Hi supporters,

Yesterday Brave Network and SOGICE Survivors sent a letter urging Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to strengthen the Health Amendment that was passed recently.

Since the legislation passed, survivors of conversion practices have been deeply concerned that the bulk of the harm which occurs in informal spaces has not been touched by the legislation. 

The letter reads (condensed):

“Dear Premier,
Pledge to amend ‘Conversion Practice Act’ as 2020 election policy

The Brave Network and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identify Change Efforts (SOGICE) Survivors are Australia’s foremost advocacy groups for victims and survivors of conversion practices.

While we welcome the Queensland Government’s attention to this issue, we are deeply disappointed with the legislation you have just passed and alarmed at the precedent it may set nationally.

Despite your strong message, and that of your Health Minister, that Queensland “rejects the notion that LGBTQ+ people are ‘broken’ or need to be healed”, this ineffective legislation will see such notions continue to proliferate in Queensland communities.

Survivor groups had advocated 13 recommendations we believe must be addressed in legislation for it to truly work. Your Government has adopted only three, and one of those was our lowest priority.

By excluding informal settings from the scope of the legislation, the Queensland Government has given the green-light to informal conversion practices, which is where the bulk (more than 90%, by Brave Network’s reckoning) of the problem is found.
SOGICE Survivors and Brave Network have worked very hard to communicate that conversion ideology and practices occur most often in informal (non-therapeutic or quasi-therapeutic) settings, usually in religious communities under the guise of ‘pastoral care’.

Only a small handful of the recent survivors in our networks have reported their experiences were in formal health settings. This contrasts with the hundreds of recent survivors whose experiences have been self-directed and/or in informal settings.

While Queensland was keen to be the first jurisdiction in Australia to pass “ban legislation” in this area, we fear the model you have adopted sets a very unhelpful precedent for other jurisdictions.

Not only does this do a disservice to survivors, but it sets up a legislative framework in Queensland where the majority of the very worst form of this abuse can continue with parliamentary sanction.

Far from being “imperfect” legislation it is dangerous legislation - as it gives permission for the worst offenders to continue. The Queensland Act gives an imprimatur to religious and informal conversion practices.
Brave and SOGICE Survivors are comprised of hundreds of survivors who have campaigned tirelessly for more than five years to ensure a full picture of the conversion movement is understood by Australian governments and media.

Language:

The Queensland Act is also framed in terms and language that survivor groups had expressly advocated against. Most concerning is that the legislation refers to ‘conversion therapy’, reinforcing the false notion that conversion practices are therapeutic practices that occur in health settings, when they are in fact pseudoscientific practices that primarily occur in informal settings.

This is not our recommended language, nor is it the language of ‘conversion practices and ideology’ recommended by various national research projects that have investigated the issue. Better consultation by the government may have avoided this and also avoided setting a national precedent in using inappropriate language.

Ideology:

Our definition also acknowledges that conversion practices cannot be isolated from conversion ideology.

Any policy, regulatory, legislative, public health, or survivor support responses that separate the two cannot adequately address conversion practices. In fact, the recommendations of Brave, SOGICE Survivors and leading researchers in the past few years have been consistent and concise regarding government’s response and role. Namely:
- Intervention on all practices, especially in informal settings.
- Intervention on therapeutic fraud, including claims in the public sphere, advertising, and
referrals.
- Survivor Support and Redress, preferably a scheme, that supports people harmed by
exposure to the false and misleading claims, and exposure to both informal and formal
practices – whether paid or unpaid.
- A regulatory strategy that allows for own-initiative investigations performed by relevant bodies into both fraudulent claims (from therapeutic and consumer angles) and practices (informal and formal)

Despite many years’ advocacy by accomplished survivor groups in this area, it is distressing for us to see that the Queensland Act does virtually none of these things. 

Religious freedom:

We are aware of the anti-LGBTQ+ backlash from religious conservatives but regard their voice and influence as being exaggerated, as exposed by the national postal survey on marriage equality.

We also make the point that Brave and SOGICE Survivors are closely supported by a significant number of religious and theological experts who were once key figures in the conversion movement.

This debate is not a polemic between Christians and non-Christians, and the fundamentalist fringe does not represent mainstream faith communities in Australia.

More importantly, the false and misleading claims at the heart of conversion practices are grounded in pseudoscientific concepts thoroughly rejected by Australia’s peak psychological health bodies and significant Australian research. While often masked as theological, these concepts must be viewed as pseudoscientific and therapeutically fraudulent.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

In light of the above, we respectfully call on you to make a public pledge in your current campaign for the upcoming state election to amend the Act to:
- include informal settings
- amend the language used
- establish a survivor support and redress scheme
- provide a regulatory strategy that allows investigation of fraudulent claims and practices.

Brave Network and SOGICE Survivors, with the support of key policy and regulatory professionals, have developed a Regulatory Discussion Paper that we would be pleased to share with you.

While it may appear that your legislation ‘banning conversion therapy’ is a win for LGBTIQA+ rights and is noted as ‘the first of its kind in Australia’, Australia’s survivor networks are experiencing significant distress due to this legislation’s almost complete inability to address the drivers of harm and the context in which almost all of it occurs.
While this Act might have made a significant difference in the 1990s, it is not fit to adequately engage the present context. In fact, it almost entirely avoids it.

Government intervention in this issue represents a unique moment in our nation’s attitude towards the legitimacy of our scientific and medical peak bodies. Exemptions and concessions regarding conversion ideology and practices sends the message that approaches to human wellbeing are no longer grounded in scientific research and evidence.”

The letter was co-signed by Nathan Despott (on behalf of Brave Network) and Chris Csabs (on behalf of SOGICE Survivors), and endorsed by Rev Jo Inkpin (Equal Voices Queensland) and Jason Masters (Uniting Network).