New Canadian Bill Would Make LGBTQ ’Conversion Therapy’ a Crime

In a move to fulfill one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s key 2019 campaign promises, Attorney General David Lametti this week introduced a bill that would outlaw so-called “conversion therapy” nationwide in Canada, according to a report by the Guardian newspaper.  Canada’s Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth Bardish Chagger joined Lametti in pushing the bill to end the practice that Trudeau has said is “harmful, degrading and has no place in Canada.”Brazil, Ecuador, Malta and Taiwan have already banned the “therapy,” which purports to change an LGBTQ person’s sexual identity to heterosexual, or to change gender identity to align with the sex given at birth, according to the Guardian report. But the practice “has been discredited and denounced by professionals and health associations in Canada, the United States and around the world. It has no basis on science or facts,” Lametti said, in announcing the proposed legislation, as quoted by the Guardian. While the practice can sometimes consist of little more than talk therapy, other versions of the treatment include medication and electroshock designed to alter a victim’s sexual identity.The new law would add five new criminal offenses to Canada’s federal code, according to a government press release: “causing a minor to undergo conversion therapy; removing a minor from Canada to undergo conversion therapy abroad;mcausing a person to undergo conversion therapy against their will; profiting from providing conversion therapy; advertising an offer to provide conversion therapy.”Several Canadian cities, including Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, already ban the bogus therapy within their cities, but the federal law would outlaw the practice throughout Canada.In the United States, California, Colorado, New York and Washington also have bans against conversion therapy in place. But the proposed Canadian ban would not apply to “those who provide support to persons questioning their sexual orientation, sexual feelings or gender identity,” according to the government press release. The bill not only outlaws the practice of so-called conversion therapy, it also allows courts to order that advertisements for the therapy be trashed or deleted online.“Conversion therapy practices have resulted in tragic rates of depression, anxiety, self-hatred and suicidal behaviours among queer and trans change effort survivors,” wrote David Kinitz, a University of Toronto researcher and self-decsribed survivor of conversion therapy.“Conversion therapy, in all its forms, threatens our health and human rights. The addition of conversion therapy to the criminal code is a good first step but must come with education efforts to change the structures and social attitudes that underlie such practices,” he wrote, in an essay for the site The Conversation this week.Photo by Justin Trudeau – Prime Minister of Canada / Wikimedia Commons