The UK’s National Union of Students LGBT+ conference has voted to renew calls for the UK Government to ban gay cure therapy. Last year the UK Prime Minister Theresa May rejected a 33,000 strong call to make ‘gay cure’ therapy illegal.
The original petition condemned the dangerous and worldwide practice. Now the NUS LGBT+ conference, held in the English town Stratford Upon Avon, is renewing calls for a UK ban. In their new policy, they say: ‘A report by Stonewall found that one in ten staff in the NHS has witnessed a colleague expressing a belief that sexual orientation can be “cured.”
‘The government has chosen not to make conversion therapy illegal, because there is no ‘widespread’ evidence of gay cure therapy in the UK. But, whether ‘widespread’ or not, conversion therapy is always wrong. So the UK government should legislate to make conversion therapy illegal.’
What else happened at the NUS LGBT+ Conference?
Putting aside how the small English town, that is also the birthplace of Shakespeare, dealt with a bunch of bright eye student queers taking the place by storm; here is a round-up of what happened this year.
The purpose of the conference is to set a mandate for the campaign, and the direction of the three paid national officers who represent LGBTI students all over the UK.
This now includes Northern Ireland after a policy was passed to provide financial support to the otherwise separate campaign there. As part of this, the campaign will also be supporting the work of activists there fighting for marriage equality to be extended to the only part of the UK where same-sex couples can not get married, though they can have civil unions.
Other policy points focused on the way the LGBTI community is having sex. This included putting better sex education at the forefront of the campaign. They also noted the need to highlight the rising trend of chemsex, using drugs to for sex, as part of their sex education policy. Read more via Gay Star News