Canada bans conversion therapy
Canada has moved to ban conversion therapy – a controversial and debunked practice of trying to "convert" homosexuals to heterosexual."
This week, the country's senate voted unanimously to fast-track the bill to royal assent, the last step before becoming law. On Wednesday, newly-installed Governor General Mary Simon granted Royal Assent for the first time to Bill C-4, officially banning the practice of conversion therapy in Canada.
The law criminalizes causing a person to undergo conversion therapy, removing a child from Canada with the purpose of making them undergo the practice in another country and promoting or advertising the practice. It also criminalizes receiving money or benefit from conversion therapy and requires all advertisements for the practice be removed.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called conversion therapy "despicable and degrading." "LGBTQ2 Canadians, we'll always stand up for you and your rights," he said in a tweet announcing the new law.
Amit Paley, CEO and executive director of the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ youth, said the "bold action sends a resounding message of support to LGBTQ youth across the world."
In the United States, conversion therapy is banned at the state level. While 20 states ban conversion therapy for minors, 22 states currently have no laws against it. Five states have partial bans and three have a preliminary injunction currently preventing enforcement of conversion therapy bans.
It has been 45 years since the American Psychiatric Association determined that homosexuality is not an illness that can be "cured," but an estimated 700,000 adults in the U.S. have received some kind of conversion therapy, according to a 2018 "CBS Sunday Morning" report.
The practice is based on the belief that homosexuality is caused by nurture, not nature, and so it can be reversed.
In Canada, an earlier version of Bill C-4 was derailed in 2020 when the government had to focus on pandemic response, according to CBC. When that bill made it to Canada's House of Commons, it faced difficulty as dozens of conservatives opposed it.
The bill was generally criticized because of its broad definition of conversion therapy, but liberals say the updated version is more comprehensive and that it is one the strictest laws against conversion therapy in the world, CBC reports.
