We now invite the public to co-sign this declaration, and especially urge other mental health professionals, related experts, researchers, healthcare workers, LGBTQ+ people and survivors of conversion practices, and all allies from Africa and around the world, to support this declaration.
Mental health professionals from across Africa, including Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa, have signed a declaration against conversion practices that are used to forcibly change the sexual orientation, gender identity or expression of LGBTIQ+ people. This serves as Africa's indictment by experts on the laws Parliamentarians are attempting to legislate which include clauses pertaining to rehabilitation within criminal codes. How can one legislate that which does not work and is dangerous?
Many African countries are trending toward heightened anti-homosexuality legislation, all underpinned by false accusations against LGBTQI+ sexual minorities and misunderstandings or pure ignorance about human sexuality and gender identity. South Africa remains the only country on the continent that entrenches rights based on sexual orientation and gender identity in its constitution, thus ensuring SOGIESC inclusion for full equality.
These misconceptions, fueled by hateful country conditions for LGBTQI+ people, lead to the false notion that people can be cured of their sexual orientation, of their homosexuality. This leads to the idea that criminal codes should include clauses insisting upon the rehabilitation of the criminal offender who committed the crime of homosexuality.
The Ugandan Parliamentarians in the recently passed Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023, now before President Museveni for assent, includes the so called rehabilitation of LGBTQI+ people.
African psychologists and mental health professionals, including Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa are warning of the dangers in such practices, signing a declaration against conversion practices that are used to forcibly change the sexual orientation, gender identity or expression of LGBTIQ+ people.
This serves as Africa's indictment by experts on the laws Parliamentarians are attempting to legislate. How can you legislate that which is dangerous and does not work?
THE DECLARATION: Background
Conversion practices are defined as any attempts to forcibly suppress or change a person's sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or expression (SOGIE). These harmful practices target LGBTQ+ people (i.e. lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer individuals), and undermine their
autonomy and self-determination.
These so-called reparative therapies, gay cure, SOGIE change efforts have no scientific basis and are rejected by psychologists, doctors, and related experts as a gross violation of human rights. All evidence clearly shows that being LGBTQ+ is a regular variation of our human diversity that needs to be
affirmed, not changed.
Mental health professionals must unite against conversion practices.
On April 20-21, 2023, the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) Sexuality and Gender Division, in collaboration with other mental health and human rights organizations, convened an initial meeting in Johannesburg to discuss advocacy efforts against conversion practices. This meeting was entitled, "Meeting of minds: The role of mental health practitioners and Associations in eradicating conversion practices in Africa"
The attendees were mental health practitioners, primarily from South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria, with some representation from Uganda and Cameroon, too. Our purpose was to create a mutual learning space to share experiences about how best to (1) eradicate conversion practices among mental health
providers in Africa, (2) offer affirmative therapy and counseling to survivors of conversion practices, (3) reinforce the evidence that conversion practices are harmful and unscientific.
A key outcome of this gathering was the writing and signing of a historic declaration against conversion practices.
We now invite the public to co-sign this declaration, and especially urge other mental health professionals, related experts, researchers, healthcare workers, LGBTQ+ people and survivors of conversion practices, and all allies from Africa and around the world, to support this declaration.
If you would like more information or to formally endorse this declaration as an organisation, please click here or contact info@psyssa.com or suntoshpillay@gmail.com.
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The Johannesburg Declaration Against SOGIE Change Efforts and Conversion Practices:
We, the undersigned mental health professionals from across Africa who attended the convening
“Meeting of minds: The role of mental health practitioners and associations in eradicating conversion practices in Africa”, recognizing the historic and ongoing harm that some mental health professionals have committed, continue to commit, and/or are coerced into committing, regarding the use and endorsement of efforts to change people’s sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression (SOGIE), through so-called reparative therapies and conversion practices more broadly, declare that any attempt to change a person’s SOGIE should have no place in professional mental health practices.
We declare that all efforts to change people’s SOGIE:
o Are unnecessary, harmful and traumatic;
o Are human rights abuses, forms of gender-based violence and, in some instances, torture;
o Are unscientific, not rooted in authoritative scholarly theories of sexuality and/or gender, and not proven to be efficacious;
o Are unethical and in breach of internationally accepted professional codes of ethics;
o Go against all contemporary and accepted best practices in mental healthcare; and
o Must be unequivocally rejected in the interests of human rights, health and wellbeing.
Developed at a convening of mental health professionals and allies hosted by the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) in Johannesburg, South Africa, during 20-21 April 2023.
TO ENDORSE: CLICK HERE
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