Last October, the UK Office for Equality and Opportunity confirmed its intentions to push forward a bill banning gay conversion therapy. Should Britain prohibit the practice, it would become the 29th country in the world to do so. While some have expressed reservations about the proposal, it is receiving wide support from a variety of advocacy groups, government agencies, and Labour party politicians.
But the debate over conversion therapy is increasingly disconnected from the experience of people who once might have been described as gay. I recently spoke to several men and women in their 20s and 30s who are turned off by both the “born this way” account of identity and by conversion therapy. These people all thought of themselves as exclusively gay during their early adolescence, but have since then developed attraction to people of the opposite sex to varying degrees—and for varying reasons. Their stories don’t fit neatly into pre-existing ideological categories as they are resistant to—as one person put it—having “a label slapped on” their sexuality.
Some started exploring opposite-sex attraction due to bad experiences with the same sex, or due to their frustration with the progressive ideology that they felt treated them as political footballs. Others were creative types who were curious to explore the other side. Some had moral reservations about homosexuality. But all of them welcomed the changes they experienced in their sexual attractions—none of which were the result of conversion therapy.