Organizations, including Stonewall, said they would no longer support the Safe To Be Me event in London following the decision to ban trans people from the ban. The government acknowledged on Monday that it meant the conference, which was scheduled to take place in June and July, was now in question. Now Sky News understands that the event is going to be canceled. Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 2:01 The government is “silent” about the conversion treatment What was the plan for the summit? The conference will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first official pride marches of the capital. It was billed as the first world LGBT conference in the UK when it was started by top ministers Liz Truss and Dominic Raab last year. The event promised to bring together officials, policymakers, activists and experts “to protect and promote the rights of LGBT people around the world”. However, controversy over the government’s stance on conversion therapy has led to more than 80 LGBT + groups and more than 20 HIV organizations leaving. This came after the government last week changed plans to ban conversion therapy that was first set in 2018. Read more: What is conversion therapy and what was the government’s position? The practice attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity and is illegal in many countries. But the government now plans to ban only gay conversion treatment, not trans conversion treatment – saying that in the latter case only it would carry out further work to address the issue. In a statement Monday, she said this was done to ensure that the law “did not interfere with the work of legal therapists who provide appropriate support to people with sexual dysfunction who may be considering taking life-changing drugs”. However, the decision led to the resignation of the British LBGT + champion in business Iain Anderson, saying that it was “deeply shocking”. A government spokesman reiterated Monday that he was “considering how to proceed” during the conference. Cancellation of LGBT conference is a “humiliating waste” Reacting to the cancellation of the event, Conservative MP Dehenna Davison wrote on Twitter: “We had a huge opportunity to prove that the United Kingdom (and the Conservative Party) is a defender of freedom. “As a Conservative member of the LGBT + community, it’s so wrong to get to that.” Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry called the cancellation of the LGBT conference a “humiliating waste.” “For three years, I urged the government to use the opportunity it had as co-chair of the (intergovernmental) Coalition for Equal Rights to take a global lead on LGBTQ + issues,” he wrote on Twitter. For three years, they did nothing but talk about their Safe To Be Me conference. And now where are we? What a creepy waste. Labor lawmaker John Nicholson said the cancellation was a “humiliation” for Boris Johnson and the government. The consortium, the umbrella body of LGBT + volunteer and community organizations, said it was a “sad day”, adding that Downing Street was to blame for what had happened. “The consequences of the cancellation of the international LGBT conference are exclusively on the threshold of No. 10,” she said in a statement. “LGBT + organizations had no choice but to withdraw any support in order to stand in solidarity and work with our trans communities. “This is a sad day, but we must begin to change the narrative and try to build a country where everyone can feel safe and live a life of dignity and respect.”
