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Not Safe to Be Me: LGBTQ+ protesters picket Downing Street [1]

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Date: 2022-07 

Hafsa Qureshi, a queer Muslim and LGBTQ+ activist, said of the ‘Safe to Be Me’ conference; “Not even this government could lie to the masses about their token allyship, as so many organisations dropped out of their conference. We will not have our flags and our stories parroted by bigots wearing sheep’s clothing.”

The European branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) produces an annual ‘Rainbow Index’ comparing the state of LGBTQ+ rights in countries across Europe. Under successive Conservative governments, the UK has consistently fallen in its rankings, protesters heard. Last year, the UK had the most dramatic decrease of all countries included in the index, falling from 10th to 14th place. ILGA condemned the UK government’s failure to deliver reforms to gender recognition, and to implement a ban on conversion practices.

Last month, Downing Street confirmed that its proposed ban on so-called ‘conversion therapy’ would only apply to practices seeking to change someone’s sexual orientation, not gender identity. In addition, it will only protect under-18s, and contains loopholes for supposedly ‘consenting’ adults and for non-physical forms of conversion practices – exemptions that leave all LGBT people vulnerable.

“The holes in the ban that has been announced are so big you can fit the whole conversion therapy industry through them,” said Samantha Harris, a trans woman who spoke at the protest. “It is a ban in name only and does almost nothing to prevent these coercive and abusive practices.”

Harris set up a petition for a trans-inclusive ban that amassed more than 145,000 signatures and triggered a Westminster Hall debate that took place on 13 June. But the government maintains there are “different considerations when it comes to transgender conversion therapy” and has refused to budge despite evidence that trans people are almost twice as likely to undergo conversion practices than cis lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

Nearly four years have passed since the UK government first pledged to outlaw conversion practices. That’s “four years of the queer community continuing to be tortured and abused for who they are because our government does not have the moral decency to outright ban these practices,” Harris said. “How much more harm do we have to witness?”

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/trans-rights-lgbtq-protest-downing-street-london/

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