The terms ‘conversion practices’ and ‘conversion therapy’ refer to coercive practices that aim to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Since 2018, successive UK governments have described these practices as abhorrent and committed to introducing legislation to ban them.
Some conversion practices may already be illegal. For example, where they involve violence. However, the Government has argued that the current criminal law does not prohibit all conversion practices, particularly those that involve coercive talking therapies that assume one particular sexuality or gender identity is preferable to another.