This past Friday, a Canadian law directly banning conversion therapy went into affect. The law criminalizes promoting services intended to forcibly change or repress a person’s sexual orientation or gender expression.
The New York Times said this new ban also prohibits forcing someone to undergo conversion therapy, taking minors abroad to take part in the therapy and promote or advertise the practice. If violated, sentences can result in up to five years of imprisonment.
“No one person should ever have to go through something like that that basically criminalizes something that is out of their control,” Alina Taylor, a senior studying marketing, said. “I’m ecstatic that Canada has decided to ban it, and I hope the U.S. follows shortly after.”
The federal law joins municipal and provincial laws from the provinces of Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton, Ontario and Nova Scotia banning conversion therapy.
After two previous attempts last year of trying to pass the law, David Lametti, Canada’s justice minister, and Marci Ien, the minister for women, gender equality and youth, revived the movement to put it into place.
Through introducing new amendments to the ban, they said this would make the nation’s protections against conversion therapy among “the most comprehensive in the world.”
The new bill has caused different reactions from an array of people, proposing conversations and questions.
“We need to have a conversation about this as a human rights abuse and not as a religious issue,” Gene Dockery, a Ph.D. student studying counselor education and supervision, said in an email. “No one has a right to torture other people, even if they sincerely believe that LGBTQ+ individuals are sinful.”
This time around, these new additions to the law made this third attempt stronger by broadening it to protect both adults and minors.
As a result, the bill was passed with unanimous consent by the House of Commons on Dec. 1 and the Senate on Dec. 7. Following these events, on Dec. 8, it was given royal assent, or 30-days until the bill would take effect.
While some controversy was raised, it seems like other countries will soon follow Canada’s lead in regards to banning conversion therapy. The French Parliament voted on Dec. 14 to ban the practice and other countries such as India, Malta, Ecuador and Germany have adopted some form of legislative protections against it.
Meanwhile in the United States, 20 states and Washington, D.C., have passed laws banning conversion therapy.
Even though progress has been made, there are problems that all these countries still face when attempting to ban conversion therapy successfully. Some practitioners of conversion therapy avoid detection, sometimes changing the names of their programs to mask the reality of their work. Additionally, in health care settings, physicians have declined trans people access to hormones.
“I think it’s also difficult because we (the United States) don’t have a systematic policy of healthcare,” Alyx McLuckie, a research and wellbeing coordinator at the LGBT Center, said.
McLuckie said conversion therapy is seen as a negative practice across various medical associations in the United States and the World Health Organization.
“We’re seeing that people in the past don’t need a huge credence of credibility to engage in those practices,” McLuckie said. “They’re not, in some cases, professionals providing the service or helping people guide them in a gender journey, but rather trying to cure them.”
Allyship and solidarity with those in the LGBTQ community is what countries, like Canada, are continuing to improve on.
Taylor said there is still much to improve on and hopes other countries follow Canada's footsteps.
“Even if you aren’t identifying within the (LGBTQ) community, it is more important for allyship and to stand for them because the amount of LGBTQ lawmakers or those in power are very slim to none, so that’s why in order for bills like this to be passed, there really need to be allyship across all fronts,” Taylor said.
