Stockport Alliance For Equality (SAFE) launched its campaign demanding a ban on the so-called the LGBT ‘cure’ in this country, at Stockport Pride in July 2018.
Ashley Walker
The ‘cure’ ideology (also known as reparative therapy, conversion therapy or the gay ‘cure’), is an archaic remnant from when LGBTQIA+ people were commonly seen as ‘evil’ or having a mental illness that could be reversed.
‘Cure therapy’ is generally based on mainstream methods of psychotherapy, talking therapies and includes spiritual interventions, drugs and other extreme physical measures [1].
It is harmful and a form of violence and abuse that leaves most victims suicidal and depressed.
Today, these processes are not illegal in the UK.
The President of the British Psychological Society Nicola Gale, and other UK counselling and psychotherapy bodies including the NHS, have recently signed a memorandum condemning such practices, updating the Department of Health 2015 memorandum that focused exclusively on sexual orientation.
But these apparent advances will make little impact without eliminating racist, sexist and LGBTQIA+ phobic oppression [2].
A UK-wide survey of LGBTQIA+ people, published in July 2018, found that 5% of the 108,000 responses had been offered and refused conversion therapy and a further 2% responded that they had undergone the processes [3].
In the UK, ‘cure’ programmes are still proposed by religious organisations which had male chauvinistic discriminatory views on LGBTQIA+ rights and they aim to eradicate anything other than people being heterosexual and cis-gender.
Oppressive and abusive ‘cure therapies’ have historically been denied however, a 2015 Stonewall study found that one in ten health and social care staff witnessed colleagues expressing a belief that sexual orientation could be ‘cured’ [4].
The LGBTQIA+ ‘cure’ is not illegal in several US states, all but one Australian state, some areas of Canada, in Russia, France and Germany and most of the world’s countries. “That we’re still having this battle 45 years after the removal of homosexuality from the diagnostic manual is incredibly disturbing,” claims Carolyn Rees from the campaign #BornPerfect to end conversion therapy.
Of course, the capitalist system needs divisions between workers to enable the exploitation and oppression of all workers. LGBTQIA+ phobia, racism, and male chauvinism increase the vulnerability and oppression of all the working class. Therefore, class unity is essential in all our fights as we cannot end any oppression or prejudice alone under capitalism.
The ISL support demands to ban the ‘cure’ and all oppression that put hard-won LGBTQIA+ rights under threat. The fight for rights is a class fight that must continue if those rights are not to be reversed.
- Ban the ‘cure’; End all forms of violence and oppression of LGBTQIA+.
- Demand fully funded and competent support for all who have been abused by the ‘cure’.
- Build a national campaign raising awareness of the dangers and harm caused by the ‘cure’.
- Call for a collective fight with LGBTQIA+ organisations, trade unionists and the working class to ban the ‘cure’ and fight for socialism.
- Only a socialist revolution can end the abuses, oppression and exploitation inherent in the capitalist system.
Notes:
1 Guardian, 09/02/2016
2 Caue Lemes, Homophobia in the vein of the capitalist state
3 Guardian, 03/07/2018
4 www.stonewall.org.uk/our-work/campaigns/unhealthy-attitudes
