In the first of a series of regular columns, Augustine Tanner-Ihm, the senior minister of Wesley Community Church, comments on Britain’s plans to prohibit “conversion therapy”.

Last week, the United Kingdom took a significant step by publishing draft legislation to prohibit abusive conversion practices intended to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

For many, it is another story from Westminster. For me, and for countless other survivors, it represents something far more personal.

I have spent almost a decade advocating alongside other survivors for legislation such as this. During that time, I have spoken publicly through television, radio and newspapers, worked with politicians across party lines, campaigned through LGBT+ Labour, and spoken at the UK Labour Party Conference about my own experiences of surviving so-called conversion therapy.

Like many others, I have waited years for this moment. While there is still much work to do to ensure the legislation is comprehensive and without loopholes, the publication of a draft Bill represents a significant milestone.

I know because I lived it.

As a teenager and young adult, I experienced what is commonly referred to as “conversion therapy” in both the United States and the UK. I entered those environments believing that if I prayed harder, confessed more deeply, demonstrated enough faith, or surrendered myself completely to God, I would become heterosexual. When that change never came, I did not conclude that the practice had failed. I concluded that I had failed God.

That is the hidden cruelty of conversion practices. They do not simply ask a person to change. They teach someone that if change does not happen, it is because their faith is inadequate, their repentance incomplete, or their relationship with God somehow defective. The result is often not transformation but profound shame.

The phrase “conversion therapy” is itself misleading. It suggests an evidence-based medical treatment. It is not. It is an umbrella term describing practices that seek to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through counselling, prayer, coercion, shame, or other interventions.

Many survivors have rightly questioned whether the word therapy should even be used, because genuine therapy seeks healing rather than psychological injury.

The scientific evidence is now overwhelming.

The American Medical Association has concluded that conversion therapy is based on assumptions that are not supported by medical or scientific evidence and has opposed its use because of the significant risk of harm.

The American Psychiatric Association has long maintained that homosexuality is not a mental disorder and that attempts to change sexual orientation lack credible scientific evidence while exposing individuals to increased risks of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

The British Medical Association has likewise supported legislation banning conversion therapy, recognising that these practices are ineffective and associated with serious psychological harm.

The research itself tells the same story.

In 2021, the UK Government commissioned a Rapid Evidence Assessment led by researchers at Coventry University. After reviewing the available international evidence, the report found no convincing evidence that conversion practices achieve their intended aims and identified consistent evidence linking them with poorer mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, psychological distress and suicidality.

Similarly, the American Psychological Association’s 2021 Resolution on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts concluded that there is insufficient evidence to support the effectiveness of these practices while documenting substantial evidence that they place individuals at risk of significant harm.

Independent researchers have reached remarkably similar conclusions. The What We Know Project at Cornell University reviewed 47 peer-reviewed studies examining conversion therapy.

Nearly every empirical study found either that these practices were ineffective, harmful, or both, with many identifying increased rates of depression, internalised shame, social isolation and suicidal behaviour among those subjected to them.

None of this surprises survivors.

It certainly does not surprise me.

The greatest harm was not that someone held a different theological opinion from my own. Christians have disagreed about doctrine for 2,000 years. The deepest wound was being taught that the person God had created was fundamentally broken and needed to become someone else in order to be loved by both God and the Church.

As both a Christian minister and theologian, I cannot reconcile that message with the ministry of Jesus.

Jesus consistently moved towards those who had been marginalised, excluded and condemned by religious communities. He restored dignity before demanding conformity.

He criticised religious leaders for placing unbearable burdens on people’s shoulders while failing to help carry them. His ministry was characterised by compassion, restoration and abundant life — not coercion, shame or fear.

Christian ethics has always insisted that love and truth belong together. Likewise, medicine has long been guided by the principle primum non nocere — “first, do no harm.”

These two traditions converge on a simple moral truth: when a practice predictably causes profound psychological injury without any reliable evidence of benefit, it demands serious ethical scrutiny.

Some fear that banning conversion practices threatens religious freedom.

I respectfully disagree.

Churches should remain free to preach their theological convictions, pray with those seeking spiritual guidance, and engage in pastoral care. Religious liberty is a cornerstone of a democratic society.

But religious freedom has never meant the freedom to subject vulnerable people to practices that evidence consistently demonstrates are associated with significant psychological harm.

The proposed legislation is not about policing belief. It is about protecting people from abuse.

As someone who has spent nearly a decade campaigning for this moment, I welcome the publication of the draft Bill. Not because it settles every theological debate — it does not — but because it acknowledges something survivors have known for decades: practices that promise change while leaving people traumatised have no place in healthcare, pastoral ministry or public life.

The strongest institutions are not those that refuse to admit mistakes. They are those courageous enough to learn from them.

My hope is not simply that Parliament passes good legislation. My hope is that the Church also has the courage to listen — to survivors, to science, and to the Gospel itself.

Because no young person should ever be made to believe, as I once did, that God could only love them if they became someone else.

Every human being bears the image of God.

Every human being deserves dignity.

And every person deserves pastoral care that heals rather than harms.

• Augustine Tanner-Ihm is the senior minister of Wesley Community Church. He holds a doctorate in theology and a doctorate in transformational leadership and organisational psychology. He is a regular broadcaster with the BBC in the UK, and has also written for publications including the Church Times, ViaMedia and Living Church

Selected references

American Medical Association. (2019). LGBTQ+ Change Efforts (Conversion Therapy) Issue Brief.

American Psychiatric Association. (2000; reaffirmed). Position Statement on Therapies Focused on Attempts to Change Sexual Orientation.

American Psychological Association. (2021). Resolution on Sexual Orientation Change Efforts.

British Medical Association. (2022). Briefing Paper: Ban on Conversion Therapy.

Government Equalities Office & Coventry University. (2021). Rapid Evidence Assessment of the Evidence on Conversion Therapy.

Blosnich, J. R., et al. (2020). “Sexual Orientation Change Efforts, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and Suicide Ideation and Attempt Among Sexual Minority Adults.” American Journal of Public Health, 110(7), 1024—1030.

Ryan, C., et al. (2009). “Family Rejection as a Predictor of Negative Health Outcomes in White and Latino Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Young Adults.” Paediatrics, 123(1), 346—352.