Seven facts about banning so-called ‘conversion therapy’

In June, the UK Government published a draft Conversion Practices Bill to ban abusive conversion practices in England and Wales. It’s a draft, so a committee of MPs and peers is now examining it, and the wording will change before it becomes law. Since it was published, a lot of misinformation has spread about what a ban would and wouldn’t do.

Here are the facts.

1. Conversion practices are still happening

Conversion practices are not a thing of the past. Galop’s 2026 report, Still Not Illegal, looked at 195 cases from its frontline services between 2022 and 2025. In 68% of them, the conversion practices were current, recent, or ongoing. Some people were still being abused when they contacted Galop for help.

Behind those numbers are real people. Ian Smith recently told us about experiences of conversion practices that included exorcisms, with ten men gathered around him who ‘shouted at the demons inside’ him.

These practices are also being actively promoted. Amnesty International UK found that spending by charities promoting conversion practices rose to nearly £2 million in 2023.

2. Most conversion practices are still legal

Most conversion practices fall through the gaps between existing offences. The offence of controlling or coercive behaviour only covers current or former partners and family members, but conversion practices are often carried out by faith leaders, counsellors, and community members.

Hate crime law only increases the sentence for an existing offence motivated by hostility, and many conversion practices involve no other crime. The Government’s own explanatory notes set out these gaps.

Nick Baldwin, Coordinator of LGBT+ Humanists, knows this first-hand. In his thirties, he told his church minister he thought he might be gay and didn’t want to be. The minister took him through around six months of weekly ‘prayer counselling’ to ‘eradicate’ his ‘homosexual tendencies’. Nothing in the law today would stop a minister doing the same thing tomorrow.

That’s why survivors, health professionals, and faith leaders are calling for a specific ban.

3. Agreeing to conversion practices doesn’t make them safe

Many people are pushed into conversion practices by family, faith leaders, or their community, and depend on them for a home, money, or belonging. As Nick puts it: ‘The fact that I willingly submitted to this prayer counselling doesn’t mean it wasn’t abuse.’

Conversion practices promise to ‘cure’ something that isn’t an illness, and they don’t work.

4. A ban protects people and respects religious freedom

A ban would protect people from abuse, not stop anyone from practising their religion. Freedom of religion or belief is a human right, and humanists defend it, but religious freedom cannot be used as a shield for abuse.

Human rights law already allows the right to manifest a belief to be limited to protect others from harm. The Church of England supports a ban too.

A ban must cover religious settings, because that’s where conversion practices most often happen. In the Government’s National LGBT Survey, half of those who had been through conversion practices said a faith organisation or group carried them out.

5. People will still be free to explore their identity with a professional

The ban would not prevent ethical, non-directive counselling, or properly informed medical and psychological support, that helps people explore their identity without pressure towards any particular outcome. The only therapy that would be banned would be unethical, abusive therapy explicitly designed to stop someone being LGBT+.

6. A ban protects children rather than punishing loving parents

Parents will still be able to talk to their children, share their beliefs and values, disagree with them, and set rules at home. None of that is a conversion practice. A ban is aimed at something different: deliberate attempts to change or suppress who a child is.

Conversion practices aren’t arguments around the kitchen table. They include sending a child to be ‘delivered’ from being gay, exorcisms, threatening to throw them out unless they ‘change’, or cutting them off from friends until they do. Some young LGBT+ people are threatened with homelessness, forced marriage, or being disowned.

A ban means children in those homes can get protection, including through new protection orders that can stop conversion practices before they happen. And children shouldn’t have to be seriously harmed before the law can step in.

7. A ban doesn’t change the law on gender

The draft Bill creates new offences to stop abuse. It doesn’t change the Equality Act, gender recognition, or the law on sex and gender. The Government’s explanatory notes say plainly that the Bill’s definitions of sexual orientation and transgender identity do not change the meaning of those terms in the Equality Act or anywhere else.

Why Humanists UK campaigns for a ban on conversion practices

Humanists believe everyone should be free to live as who they are and love who they love, and that public policy should be based on evidence and compassion. Conversion practices fail on every count. They are rooted in shame, they cause lasting harm, and they don’t work.

LGBT+ Humanists has campaigned against conversion practices since it was founded in 1979, and many of our members, like Nick, have been through them.

After eight years of promises, there is finally a draft Bill. Humanists UK is calling for it to become a strong, trans-inclusive law, with no loopholes for religion or supposed ‘consent’. Write to your MP today and ask them to support a ban that protects everyone.