The major
Preventing Harm, Promoting Justice: Responding to LGBT conversion therapy in Australia report by Timothy W. Jones, Anna Brown, Lee Carnie, Gillian Fletcher and William Leonard
addresses the vexed problem
of the religious LGBT conversion therapy
movement. Conversion therapy emerged
in Australian conservative Christian
communities in the early 1970s, and
has been practised in these and other
communities ever since.
It is grounded in the belief that all people
are born with the potential to develop into
heterosexual people whose gender identity
accords with that assigned to them at
birth. It views lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender people as suffering from
‘sexual brokenness’, which can be cured.
Full membership of faith communities can
depend on same-sex attracted and gender
diverse people committing to live celibate
lives and seeking ‘healing’ for their sexual
brokenness.
The report states
Psychological research has produced overwhelming clinical
evidence that practices aimed at the reorientation of LGBT
people do not work and are both harmful and unethical.
All Australian health authorities, including the Christian
Counsellors Association of Australia, now ‘strongly
oppose any form of mental health practice that treats
homosexuality as a disorder, or seeks to change a person’s
sexual orientation’. In 2014, nine ex-leaders of the ‘Gay
Conversion Therapy Movement’ offered a public apology
for the damage their movement had caused. ‘We now stand
united in our conviction,’ they said, ‘that conversion therapy
is not “therapy” but is instead ineffectual and harmful’. Nonetheless, our research suggests that up to 10% of LGBT
Australians are still vulnerable to harmful conversion
therapy practices. At least ten organisations in Australia and
New Zealand currently advertise the provision of conversion
therapies.
Rather than receding, our research suggests that
conversion practices and ideologies are being mainstreamed
within particular Christian churches. Ex-gay and ex-trans
ideology, counselling and pastoral activities are still being
promoted in the messages and teachings of many churches,
mosques and synagogues, through print and digital media
and through some Christian radio programmes.
In Australia, growing professional and government interest
in minimising the harms of conversion therapy has not yet
been matched by evidence and data. This report provides the
first academic research on the nature and extent of LGBT
conversion movements in Australia and the first detailed
accounts of the impact of conversion therapy on the lives of
LGBT Australians of faith. Such data is vital in determining
what types of legal and community interventions are
appropriate and most likely to be effective in addressing the
harms associated with conversion therapy. The report makes
recommendations for legal, policy and programmatic reform
to respond to conversion practices in Australia.
This report highlights the nature, extent and impact of LGBT
conversion therapies in Australia. The report is designed to
help government, support services and faith communities to
better respond to those experiencing conflict between their
gender identity or sexual orientation and their beliefs.
The study aimed to:
• illuminate the unique experiences and needs of LGBT
people of faith who have undergone some form of
religion-based conversion therapy;
• outline the history, prevalence and changing nature of
services provided to LGBT people of faith in Australia
that pathologise same-sex attraction and gender
diverse identities;
• provide assistance to religious organisations and
communities that promote and practise conversion
therapy to provide more appropriate support to their
LGBT members as they reconcile their religious, gender
and sexual identities;
• canvas international legal models and conduct a
human rights based analysis of the issue and the
competing rights and interests at play to inform the
proposed legislative response; and
• survey the existing legal landscape in Australia (with a
particular focus on Victoria as an illustrative example)
and consider legislative and regulatory options to
restrict the promotion and provision of conversion
therapies and similar practices, including by faith
communities and organisations and both registered
and unregistered health practitioners.
Understanding and responding to this complex
problem requires an interdisciplinary approach. In this
report we have combined historical, social and legal
research and analysis to enhance our understanding of
conversion therapy practices in Australia and to make
recommendations for reforms to prevent harm and promote
justice in this area. Our methodology is stepped out in
Chapter Two.
The short but dynamic history of the Australian religious
LGBT conversion therapy movement is presented in Chapter
Three. The historical review shows that attempts to reorient
LGBT people are recent. In clinical medicine they were only
ever experimental and were never successful.
Prior to the 1970s, the predominant religious approach to
LGBT people was pastoral. When mainstream medicine
ceased to experiment with the reorientation of LGBT
people, faith-based conversion therapies and organisations
emerged. These developed independently in Australia
before becoming affiliated with like-minded international
organisations in the 1980s.
In recent times, the conversion therapy movement has
presented itself in more ethically acceptable postures,
disguising its anti-LGBT ideology and reorientation efforts
in the language of spiritual healing, mental health and
religious liberty.
At the heart of this report, in Chapters Four and Five, are
the voices and lived experiences of 15 LGBT people with
experiences of conversion therapy, documented through
social research. The participants engaged with various
conversion therapy practices between 1986 and 2016 as part
of their struggle to reconcile their sexuality or transgender
identity with the beliefs and practices of their religious
communities. For the majority of them, this has taken an
extraordinary toll and they have ultimately been forced to
choose between one part of themselves at the expense of
another.
Those who have sacrificed their religious beliefs to be true
to their sexuality or gender diverse identity have had to deal
with the deep grief that comes with a loss of faith and being
separated from their faith-based community, family and
friends. Those who have remained faithful to the beliefs of
their religious communities have often done so by denying
their sexual feelings or gender diverse identity in order to
pass as heterosexual and cisgender. Some live in a constant
struggle to maintain their diverse gender, sexual identity
and faith in the face of varying degrees of rejection from
both LGBT and religious communities.
International human rights experts and legislators in
other countries have responded to the issue of conversion
therapy and associated practices. Chapter Six reviews the
available international human rights law, jurisprudence
and commentary on conversion practices and provides an
analysis of the competing interests and issues at play to
determine the obligations upon States to intervene and
prevent the harm occasioned to LGBT people by conversion
therapies and related practices. While the focus of UN
commentary and analysis has been on more extreme
coercive or involuntary practices, international human
rights law provides a useful analytical framework to explore
the appropriate level of State intervention. A review is also
provided of the legal responses to conversion practices
that have been developed in countries around the world to
inform the model that should be adopted in Australia.
The existing law and regulatory landscape in Australia
relevant to conversion practices is examined in Chapter
Seven. Health law and regulations including complaints
mechanisms, professional codes for health practitioners,
child abuse reportable conduct schemes, consumer law,
anti-discrimination law and other civil law avenues
are surveyed.
Gaps in Australian law and recommendations for action
to facilitate the end of conversion practices in this country
are presented in Chapter Eight. The most important finding
of our research is that responding to conversion practices
in Australia requires a multi-faceted strategy. We propose
a number of legislative and regulatory reforms, with a
particular focus on young people given their vulnerability.
However, these reforms will not touch many conversion
practices that occur in faith-based settings between freely
consenting adults. The most effective way to address the
harms perpetuated in these environments is through
targeted, evidence based interventions, made in partnership
with affected communities. It is our hope that this research
will raise awareness of the severity of the harms occasioned
through conversion therapy, and support the development
of more appropriate pastoral care for LGBT people of faith.
Preventing Harm, Promoting Justice looks to a future where
no person of faith is pressured to choose one valued and
sacred part of themselves at the expense of another. It looks
to a time where all faith communities recognise and value
their LGBT members, where LGBT young people of faith are
nurtured and protected and where LGBT people of faith
can live and love openly without fear of abuse, ridicule or
religious exclusion
