LGBT Conversion Therapy

John Nicolson Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP) [V]]

“Converting gays”—just wonder for a moment about how primitive that concept is. It is a cruel hangover from a darker time—a time when to be gay, lesbian or trans was to be flawed or inadequate.

I do not know why I am gay. I do not know why I have green eyes or curly hair, but I do know that no one made me gay; I was born gay. When I was younger, to borrow from Alfred Kinsey, I would have taken a magic pill to make myself straight, but I now know that that was not because I hated being gay, but because I did not want to be the victim of prejudice. Who does? We know that there is no magic pill, nor do we need one. We need love and acceptance.

LGBT conversion is the very antithesis of that. It promises a cure where none is available and none is needed. We look back in horror at the tortures endured by our LGBT brothers and sisters, even in recent history—electro-shock therapy, lobotomy and the chemical castration endured by Alan Turing at the hands of a vicious and ungrateful political class and legal system.

Changing people’s sexual orientation is, as we know, scientifically impossible, but that does not stop bigots from trying. “Pray away the gay,” cry some religious groups, who somehow see no contradiction with the command that thou shalt love thy neighbour. People who hold out the promise of conversion are cruelly targeting the most vulnerable. It is abuse.

Some hon. Members know I was a journalist before entering politics, and I once made a film for the BBC in which I interviewed a conversion therapist. It was one of the most chilling encounters of my career. The man in question, who was utterly untrained, advertised himself as offering the last chance at a normal life. He preyed on the young and the vulnerable: teenage boys and men in their early 20s who were terrified of who they were. He talked of weak fathers and overbearing mothers. I sat in on one session, and it was gibberish.

I asked the man what his motivation was, and he told me that his gay son committed suicide using the car exhaust pipe in their garage. The boy had written two suicide letters: one for his father, and one for his lover. The man showed me the letter that had been written to him. The handwriting tailed off as the boy lost consciousness. He was pleading with his father to understand his anguish. He could not reconcile his certainty that he had been born gay with the church’s teachings, and he implored his dad to befriend his boyfriend and learn acceptance. “So what did you do?” I said to the father. He said he redoubled his efforts to convert and confuse the young. We must protect society from men like him. I welcome the petition, and the Government must now act.