UN Official Warns Against Banning “Conversion Therapy”

By | September 26, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. September 27 (C-Fam) The UN special rapporteur on preventing violence against women and girls has taken several stances in stark opposition to many of her peers in the UN human rights system, including her calls to eliminate prostitution and pornography and her skeptical position on gender ideology.

In a recent interview with the UK-based Telegraph, the Jordanian Reem Alsalem expressed a warning about recent calls to ban so-called “conversion therapy,” arguing that it could lead to the fast-tracking of girls into gender transition.

“We need to provide the time and space to make a full inquiry of the causes of the distress rather than fast-track children on to a path of gender transition that usually begin with puberty blockers but could result in more permanent changes with long lasting consequences,” she said.

Alsalem warned about the lasting harms to “persons who were same sex attracted, rushed through an affirmation process and then detransitioned.”

Proponents of “conversion therapy” bans often invoke archaic or barbaric practices that are not used by reputable practitioners today, but such bans would have the effect of criminalizing counseling or talk therapy that seeks to help patients struggling with unwanted feelings or behaviors related to their gender or sexual attraction, including efforts to identify and address potential underlying causes.

Another independent UN human rights expert, the previous special expert on matters relating to sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor Madrigal-Borloz of Costa Rica, used his platform to put “conversion therapy” bans on the UN agenda.

In one of his thematic reports, Madrigal-Borloz characterized “conversion therapies” as aiming to “transform a non-heterosexual person into a heterosexual person, and a trans or gender variant person into a cisgender person.”

Yet according to Alsalem, and based on an increasing body of evidence, many young girls who experience gender confusion—including some who undergo social and even medical gender transition—later self-identify as lesbian women.

“Given that many may be same sex attracted, you may actually be subjecting them to the conversion therapy you are trying to ban,” she argued.

Alsalem’s visit to the United Kingdom comes as the newly-elected Labour government plans to introduce legislation extending the nation’s existing ban on “conversion therapy” to include gender identity in addition to sexual orientation.

According to the BBC, about 16 countries have introduced full or partial bans.

Alsalem also warned the United Kingdom against reintroducing a “self-ID” law which would allow for legal gender identity recognition on the basis of self-declaration alone.  A previous attempt to pass such a law was defeated in 2020, and the current Labour government has stopped short of committing to reintroducing it.

She pointed to the example of Scotland, where scandals resulted from biological males claiming female gender identities being housed in women’s prisons after being convicted of raping women.  ““I believe that it would be useful for the Equality Act to clarify whether the term ‘sex’ in the Act means biological sex or not,” she said.

Alsalem also cited examples of women being harmed by competing alongside males in the context of sport.  A draft of her latest thematic report on violence against women and girls in sports was just released, in which she repeats her call for sex to be defined as biological sex and for women’s-only spaces to be respected.

 

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