Debate contribution: Conversion Practices

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 4 June 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

4 June 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Conversion Practices

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4494475

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Is it not a shame that the rights of the LGBTQ+ community remain up for debate in the Assembly and wider society? Is it not a shame that people's sexuality or identity are subject to such questioning and widespread bigotry, or that they are open to the most appalling forms of abuse in the guise of so-called conversion therapies? Those therapies are abuse. Those abuses — or conversion therapies, as they are called — are disgraceful and archaic; a remnant of a time when to be part of the LGBTQ+ community was to be viewed as evil, sick or sinful. Those so-called cures include sickening forms of violence, including corrective rapes, exorcisms and use of drugs, or other forms of physical punishment. Such methods are often propagated by people who make a fortune plying their harmful trade. Who are those grifters to tell anyone who they are or how they should live their lives? Not that it should need saying, but conversion therapies do not work. Any suggestion that they do is rooted in oppressive attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community and outright pseudoscience at best. The proven outcomes of conversion therapies on their victims include low self-esteem, depression and suicidal thoughts. Nobody should be subjected to such human rights abuses. In particular, we must recognise the vulnerability of children and young people to conversion therapy practices. Anyone who claims to stand for the protection of children must oppose their exposure to such coercion and violence. It is important to underline the point in the motion that we need to ban all forms of conversion therapy. If we need a lesson in how not to do policy or on how to inflict more misery on people, we need only look at the approach of the Tory Government. This Government have stated that they will ban conversion therapy for lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals but not for trans, non-binary or asexual people. Make no mistake, that is not because the Tories care but because they have buckled under the weight of public opinion. It is because the vast majority of people no longer accept the notion that sexuality is, somehow, a mindset or a choice, and they will not accept the oppression of gay, lesbian or bisexual people. In other words, it is an act of self-preservation by this hated Tory regime. The reason that they once discriminated against people attracted to the same sex is the same reason that they now want to whip up a moral panic about the trans community. The calculation by the Tories and others is simple: if the public are in a panic about trans people, they are less likely to kick up a fuss about the destruction of our health service or the Government's infringement of civil rights and the right to protest. If people are focusing on the migrant, the asylum seeker or the refugee, they are less inclined to challenge the Government for failing to invest in social homes, public services or working-class communities. In short, divide and conquer. I want to make a final point about religion. The UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Dr Ahmed Shaheed, has said that a ban would not violate freedom of religion or belief under international law, because of the harm involved in conversion therapy.

Ban conversion therapy in all its forms outright.

560 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:36 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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