It is staggering to see some of our elected representatives refusing to move forward on that vital piece of legislation that seeks to protect the lives of LGBTI teenagers. The blame for this delay does not lie on the LGBTI community. We are just the convenient scapegoat. Gay teenagers and their parents need protection from the dangers of conversion therapy, a practice which unethically views our community as a mental health problem to be addressed.
Yes, it is tragic to see the UK Youth Parliament embarrass itself. But we really do expect more from our politicians – and it is easy to see what went wrong in Parliament. A group of MPs conveniently rushed to make a motion, then promptly forgot about it. They did not have time to debate the specific legislation that seeks to criminalise conversion therapy. Yet they seemed perfectly happy to have one parliamentarian go on national TV and insist the bill was ‘too controversial’ to be considered. And yet it is not ‘too controversial’ to ensure the law can never be used in future to keep LGBTI people in abusive environments or to force them to alter their minds – with the aid of quack non-medicinal drugs that make our youth even more at risk of serious harm. As LGBT activists, we would be happy to be proved wrong on this point.
We can point fingers at the LGBTI community and at politicians who rush to adopt populist pro-LGBTI policies without any plan for what comes next. In response to a question from a local LGBTI activist on a recent LGBTI event at Westminster, one representative commented, “there is a lack of cohesion here. All of the allies are supporters of the same party.” The very next day, this representative and many of his friends were elected into Parliament. That same community is not making the same claim about politicians they don’t share their politics. They are unlikely to be saying the same things to us or our youth leader Ali.