Conversion therapy has been banned in Canada, joining a select list of countries that have ceased using the discredited treatment that claims to be able to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The ban passed by Parliament in December 2021 was officially implemented by the Canadian government on Friday. The Canadian prime minister announced the new law on Twitter on Saturday. According to Trudeau, it makes ‘providing, promoting, and advertising conversion therapy illegal’.
‘As of today, it’s official: Conversion therapy is banned in Canada. Our government’s legislation has come into force —which means it is now illegal to promote, advertise, benefit from, or subject someone to this hateful and harmful practice. LGBTQ2 rights are human rights,’ he said.
LGBT2 is the acronym used by the Canadian government to refer to Two-Spirit, ‘a cultural-specific identity used by some indigenous people to denote an individual whose gender identity, spiritual identity, and/or sexual orientation encompass both male and female spirits,’ according to the government’s glossary of terminology.
According to the new law, anyone who subjected someone of any age to conversion therapy, consenting or not, could face up to five years in prison. Additionally, if anyone was found to be promoting, advertising, or profiting from the practice, they could face up to two years in prison. Conversion therapies are based on the theory that gender identity can be changed or ‘cured’. They’re often conducted by religious leaders, but licensed clinicians participate as well.
Therapy methods used in the conversion process include talk and aversion therapy, as well as medical and drug-induced treatments. In addition to Canada, only a few other nations have banned conversion therapies. These are: Brazil, Ecuador, Germany and Malta. Argentina, Uruguay, Samoa, Fiji and Nauru have all indirectly banned the practice, while the United States, Australia and Spain have outlawed it in certain areas.
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