In this week’s episode, Helen Joyce speaks to psychotherapist Stella O’Malley, founder and director of Genspect, about how the government’s plans to criminalise so-called “conversion practices” would harm families and therapists.
Good therapy requires open, trusting conversations, Stella points out. But the planned law risks making discussions about trans identification taboo, and driving therapists away from working with gender-distressed young people, who will be left without support. Stella also explains how conversion-practices bans elsewhere have silenced parents and prevented them from giving their children honest, loving guidance.
Watch Stella’s conversation with Canadian writer Peter Gajdics about surviving abusive conversion therapy and why he now believes conversion-therapy bans are a Trojan horse.
Catch up on our conversation with non-practising barrister Dennis Kavanagh on the flaws of the draft Conversion Practices Bill.
