Legality of conversion therapy
[citation needed] Bills banning conversion therapy are being considered in Austria, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Poland.
The statement said: "We consider that practices known as conversion therapies represent a grave threat to health and well-being, including the life, of the people who are affected.
[60] This action was the result of a 10-year campaign by Fundación Causana, an Ecuadorian activist group, which called attention to more than 200 illegal "ex-gay clinics" that were targeting lesbians and operating under the guise of being drug rehabilitation centers.
[61][62][63] In February 2019, German Health Minister Jens Spahn said he will seek to ban conversion therapies that claim to change sexual orientation.
"[78][79] In 2023, at the suggestion of Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Roderic O'Gorman, the Irish Government announced that they will introduce a new law to ban conversion therapy and its advertising.
"[85] In February 2016 and in March 2017, the Knesset rejected bills introduced by former Health Minister Yael German that would have banned conversion therapy in Israel for minors.
In late July 2021, Justice Minister Kris Faafoi announced a proposed law banning conversion therapy.
017-2008 (2008) of the Department of Apurímac prohibits forcing a person to undergo medical and/or psychological treatment in order to alter or modify their sexual orientation.
Practice by medical professionals banned: In 2019, the regulatory Ordem dos Psicólogos affirmed that conversion therapy has no basis in science and that its members cannot perform it.
The teens were beaten with spades and rubber pipes, chained to their beds, not allowed to use the toilet at any time and forced to eat soap and their own feces, all with the aim of "curing" their homosexuality.
[144] In the letter, the Ministry states that sexual orientation conversion is not regarded as a legitimate healthcare practice and that any individual performing the so-called therapy is liable to prosecution under the Criminal Code [zh] or the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act, depending on the circumstances.
[148] After reports of a Liverpool church starving individuals for three days as a means to "cure" their homosexuality, Parliament heard calls for a legislative ban.
On 3 July 2018, the UK Government announced it would work towards a total ban on conversion therapy across medical, non-medical, and religious settings.
[152] Stonewall notes that "in the UK, all major counselling and psychotherapy bodies, as well as the NHS, have concluded that conversion therapy is dangerous and have condemned it by signing a Memorandum of Understanding".
[153] In December 2020, the Conservative Party again changed course and provided government funding for a conference of faith leaders calling for an end to conversion therapy, including nine archbishops, sixty rabbis and senior Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.
[154] In the self-governing British dependent territory the Isle of Man, an amendment to the Sexual Offences and Obscene Publications Bill that would ban and criminalize gay conversion therapy was put forward to the House of Keys in 2019.
In December 2021 the government put forward a proposed ban for consultation, with the stated intention of preparing a draft bill for spring 2022.
U.S. District Court Judge Freda L. Wolfson rejected the claim of New Jersey parents that it violated their rights by keeping them from treating their child for same-sex attraction.
[173] The states of New Jersey (2013), California (2013), Oregon (2015), Illinois (2016), Vermont (2016), New Mexico (2017), Connecticut (2017), Rhode Island (2017), Nevada (2018), Washington (2018), Hawaii (2018), Delaware (2018), Maryland (2018), New Hampshire (2019), New York (2019), Massachusetts (2019),[174] Maine (2019),[175] Colorado (2019),[176] Utah (2019), Virginia (2020), Minnesota (2023), Michigan (2023) and Kentucky (2024),[177] as well as the District of Columbia (2015) and Puerto Rico (2019) ban the use of conversion therapy on minors.
As of 2019[update], no nationwide opinion poll has been carried out, though surveys in three states (Florida, New Mexico and Virginia) show support varying between 60% and 75%.
The table below lists, in chronological order, the United Nations member states that have explicitly prohibited and criminalized conversion therapy by law.
The court rejected the argument that the treatments to which Pitcherskaia had been subjected did not constitute persecution because they had been intended to help her, not harm her, and stated "human rights laws cannot be sidestepped by simply couching actions that torture mentally or physically in benevolent terms such as 'curing' or 'treating' the victims".
