5 tips to talk to your MP about banning conversion therapy

Conversion therapy includes medical, psychiatric, psychological, religious, cultural or any other interventions that seek to erase, repress, cure or change the sexual orientation and/or gender identity of a person. To secure a legislative ban on conversion therapy, it’s going to take all of us speaking up together.

If you’ve written to your MP using this simple online tool and shared it with your friends, then the next step is to make the most of the conversations you have with them.

If you live in Scotland, in addition to writing to your MP, you can also write to your MSPs and 2021 Scottish Parliament election candidates via the End Conversion Therapy Scotland website and ask them to pledge their support for banning conversion therapy.

1. A full legislative ban

If you’re unfamiliar with what conversion therapy is then you may want to take some time to read the personal stories of those affected and the different ways in which conversion therapy can happen. You can also listen to Carolyn’s story here, please be aware it may be distressing for you.

2. Arrange to attend a drop-in surgery online or have a phone call.

If your MP doesn’t respond right away, don’t worry and don’t give up!

You can arrange to speak with your MP over the phone or via video-call. Usually, MPs have drop-in ‘surgeries’ in a community venue, but during the Coronavirus pandemic you’re more likely to have a virtual conversation.

Use this guide to find your MP and their office phone numbers. Usually, you’ll need to call their office and book in for a surgery. If you’d like further advice and support on this, email campaigns@stonewall.org.uk 

3. Find common ground.

If you can, find out about your MP and their priorities. You can do this by looking at their social media (available when you look them up here.)

Find out if they have spoken out on LGBTQIA+ rights and equality before. Maybe they are LGBTQIA+ themselves or an outspoken ally! You can check your MP’s voting record on the TheyWorkForYou website. If you can’t find anything LGBTQIA+-specific, that’s okay.

Even having an awareness of their focus – transport, crime or community-building – will help you appreciate the angle they’re coming from and enable you to advocate with them one-to-one, person-to-person (MPs are people too!).

4. Speak to your MP about the importance of a legislative ban to conversion therapy.

Start from the basics and enter the conversation in good faith! Don’t be party political and focus on the aims of your conversation:

a) For your MP to recognise and understand that conversion therapy is taking place in the UK right now. You might want to keep share the following statistics:

Figures from the National LGBT Survey found that

  • 7 per cent of LGBT+ people have been offered or undergone conversion therapy, with trans respondents almost twice as likely to have undergone or been offered conversion therapy (13 per cent).

  • Asexual people are at a higher risk of being offered or undergoing conversion therapy (10 per cent).

  • Half of respondents (51 per cent) who had undergone conversion therapy said it had been conducted by faith groups, and one in five (19 per cent) said it had been conducted by healthcare providers or medical professionals.

b) For your MP to write to Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch, to urge them to implement a legislative ban on conversion therapy:

  • Wherever it occurs – in public or private, through healthcare or religious and cultural interventions

  • Whoever is targeted – whether a child or an adult, whether they are coerced or have consented

  • From the moment it’s spotted – through advertising on and offline.

c) For your MP to share their support by recording and sharing a #BanConversionTherapy video on social media like hundreds of religious leaders did in this video.

5. Be personal – tell them why this matters to you.

Your MP is only human! Speak to them about your thoughts and feelings on this issue, and what it would mean to you personally if they took action.

If you feel comfortable, tell your MP why a legislative ban on conversion therapy matters to you as an LGBTQIA+ person or ally. If you have been affected by conversion therapy, your story matters now more than ever.

If you want to ban conversion therapy because you are LGBTQIA+ yourself and want to protect your community from this harmful practice, perhaps share that.

And if you are an ally to LGBTQIA+ people, explain to your MP that it’s everyone’s job to stand up to injustice, and we have to act now to ban conversion therapy once and for all.