Victoria And The ACT Will Move To Ban Gay Conversion Therapy, And It’s About Time
How is this still legal in Australia?
Victoria and the ACT will both make moves to ban gay conversion therapy, and it’s about time.
Yesterday, to mark the International Day Against Homophobia And Transphobia, the Victorian Health Complaints Commissioner launched an inquiry into the practice, which Mental Health Minister Martin Foley rightly described as “traumatic”. In the ACT today, Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris followed suit, pledging to ban conversion therapy in the state.
“The ACT Government isn’t aware of these practices being undertaken in the ACT, but we will ensure that they cannot be offered,” Fitzharris wrote. “The ACT Government will ban gay conversion therapy. It is abhorrent and completely inconsistent with the inclusive values of Canberrans.”
Victoria, meanwhile, already took significant steps to ban conversion therapy in 2017, when it established a Health Complaints Commissioner with the ability to investigate harmful or fraudulent medical services.
The inquiry announced yesterday will take things a step further, with Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy ordering the Health Complaints Commissioner to conduct an investigation into conversion therapy in the state, including the kind that operates undercover as more generic religious counselling. Depending on the results of the inquiry, Hennessy may consider stronger laws against conversion therapy.
Both the ACT and Victorian responses come after a few months of revelations about the ongoing presence of conversion therapy in Australia. In March, the Sydney Morning Herald published an investigation into secret and undercover conversion therapy in Australia, revealing that the practice is still fairly widespread in 2018.
A Change.org campaign by Chris Csabs, a man who has experienced the horrors of conversion therapy firsthand, calls for the practice to be outlawed nationwide, and has amassed 40,000 signatures so far.
So proud of Chris, who's been working so hard campaigning government's to ban conversion therapy.
Yesterday Victoria announced an investigation into the underground practises, and now this. https://t.co/oc3o23TnXI
— Sally Rugg ?️? (@sallyrugg) May 18, 2018
As Chris put it on the petition, “trying to “Pray the Gay Away” nearly killed me. I’m not the only one”. Hopefully other Australian states will follow suit and get rid of this awful practice once and for all, though just a month ago federal health minister Greg Hunt refused to say whether he condemned it.
You can sign the petition and get updates on the campaign to end conversion therapy here.