.
Ozanne also said that the government was going backwards on LGBT equality and that the proposals put forward then did not have the confidence of LGBTQ communities.
After her resignation, Ozanne said: “There are many who fear that we are going back to the days of Thatcher, the days of Section 28.
“The language that I hear from them is of us being woke, or of being loud lobby groups, and what they don’t seem to understand is the reason we have to shout is because we are hurting, because there are people who are vulnerable who are going unheard and unnoticed.
“I do not believe this Tory government, sadly, have the best wishes of the LGBT community at heart. Instead we seem to have a Trump-esque mode of operation where they’re listening to the right-wing evangelicals and those frankly who want to take us back.”
In July 2020, the Prime Minister told ITV: “On gay conversion therapy, it’s absolutely abhorrent and has no place in a civilised society.”
However Johnson has also previously said it is a complicated issue to outlaw.
