Thread on the oversimplification of banning Conversion Therapy There is a real lack of nuanced anti-oppressive thinking in how predominantly white therapists are framing the ban on conversion therapy. Although we are completely opposed to conversion therapy... 1/7

...there is also a problem in weaving it into law & pushing minoritized people towards the prison and medical industrial complex. Criminalising conversion therapy may not prevent therapist's from holding oppressive beliefs or causing implicit or explicit harm... 2/7

...because it will not change how large training & health institutions rooted in colonialism continue to perpetrate harmful theories that uphold white supremacy and white saviourism. White, middle class therapists who are not "culturally competent"... 3/7

...and do not centre an anti-racist practice tend to uphold the colonial theories which they learnt, whilst simultaneously being shocked that certain bodies may hold the belief that being queer or trans is evil. 4/7

Colonialism and imperialism created this belief and now white straight, cis, queer and trans therapists are calling to criminalising conversion therapy without a thorough grasp on how this will be used to criminalise particular individuals and bodies of culture further. 5/7

We must find ways of working in community that centre de-colonial and intersectional praxis so that we do not become pawns within the prison industrial complex, and complicit in causing harm in other ways. 6/7

We must hold institutions to account to ensure that therapists are being trained properly. We must work in community and not isolate individual clients who also rely on their support networks who push conversion therapy. We must look beyond the government to practice safely. 7/7

As a final thought - the conversation to ban conversion therapy, which is very much needed, has failed to name the history of eugenics and treatment of disabled people, and by only focusing on a single movement we erase the harm that continues to kill disabled people.