I used the Stonewall template, and adjusted. It slightly to email my MP.
You can easily email your MP through the @BanCTorg website. It takes 2 minutes
Dear Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP,
I am writing as Patron of Pride in Surrey to ask for your support for a fully comprehensive ban on so-called ‘conversion therapy’ in England and Wales, which protects the entire LGBTQ+ community, including the Transgender Community.
The UK Government committed to banning conversion practices in 2018, and released its proposals in October 2021. However, yesterday (31st March), the Government appeared to abandon this commitment, leaving victims and potential victims at risk of abuse and lifelong harm.
In response to widespread criticism, the UK Government has now made a partial U-turn, declaring that they would still ban conversion therapy that seeks to change someone’s sexuality. However, trans and non-binary people would still be subject to this cruel and degrading practice.
The UK Government’s National LGBT Survey 2018 – the largest national survey of LGBT people ever conducted in the world, with over 108,000 respondents – found that trans people are twice as likely to have been offered or undergone conversion therapy (13 per cent, compared to 7 per cent of LGBT people). Today, Galop published research that shows 11% of trans people have experienced conversion therapy at the hands of their own family members.
A ban that does not protect trans people is no ban at all.
Please write to the Prime Minister, and the Foreign Secretary, Minister for Women and Equalities, calling on them to keep their promise, and ensure that any draft legislation to ban conversion practices protects all LGBTQ+ people.
Conversion practices are abuse. They cause severe and long-lasting physical and psychological suffering, violate the human rights of LGBTQ+ people, and were found by the UN to ‘amount to torture’ in some cases. The UN Independent Expert report on conversion practices found that individuals subjected to this abuse experienced “significant loss of self-esteem, anxiety, depressive syndrome, social isolation, intimacy difficulty, self-hatred, shame and guilt, sexual dysfunction, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as often significant physical pain and suffering.”
Will you write to the Prime Minister, and to the Foreign Secretary to call for a comprehensive ban? Will you make clear that you will support amendments to any legislation that is brought forward to ensure that the ban protects all LGBTQ+ people, in all settings?
I welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue with you further and look forward to hearing from you soon.
