Previously , I showed how people are not allowed to provide any form of therapy or counselling which might help those who want to move away from their same-sex attraction to do so.
In this piece, I want to explore why this therapy is banned.
It should be noted that professionals do not support the ban.
Research conducted in 2009 in the UK found that 17 percent of mental health professionals had helped a client diminish or change same-sex attraction and 72 percent of them agreed such therapy should be available to the clients. Only 13% thought it should not.
Practising psychologists recently wrote to the BPS to complain that this affirmative approach hindered their efforts to conduct effective therapy .
And indeed, there is no evidence to suggest the affirmative approach is effective (see here , p. 19).
The ostensible reason for the ban is that it is harmful. This is what various mental health bodies argue in their Memorandum of Understanding which lays out the ban.
Yet this conclusion is based on highly inadequate research. The two main pieces of research supporting the ban, the Faith and Sexuality Survey 2018 and the National LGBT Survey, exhibit deeply flawed sampling methods and inadequate questionnaire design. For example, they only asked LGBT people about the effectiveness of therapy. This is a bit like exploring the effectiveness of marriage counselling from those who are divorced. See here and here .
In fact, there is strong evidence to show an absence of harm.
The real reasons they want to ban this therapy lie elsewhere.
The LGBT lobby have gone to enormous lengths to promote LGBT as an identity and a lifestyle to be celebrated. The existence of people who reject their homosexuality undermines their message. It is the one thing the lobby is desperate to avoid.
Another reason why the LGBT lobby are so determined to ban therapy is because it suggests homosexuality is something you can change.
The idea that people are born gay has been the cornerstone of gay ideology for a number of years. Kirk and Madsen in their best-selling book After the Ball explain how to achieve what they blithely describe as the "conversion of the average American's emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media".
A key part of this "conversion" involved propagating the idea that people were born gay:
"The mainstream should be told that gays are victims of fate, in the sense that most never had a choice to accept or reject their sexual preference. The message must read: 'As far as gays can tell, they were born gay, just as you were born heterosexual or white or black or bright or athletic. They never made a choice, and are not morally blameworthy. What they do isn't willfully contrary - it's only natural for them. This twist of fate could as easily have happened to you!'"
This idea that homosexuality is immutable was key to obtaining gay marriage in the US. It was believed only through gay marriage could gay people have access to this profound commitment.
This propaganda is taught to our children in UK schools. A well-respected teaching resource provides teachers with advice about how to deal with questions about how people become gay. Teachers are told to explain to children that:
"A person does not become gay. They are born gay, but they maybe don't realise for a while. Some people realise when they are very young, sometimes in primary school. Some people realise when they are in secondary school, and some people don't realise till they are adults."
However, a number of more outspoken gay public figures - Peter Tatchell, Julie Bindell, more recently Brandon Ambrosino - dispute this . Douglas Murray discusses the weakness of the "born gay" position in his book The Madness of Crowds .
Evidence confirms that we are not born gay.
Firstly, for some sexuality changes throughout the life course. A respected 10-year longitudinal study of non-heterosexual women by Diamond found that "all women reported declines in their ratio of same-sex to opposite-sex behaviour over time." [i] Other evidence can be found here . If one were born gay, sexuality would be set in stone.
A number of psychologists have found that therapy can induce change. See here and here .
Individuals also testify that therapy has helped them change .
That genes are not important was indicated in a major study which emerged last year. The researchers explained that genetic information provided no basis on which to predict a person's sexual behaviour.
Rather, environmental influences are seen as important. These could emerge from childhood family experiences, as Frisch et al explain.
Child abuse is also an important contributory factor. A study found that 46 percent of homosexual subjects reported abuse, as opposed to seven percent of heterosexuals. Another study found that 19 percent of lesbians had been involved in incestuous relationships while growing up.
A culture which values freedom of expression and self-determination should not allow these individuals to be silenced.
There are many and varied reasons why same-sex attracted people want to move away from homosexuality. There is evidence that they can do so, often incurring significant benefits with no serious evidence of harm. Mental health professionals are willing to help them on this journey. We should respond to this need by conducting well-funded scientific research in this area, identify best practices in therapy and create guidelines for all those involved.
Otherwise we will be failing a group of vulnerable individuals, capitulating to an LGBT lobby dictatorship and driving a much-needed practice underground.