SARAA are coordinating a community and survivor driven campaign to fight for the best laws in the world designed to stop this harmful practice, commonly known as Conversion Practices from occurring and to support those already impacted by it. We are looking for:

• survivors willing to share their stories (either in writing or in person),
• survivors not willing to share their stories but wanting to support the campaign in some other way,
• allies willing to take a stand,
• faith leaders who support this ban, and
• any community members that are willing to take action.

What are Conversion Practices? Also referred to in legislation as “Change and suppression practices”, they can be difficult to identify if you don’t know what you’re looking for. But they are all centered around the belief that somehow queerness is wrong, or that for a person to identify as a member of the LGBTQA+ community means that they are somehow broken and that people can change or suppress their sexuality or gender identity by force of will. They are most frequently found in religious communities, but can also occur in medical settings. Some things that are included:

• being prayed over “to heal” your queerness,
• counseling, either formal or informal that identifies a path away from this identity,
• preaching to a congregation where a preacher is aware that a particular member of the congregation identifies as queer,
• any practices that are directed at an individual that attempt to suppress or change their sexual orientation or gender identity, and
• it is often couched in pseudoscientific language that can sound convincing, but is horribly misleading

Whether you are a survivor of conversion practices, a member of the rainbow community or an ally, we need you! In 2022, the Malinauskas government promised to change the laws in South Australia and make conversion practices illegal. So far, the legislation hasn't been written and there are no bills in parliament and the government has failed to consult the LGBTQA+ community or South Australian survivors of conversion practices in a meaningful way. Every day that these practices are allowed to continue in our state, harm is being done to members of our community.

If you would like to participate in our campaign to develop world leading legislation on change and suppression practices but want to remain anonymous, you can simply use the email address info@saraa.org.au when you get to that part of the survey - unfortunately we cannot remove this option. For survivors choosing to simply share their story and remain anonymous, we have front loaded the survey questions for you - once you have filled in the text box with your story, you can simply click next until you get to “submit” and then you’re done. If you submit a story, please note that you are giving us permission to use this story in our campaign and we may do so. If your story contains information that may lead to being able to identify you or any individuals involved in your story, we will need to de-identify it before sharing it.