--- title: "Decades of dithering! Humanist campaigns against conversion therapy on display at Queer Britain Museum" date: "2026-10-21T12:45:08+01:00" modified: "2026-10-21T13:59:25+01:00" url: "https://humanists.uk/2026/10/21/decades-of-dithering-humanist-campaigns-against-conversion-therapy-on-display-at-queer-britain-museum/" post_id: 200667 categories: ["LGBT Humanists", "News"] --- # Decades of dithering! Humanist campaigns against conversion therapy on display at Queer Britain Museum ![](https://i0.wp.com/humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/conversion-practices-collage.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&ssl=1)Humanist campaigning against so-called conversion therapy has gone on display, showing decades of political inaction on banning it. Conversion practices, known as ‘conversion therapy’ or often colloquially ‘praying the gay away’, are harmful, discredited practices aimed at changing who LGBT+ people are or who they love. Humanists have been campaigning against them for decades, and last night Queer Britain unveiled a new exhibit highlighting the fight to ban them. #### **A humanist history of fighting harmful ‘conversion therapy’** LGBT+ Humanists was founded in 1979 as the Gay Humanist Group, in the wake of the prosecution *Gay News* and its editor Denis Lemon, who was found guilty of ‘blasphemous libel’ in the first case of its kind for more than 50 years. It later became known as the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA). Its first President was the novelist, poet, and campaigner Maureen Duffy, one of the first public figures in the UK to come out as a lesbian. Today would have been her 93rd birthday. She sadly died in May this year. LGBT+ Humanists has campaigned against conversion practices since long before the issue was on the political agenda. In 1993, after a member in Sheffield spotted a newspaper advert for ‘anonymous Christian telephone counsel’ aimed at people ‘inclined’ to homosexuality, it warned lesbians and gay men about the service. Its secretary, George Broadhead, called it ‘dangerous and spurious’. ![](https://i0.wp.com/humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/Conversion-practices-PR-1993.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&ssl=1)In 1995, after Channel 4 screened *Witness: Better Dead Than Gay*, about Simon Harvey, a young gay Christian who died by suicide, LGBT+ Humanists members wrote to the Health Secretary, Stephen Dorrell, demanding action against Christian ministries that sought to ‘cure’ gay people. ![](https://i0.wp.com/humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/GAHLA-conversion-practices-1995.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&ssl=1)##### **Why haven’t conversion practices been banned already?** More than 30 years after LGBT+ Humanists wrote to the Health Secretary, conversion practices are still legal across the UK. In June, the UK Government finally published a draft Conversion Practices Bill for England and Wales, following eight years of promises from successive Prime Ministers. A joint committee of MPs and peers began its pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill on 12 October. Humanists UK supports a ban that protects all LGBT+ people (including trans people), covers both medical and non-medical settings (including religious ones), and has no loopholes for supposed ‘consent’. Government analysis of the National LGBT Survey shows that faith groups are the most common setting for conversion practices, and a report by the charity Galop this summer found that more than a quarter of the cases it examined involved religion-based practices, including coerced prayer and exorcisms. #### **Nick Baldwin, Coordinator of LGBT+ Humanists, said:** > ‘I’m so proud of the humanists who came before us, who were warning about the dangers of conversion practices more than 30 years ago, long before most politicians would listen. As someone who’s experienced these practices firsthand, I know too well the pain and the trauma they cause. > ‘As a church member I went to my minister in my thirties and said I thought I might be gay and that I didn’t want to be. He then took me through months of “prayer counselling” in order to “eradicate my homosexual tendencies”. It took me many years to understand that there was another way of looking at the world and for me to learn to accept and celebrate being the person I am, gay and proud.’ #### **Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK, said:** > ‘Humanists have always stood for the right of every person to live and love as they choose, and these documents show our movement putting that into action decades ago. Our members were naming the harms of religious conversion practices when few others would, and we are grateful to Queer Britain for preserving that history. > ‘But I wish the display depicted a battle won, rather than the campaign we continue to run to this day. Decades on, after promise after promise from successive governments, conversion practices remain legal in the UK, and LGBT+ people are still being harmed by them. The draft Bill is a long-overdue step, and now Parliament must finish the job.’ #### Notes For further comment or information, media should contact Humanists UK Head of Press and Campaign Communications Nathan Stilwell at or phone 0203 675 0959 (media only). Read more about [Queer Britain](https://queerbritain.org.uk/) and visit the display! Read more about our work on [banning conversion practices](https://humanists.uk/campaigns/policy-unit/banning-conversion-practices/). Read our humanist heritage page [*Fighting back: humanist action against ‘conversion therapy’*](https://heritage.humanists.uk/article/fighting-back/)*.* Read our humanist heritage [oral history clips](https://heritage.humanists.uk/lgbt-stories/) Humanists UK is the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people. Powered by over 150,000 members and supporters, we advance free thinking and promote humanism to create a tolerant society where rational thinking and kindness prevail. We provide ceremonies, pastoral care, education, and support services benefitting over a million people every year and our campaigns advance humanist thinking on ethical issues, human rights, and equal treatment for all. **The full press releases:** **GAY AND LESBIAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION National Office, 34 Spring Lane, Kenilworth, Warwickshire CV8 2HB Telephone and Fax: (0926) 58450 *Affiliated to the International Humanist & Ethical Union and the International Lesbian and Gay Association* NEWS RELEASE — For Immediate release 2/9/93 **GALHA WARNS ABOUT GAY “COUNSELLING” SERVICE** The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) has issued a warning to lesbians and gay men who may be duped by a Christian telephone “counselling” service currently being advertised in local newspapers. The ad, as it appears in Sheffield’s **Daily Star** (circulated in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire) reads: HOMOSEXUALITY Inclined? Concerned? For anonymous Christian telephone counsel ring Jef – 0232 230743 Mon-Thurs. Alerted to the ad by a member in Sheffield, GALHA secretary George Broadhead said: “This dangerous and spurious service goes back some time and used to go under the name of ‘Pilot’. It was based in Poole, Dorset, but judging from the phone code is now in Belfast. A leaflet issued by Pilot maintains that gays “can enjoy deep, loving relationships without perverted eroticism corroding and spoiling the relationship’ – a view which is all too typical of the Judeo-Christian attitude to homosexuality.” END PROMOTING A RATIONAL HUMANIST APPROACH TO SEXUALITY AND GAY & LESBIAN RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS President: Maureen Duffy. Vice-Presidents: Professor Sir Hermann Bondi, Brigid Brophy, Dr. James Hemming, George Melly, Claire Rayner, Dr. H Stopes-Roe, Barbara Smoker, Professor Rob Tielman, Angela Willans --- **GAY AND LESBIAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION National Office, 34 Spring Lane, Kenilworth, Warwickshire CV8 2HB Telephone and Fax: (0926) 58450 *Affiliated to the International Humanist & Ethical Union and the International Lesbian and Gay Association* NEWS RELEASE — For immediate release: 28 July 1995 **HUMANISTS PROTEST ABOUT CHRISTIAN ‘CURE’ MINISTRIES** Incensed by a programme screened by Channel 4 on 25 July, members of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) have written to Stephen Dorrell, Secretary of State for Health, demanding that he do something to curb the activities of Christian ministries which seek to ‘cure’ lesbians and gays of their homosexuality. The programme, **Witness: Better Dead Than Gay**, described the torment of a gay man, Simon Harvey, who commited \[sic\] suicide at the age of 26 because he could not reconcile his Christian beliefs with his gayness. The programme revealed the Bible-based homophobia of Simon’s father, George Harvey, who set up a ministry – U-Turn Anglia – to ‘cure’ homosexuals, soon after his son’s death. GALHA secretary George Broadhead has contacted the 100 members on the group’s Postal Action list, including agony aunt Claire Rayner, urging them to write to the Secretary of State and to the Under-Secretary John Bowis, who is gay friendly. Mr Broadhead said: We took this action following a number of phone calls we received from distressed viewers via Channel 4’s Helpline number and from our own members. “Some effort has to be made to curb the malign activities of these Christian ‘counselling’ organisations. We have details of six on our files besides U-Turn Anglia. They include the Courage Trust, Pilot, True Freedom Trust, and one founded by an Anglican clergyman. All are seeking to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals by religious conversion, and this can cause serious psychological damage”. PROMOTING A RATIONAL HUMANIST APPROACH TO SEXUALITY AND GAY, LESBIAN & BISEXUAL RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS President: Maureen Duffy. Vice-Presidents: Professor Sir Hermann Bondi, Brigid Brophy, Dr. James Hemming, Sir Michael Levey, George Melly, Claire Rayner, Dr. H Stopes-Roe, Barbara Smoker, Professor Rob Tielman, Angela Willans