BMA: You can’t cure homosexuality

BMA: You can’t cure homosexuality

The British Medical Association (BMA) has voted to ban so-called conversion therapies aimed at altering a person’s sexuality.

More than two-thirds of the doctors who make up the BMA approved the motion at its annual meeting in Brighton, which called on member bodies to ban such treatments in their codes of practice.

The meeting also decided that health departments should investigate cases where conversion therapies were being funded with taxpayers’ money through the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

A 2009 survey conducted by London’s University College found that one in six British psychiatrists and counsellors would still offer conversion therapies to GLBT people, with a third of those having patients referred to them by NHS doctors.

“You can’t just wish away same-sex attraction, no matter how socially inconvenient it is … Treating same-sex attraction as a disease that can be cured has an insidious effect to pathologise what is part of the normal spectrum of human sexuality,” Dr Tom Dolphin of the BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee — which proposed the resolution — told journalists following the meeting.

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4 responses to “BMA: You can’t cure homosexuality”

  1. There remains many homophobic professionals including psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors and social workers, etc.

  2. These so-called therapies are an abuse of legitimate professions such as pyschology, social work and medicine. The professional associations covering these areas of work should all be seeking to outlaw “ex-gay” charlatans here in Australia.

  3. At least they are not cutting out part of our brain anymore. I hope…

    I would though like to see an end to shock treatment, as the one in six that did not support an end these therapies could still use this.

  4. Torture masquerading as therapy. Ban it for goodness’ sake.