A report published at the end of last week has revealed that funding for anti-LGBTQ+ groups has gone up, including for those actively promoting practices involving conversion therapy.

The Amnesty International UK report found that between 2019 and 2023, a group of 65 active groups - regarded as being ‘anti-rights organisations’ - had collectively spent £106 million between 2019 and 2023. This was seen as a 33% increase in funding over that period.

The 65 groups, which included UK branches of powerful US-based organisations, was also made up of 13 crisis pregnancy centres (which attempt to convince pregnant people from seeking an abortion) and 12 groups which were promoting LGBTQ+ conversion therapy - a practice hailed as ‘abhorrent’.

The practice claims to change someone's sexual or gender identity through emotional or physical methods. These methods have not only been described as being violent and dangerous, they also do not work.

Four groups promoting conversion therapy had, in particular, seen a massive 165% increase in spend. Amnesty described the research as a highlight that a ‘powerful and coordinated movement against human rights was growing in the UK’.

Speaking of the findings, Amnesty said: “We mapped 12 groups promoting the harmful and abusive practice of so-called "conversion therapy," aiming to ‘change’ or suppress people’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

"The spending of four of these surged by nearly 165%, marking the fastest growth of all categories tracked.”

12 months ago, the UK government announced plans to ban conversion therapy in the country with King Charles III saying in the King’s Speech that the legislation would be introduced.

In May of this year, the Minister for Equalities, Dame Nia Griffith, stated that cross-government work was ongoing with a view to publishing a draft bill “later this session”. But we are still awaiting any proper legislation, or drafts, to be materialised.

A spokesperson for Amnesty said of its report: “The growing anti-rights movement in the UK, emboldened by what is happening in the US and increasingly well-funded, is targeting reproductive freedoms, access to abortion and the rights of LGBTI people.

"Their end goal is to roll back our hard-won rights, undermine equality protections and rewrite the rules on who deserves dignity and freedom.

"We must name this threat for what it is: a deliberate and coordinated attack on human rights, led by actors who are weaponising misinformation, fabricating moral panic about abortion care and LGBTI people and exploiting existing prejudice to sow divisions and distract us from the real issues that matter.

"We must stand firm - we are not powerless and we are not alone. Human rights are universal and when someone's freedom is under attack, everyone is at risk.

"When we defend one group’s rights, we defend everyone's."

You can read the report here.