UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that the government would look at banning gay conversion therapy.
Said Johnson to reporters: “On the gay conversion therapy thing, I think that’s absolutely abhorrent. It has no place in civilized society. It has no place in this country. What we’re going to do is a study on where is this actually happening, how prevalent is it. We will then bring forward plans to ban it.
Johnson added that the government would be examining reforms that would allow transgender people to more easily legally change their gender: “And then on the general issue of our response to the gender recognition act, we said that we’ll be responding over the summer and that’s what we’re going to do.”
A ban on gay conversion therapy picked up steam earlier this month.
VICE reported: “Pressure is now mounting on the UK government to fulfil its promise to crack down on conversion therapy. Celebrities and prominent members of the LGBTQ community, including Munroe Bergdorf, Olly Alexander and Dua Lipa, have signed Ban Conversion Therapy’s open letter to Liz Truss, the Minister for Women and Equalities. Co-founder Hyndman concedes that “conversion therapy is going to be difficult to define and police”, especially within insular faith-based communities, but points out that ‘something this detrimental to LGBT young people shouldn’t be ignored or sidelined just because it’s difficult’. Meanwhile, a petition started by Mased Ahmad calling on the government to make conversion therapy a criminal offence has gathered more than 220,000 signatures.”
