DM Monitoring
LONDON: Plans for a landmark global LGBT conference in the UK this summer are to be cancelled after more than 100 groups pulled out following changes to plans to ban conversion therapy.
Organisations including Stonewall said they would no longer support the Safe To Be Me event due to take place in London following the decision to exclude transgender people from the ban.
The government admitted on Monday it meant the conference due to be held in June and July was now in doubt.
The conference would have coincided with the 50th anniversary of the capital’s first official Pride marches.
It was billed as the UK’s first ever global LGBT conference when it was launched by senior ministers Liz Truss and Dominic Raab last year.
The event promised to bring together officials, policymakers, activists, and experts “to protect and promote the rights of LGBT people around the world”.
But the controversy over the government’s back-and-forth stance on conversion therapy saw more than 80 LGBT+ groups and more than 20 HIV organisations pull out.
That was after the government last week changed plans for banning conversion therapy that had first been set out in 2018.
The practice attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity and is outlawed in several countries.
But the government now plans to ban only gay conversion therapy, not trans conversion therapy – saying that in the case of the latter only that it would carry out further work to consider the issue.
In a statement on Monday, it said this was to ensure that the law did “not interfere in the work of legitimate therapists providing appropriate support for people with gender dysphoria who may be considering taking life-changing medication”.
But the decision has prompted the UK’s LBGT+ business champion Iain Anderson to resign, saying it was “profoundly shocking”.
A government spokesperson repeated the position from Monday that it was “considering how to proceed” over the conference.
