New Zealand Labour Party Promise To Ban Conversion Therapy
The Labour Party in New Zealand announced it’s rainbow policies, promising to ban conversion therapy. As part of the policy package, it also promised more gender-neutral toilets in schools and additional funding for mental health services.
A recent survey, Counting Ourselves, found that more than one in six research participants reported that they had experienced reparative therapy, a therapy where a professional had tried to stop them from being trans or non-binary.
“Conversion therapy is based on the misguided idea that people are wrong or broken because of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” Labour's Rainbow spokesperson Tāmati Coffey said. “This is fundamentally wrong.”
As ‘New Zealand Herald’ reports, Labour joins the Greens as the only parties to have promised to ban conversion therapy.
“Conversion therapy has been linked to severe adverse mental-health issues, including depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation,” Coffey said.
“That's why it will be banned under a re-elected Labour government.
“It is a practice that causes harm and is out of place in the kind, inclusive and modern country we are.”
The policy for Labour has been shaped by Paul Stevens, who was featured in a TVNZ documentary. He was sent to a counsellor by his church when he was a child.
“He told me I wasn't gay, and said I could change who I was,” he said.
“He told me that I didn't need to be gay.
“I realised later how much damage that did - it really held me back in terms of my journey because I wasn't able to accept myself when I was told by someone in a privileged position - someone I respected - that I didn't have to be gay.”
Stevens now works as the Labour Party's Rainbow representative and has helped push this policy to the fore.
Two petitions were presented to Parliament in 2018, calling for the banning of the practice. They had amassed 20,000 signatures between them.
The director of Auckland Pride, Max Tweedie, presented one of the petitions to Parliament in his previous role as leader of the Young Greens.
“A ban from the government would send quite a strong message, not just to those who have those backwards beliefs, that practise it.
“But also to the Rainbow community in general, that there's nothing wrong with them, and they can't be changed, and they should be accepted and loved for who they are.”
Read related myGwork articles here:
Canada Reintroduces Bill To Ban Conversion Therapy
Religious Leaders Urge Boris Johnson To Ban Conversion Therapy
Polish Therapists And Psychologists Speak Out Against ‘Conversion’ Therapy In Open Letter
Mexico City Criminalises ‘Conversion Therapy’
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