Ending conversion practices in Scotland: consultation summary

Part 3: Background

Policy context

11. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that the rights of everyone in Scotland are respected, protected and fulfilled.

12. Conversion practices are harmful. They are promoted within an ideology that views LGBTQI+ identities as wrong and believes that they can be changed. This legislation aims to protect people from the harm of conversion practices.

Growing international momentum to tackle conversion practices

13. Laws on conversion practices have been passed in: Malta, Ecuador, Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Cyprus, Belgium, Iceland, New Zealand, and Canada, as well as several states and territories in Australia, Mexico, and the USA. The Republic of Ireland has also committed to bringing forward legislation to ban conversion practices.

What are conversion practices?

14. There is no international, universal definition of the term “conversion practices”.

15. The Expert Advisory Group (EAG) on Ending Conversion Practices’ defined conversion practices as “any treatment, practice or effort that aims to change, suppress and/or eliminate a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression.

16. Our specific proposal for defining conversion practices for the purposes of this legislation is set out below in Part 4.

What is the scale of conversion practices in Scotland?

17. Due to the often-private nature of conversion practices, evidence is often based on self-reporting. The UK Government’s 2017 National LGBT Survey identified that, in Scotland, 7% of ‘LGBT’ respondents had either undergone or been offered ‘conversion therapy’. Transgender people were targeted the most, with 10% of transgender respondents having either undergone, or been offered, ‘conversion therapy’.Across the UK, faith organisations were the most likely group to have conducted ‘conversion therapy’, as indicated by 51% of respondents.

18. The survey also found that, while older cisgender respondents across the UK were more likely to have undergone ‘conversion therapy’, there was a relatively consistent pattern in the proportions of respondents who had undergone, or been offered, ‘conversion therapy’ amongst all of those aged 16-64. This suggests that it is a live issue, and not just one that affected older generations.

Experiences of LGBTQI+ racialised minorities

19. The National LGBT survey found that, within the UK, there was a substantial variation by ethnic group amongst cisgender respondents. For example, Black/African/Caribbean/Black British (13%) and Asian/Asian British (14%) respondents, and respondents belonging to an ‘other’ ethnic group (15%), were up to twice as likely to be offered, or to have undergone, ‘conversion therapy’ than White (7%) respondents. The EAG’s report on ‘LGBT+ POC & Minority Ethnic Faith Experiences of Conversion Practices’ found that conversion practices in many minority communities often take the form of coercing someone into suppressing their identity.

What harm do conversion practices cause?

20. Conversion practices are inherently harmful, and can have a lifelong impact, as shown by research from Australia. They deny people’s right to express themselves and send a message to the LGBTQI+ community as a whole that their identity is wrong and can and should be fixed or suppressed.

21. Testimonies provided to the EHRCJ Committee by individuals with lived experience of conversion practices describe PTSD, nightmares, bulimia, self-harm, shame, and panic attacks as some of the long term effects.

The intention to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity

22. Our proposals are informed by legislation and the definitions used by different bodies, and in other countries. We consider that core to the definition of conversion practice is a purpose or intention to change or suppress another individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

23. In order for any act or course of behaviour to fall within the scope of this legislation, it will have to meet this intent requirement.

An equal and universal approach

24. We believe that any effort to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity is harmful, regardless of how an individual identifies. This includes change efforts directed at those who are heterosexual, or cisgender. The legislation will be clear that the provision of medical care by a healthcare professional relating to a person’s gender identity is not a conversion practice.

What does this mean in practice?

25. The core intention, to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, distinguishes conversion practices from general statements of belief or opinion.

26. This legislation does not include non-directive and ethical guidance and support for a person who might be questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity, whether that is provided by a healthcare practitioner, a family member, or a religious leader. The distinction is that individuals must be allowed to come to their own decision, whatever that may be, and not be directed to a particular pre-determined sexual orientation or gender identity that is considered ‘preferable’.

1. Do you support our approach to defining conversion practices which focuses on behaviour motivated by the intention to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity?

Yes

No

Don’t know

2. Please give the reason for your answer to Question 1.

Suppression

27. Most international legislation, as well as the Memorandum of Understanding and the reports of the EAG and the EHRCJ Committee, define conversion practices to include both the intention to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, and the intention to suppress it. While the underlying act may be the same, the difference lies in the motivation behind the act.

28. In this context we define suppression as acts that seek to repress, and/or prevent the development or manifestation of another person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Repress means to prevent or subdue something (often through force). Manifest means to show, through acts or appearance.

29. The inclusion of suppression means that there would be a wider net of protection for LGBTQI+ people and avoid any potential loopholes in the law.

3. Do you think that legislation should cover acts or courses of behaviour intended to ‘suppress’ another person’s sexual orientation or gender identity?

It should be covered

It should not be covered

Don’t know

4. Please give reasons for your answer to Question 3.

Sexual orientation and gender identity

30. The EHRCJ Committee concluded that a ban on conversion practices should be fully comprehensive and cover sexual orientation and gender identity, including trans identities, for both adults and children in all settings without exception.

31. We believe it is important that legislation relates to any conversion practice that seeks to change someone from one sexual orientation to another or suppress that sexual orientation.

32. In our proposals we use the ordinary meaning for both the term sexual orientation and gender identity, as found in the Oxford English Dictionary. These are:

Gender Identity: an individual’s personal sense of being or belonging to a particular gender or genders, or of not having a gender.

Sexual Orientation: a person’s sexual identity in relation to the gender to whom [they] are usually attracted; (broadly) the fact of being heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual.

33. We will also include the situation where the victim has no sexual orientation towards other persons.