OPINION // MICKY MURRAY
MICKY MURRAY CONVERSION THERAPY. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT Conversion Therapy
fund organisations to carry out reparative or conversion therapy.
I’ve been campaigning for a number of years, along with other activists, to have conversion therapy banned in Northern Ireland, so imagine my delight in 2018 when the UK Government committed to ending conversion therapy as part of their LGBT action plan.
The Departments current stance of “we don’t fund it” isn’t good enough, the bare minimum we can ask of our government is not to fund a practise that has been labelled as “torturous” in a United Nations report, a practice that causes mental health issues in a vast majority of people who go through the experience.
Unfortunately, to date, there’s been no movement on this. When the action plan was released we didn’t have a sitting Executive in the NI Assembly and so I wrote to the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Health, to ask if the practice would also be banned here, and he stated that “Whilst this is a national action plan, it covered some policy areas that are devolved and it will be for a new Executive to decide how best to take forward” and that his “Department does not fund any organisation to carry out reparative or conversion therapy on LGBT individuals”. This really isn’t good enough, I believe that not funding this type of “therapy” is the least that we can expect from our Government. When the Executive got back up and running I wrote to the Health Minister, Robin Swann MLA, to request that he take forward legislation to ban this “therapy”, but in the reply from his office, they stated that they had “no current plans to legislate for a ban”, and again stated that his Department do not
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We desperately need government departments to move away from “we’re not funding it so it’s not our problem” to “what can we do to make sure we’re actively supporting people to the best of our ability”, move away from the “we’re not discriminating” mindset to “we’re actively opposing discrimination” mindset, because by not taking any action they’re contributing to the problem. I, like many many others, have been offered conversion therapy, people think that because they don’t see it that it doesn’t happen, but actually it’s very casually offered throughout churches, by people who don’t actually understand what it is, what the process is, or how it effects people and it’s carried out by people who aren’t even qualified counsellors. It’s important to note that this isn’t “therapy”, it’s not counselling, the people providing this service are usually people involved in Christian organisations who have no experience, qualifications, or right to even attempt to counsel someone, never mind partake in a practise that according to a 2018 Ozanne Foundation report found that over 70% of survivors have had suicidal tendencies. A ban is the first step, conversion “therapy” needs to be categorised as a hate crime, they need to take this seriously and actively pursue people who are offering this through either their own organisation or referring to other organisations, and churches need to sit up and recognise that their casual “pray the gay away” attitude is a form of conversion therapy and it must stop. The Assembly need to make funding available for LGBTQ organisations to support people who
have gone through this, and to provide support to those who are struggling with their sexuality or gender identity. There’s a very long list of issues facing LGBTQ people and the LGBTQ sector that need to be addressed which have been overshadowed and ignored, things like access to health care, especially for trans people, and there are organisations such as The Rainbow Project, Transgender NI, Cara-Friend, and HERe NI, who are fighting to get access to ministers to talk about these issues, and they’ve done all the work and research, there is very little work for ministers to do to solve a lot of these issues. As part of my campaigning I started an online petition, which has gained over 11,000 signatures, if you haven’t signed it please go to https://www.change.org/p/northern-irelandhealth-minister-ban-conversion-therapy-innorthern-ireland/ Alliance MLAs Paula Bradshaw and John Blair have co-signed a motion and submitted it to the Assembly, which we hope will be tabled for debate soon, John Blair MLA, the first openly LGBT MLA in Northern Ireland, has agreed to hand the petition over to the Speaker of the Assembly, and Naomi Long MLA and Justice Minister is seeking a meeting with both the Health Minister and the Communities Minister to talk about legislating for a ban and who has the policy lead. You may also have noticed that I cut my hair off recently, after 16 years of long hair! To raise money for The Rainbow Project, I’ve already raised over £1,600, but if you’d like to donate, please go to www.rainbow-project.org/ fundraisers/off-with-his-hairI hope everyone is doing well, continue to look out for each other and lets make the most of what’s been a truly disastrous year!
This is an opinion piece from the columnist/contributor and not the opinion of GNI MAG / Romeo & Julian Publications Ltd.
