Labour claims of 75,000 conversion therapy victims ‘remarkably weak’

[IwantToRetire]

Ministers justified the draconian legislation by claiming between 75,000 and 93,000 people a year were the victims of conversion therapy in England and Wales.

But Baroness Cash, a former commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, questioned the reliability of that estimate

She told the House of Lords that the figure was based on a <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/yDBQf/www.telegraph.co.uk/stonewall" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stonewall survey that had also found that 10 per cent of LGBT people had undergone an exorcism, which would indicate 24,600 exorcisms occurred each year. She maintained that estimates like that rendered the whole survey unreliable.

“It is preposterous, incredible, and yet the Government has used the same survey’s flawed methodology for the 75,000 to 93,000 prevalence figure on which the entire financial case for this bill rests,” she said.

“This isn’t a small matter, because every government department is required to follow the Treasury’s Green Book rule against cherry-picking data. This document fails that test.

“So, will the noble Lord, the minister, please explain to us why the data has been used so selectively, and what will be done to correct this?”

Extract from a longer article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/01/labour-claims-conversion-therapy-victims-remarkably-weak/ and at https://archive.is/yDBQf

This may have been posted in another thread, but thought it deserved a FWR title headline.

As usual Sex Matters were already posting about this, see:
https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/the-360000-helpline-that-didnt-ring/

This is the most ridiculous legislation ever. It's just an open door for perpetually offended misfits to waste more police time while your own home is being burgled!!

Peak madness?!

It's all so weird. One effect will be to make taking on a trans therapy client too risky for many counsellors and therapists.

Regardless of the made up figures, the inclusion of exorcisms in the original stonewall survey points to it being fundamentalist religions driving any actual conversion therapy (against gay people) which happens.

So why isn't any legislation going to the source of the issue?

The whole thing feels like state overreach to me, and I know this will sound very controversial.

Take parent-led "exorcism" of a gay child example. Clearly, that is both bonkers and emotionally abusive. But to criminalise it? Punishable by up to 5y in jail? What is happening is them hiring a guy to come into the house and babble mumbo jumbo at the kid, insult them etc. Not good at all, but surely a social services issue rather than a police issue.

It seems ideologically imbalanced when there are lots of other sorts of emotional abuse that the police wouldn't dream of getting involved in, and social services probably wouldn't bother with either. Take forced marriage for example, which starts as emotional abusive coercion and has very material consequences.

I know this sounds like whataboutery and I don't mean it that way. I mean I think it is emotional abuse rather than giving it its own category

I think it was Noel Dennis Kavanagh and the Gay Men's Alliance who pointed out when this was being kicked around during Boris Johnson's time, that there was no part of actual abuses such as this that were not already covered by existing law. And that there was very little evidence of actual such practice happening now, this was largely historic and against in the majority gay men.

This is rather like the huge dramas over enormous numbers of men with trans identities experiencing domestic violence, which actually turns out to be their wife using the name by which she knew him throughout their marriage.

It is a Trojan horse, it has always been a Trojan horse, and yes, it will absolutely be a vexatious litigator's wet dream, while wasting vast amounts of public time and money ad resources.

Without being flippant isn't this the result of the hugely successful campaign that trans people are the most oppressed in the world.

And figures get banded about, including murder etc., but when someone tries to substantiate these claims no one has the states to validate these claims.

Government got caught up in this, and responded with this highly virtue signally offer.

And figures get banded about, including murder etc., but when someone tries to substantiate these claims no one has the states to validate these claims.

The statistic that jumps out is that if you are trans you are more likely to be a murderer than to be murdered.

I agree with you entirely. I don't see how we can legislate for religious beliefs being illegal in this way. I grew up in an Assemblies of God/Pentecostal church and exorcisms were a weekly occurrence at every service. How can you legislate for what these religions can and cannot exorcise?! It's adding gibberish onto gibberish.

I mean, they also thought if you had oral sex you were possessed by demons. All that shit certainly has an impact on a person's sense of self. But how can you legislate against it?!

The evidence is remarkably weak, eh? Or in other words, complete bollocks, made up on the fly. They need to have their feet held to the fire over this.

I often think about this article that the BBC published in 2024 about conversion therapy.

It is so obviously not true:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cl7yk2l925xo

But it's still on the BBC.

Every few months this decade the BBC finds one person who claims to have been subjected to conversion therapy, and they do a feature on him or her.

And every single time, there's no real evidence that this took place, if they mention other people the BBC can't find them or they do find them and they deny it, and usually there are either glaring contradictions in the 'victim's; testimonies, or they have statements that should have been easily refuted.

If conversion therapy is basically a massive business involving several hundred new people EVERY DAY, then finding just one person who has even slightly credible evidence shouldn't be as hard as it is. And they shouldn't be going to Siberia to find it.

75000 - 93000 a year, who would ever believe such ludicrous figures but our dimwitted politicians. 🤯

I agree. There are a lot of emotional abuses that can happen from parent to child, either in the name of religion or for other reasons. For example a parent preventing a child from going to school, a parent making out their child is ill when they aren't, or forcing them down an unwanted career path, or pressuring them into marriage, or forcing women to shave their heads or cover their heads, or simply verbally abusing them frequently. There are certain conservative religious communities where women are expected to do only a very narrow set of jobs like childcare.

In every case, that's considered a social services matter not a police matter, or even just nobody's business. I can't see how trying to "stop" your child from being gay is so totally different from any of those. I'm not trying to compare which is worse, they're all bad, and the severity would depend on the individual details, but I dont see how only one of those is considered a custodial offence and the others are generally ignored, certainly by the police.

There's also the issue that many, I'd say most, parents want what's best for their children. Some of those parents might hold a genuine belief that life is easier if you're straight (I mean I've even heard gay friends say this occasionally "my life would have been easier if I were straight") and misguidedly might think it would help their child if they were encouraged out of it somehow. You can't criminalise that. That's a social services issue.

Similarly, all those parents pressuring their children into a marriage with a family friend, or pressuring them into the family business, or even getting their daughters to shave their hair and wear a wig, etc are all doing that because they think thats the best way they can help their child to fit into their community.

No, it's not good at all. But it's not a "up to five years in prison" situation, it's more a social services visit and offers of support situation, in my strong opinion.

In my opinion many of these religious cures are actually targeted towards children with disabilities/ SEN. These after all can't be hidden whereas gay kids growing up in intolerant cultures often don't come out to relatives when younger.

Another nuance completely missed by the government's willingness to believe powerful lobbyists over doing actual research.