{"id":1583,"date":"2021-01-19T18:56:16","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T18:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bccdcfound.wpengine.com\/whats-new\/the-opportunity-and-limits-of-a-federal-conversion-therapy-ban\/"},"modified":"2023-11-02T23:37:52","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T23:37:52","slug":"the-opportunity-and-limits-of-a-federal-conversion-therapy-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pacificpublichealth.ca\/whats-new\/the-opportunity-and-limits-of-a-federal-conversion-therapy-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"The Opportunity and Limits of a Federal Conversion Therapy Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reflections from the past year of public health research<\/em><\/strong>

Guest post by Dr Travis Salway
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, SFU
Working in affiliation with: The BC Centre for Disease Control, The Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity, and the Community-Based Research Centre<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fall of 2019, the BCCDC Foundation launched a campaign<\/a> to give voice to the many Canadians who have endured so-called \u201cconversion therapy<\/a>.\u201d Funds were used to support a unique and powerful Dialogue event<\/a> where we heard from survivors and LGBTQ2 community leaders about research priorities for preventing future and ongoing trauma related to conversion therapy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Attendee participates at the Dialogue event in 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Dialogue event participant holds up sign “Love needs no cure.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Dialogue attendees participate in an exercise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


In this post, I reflect on what we have learned from the past year of active research, as well as advocacy efforts with the federal government, who first expressed interest in banning conversion therapy the month following our campaign and Dialogue event, when Prime Minister Trudeau mandated<\/a> that his Ministers prepare a Criminal Code amendment that would prohibit conversion therapy across Canada. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q. What have we learned about conversion therapy from Canadian research conducted in the past year?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n



In the spring of 2019, I was invited to give a statement to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health<\/a> about what further action the federal government could take to improve the lives of LGBTQ2 people, acknowledging that we continue to face disproportionately high rates of suicide, depression, and anxiety.<\/strong> When I commented on the need to tackle conversion therapy, MPs asked pointed and sensible questions:

Where is it happening? <\/em>
Under what circumstances? <\/em>
How many people are affected?<\/em>

These questions launched a program of research that continues to this day. Working with the Community-Based Research Centre, we added questions to the national SexNow survey<\/a> which includes data from over 9,000 gay, bisexual, Two-Spirit, and trans men from across the country\u2014to estimate the prevalence of conversion therapy exposure.

We learned that 1 in 10, corresponding to tens of thousands of Canadians, have had direct experience with conversion therapy at some point in their lives.<\/strong> Many of these experiences were hidden from others, owing to the stigma of attending conversion therapy. In order to break through this silence, we conducted confidential in-depth interviews with 22 individuals of diverse genders and gender identities, asking them to give us more details about the circumstances of their experiences, as well as their suggestions for what more could be done to help them heal from trauma.

We learned that experiences of conversion therapy are varied and complex, but they shared a unifying feature of trying to reject LGBTQ2 outcomes<\/strong>\u2014meaning the adoption of gender identities that differ from sex assigned at birth (for trans people) and\/or the adoption of sexual orientations that differ from heteronormative expectations of opposite-sex marriage, etc. (for queer people).

Importantly, we also learned that despite numerous regulatory bodies (including, for example, the Canadian Psychological Association<\/a>) discrediting conversion therapy, these practices continue to occur in licensed healthcare provider offices, as well as unlicensed settings, including religious organizations.<\/strong> Many attended services that were offered free of cost, while others paid handsomely to experience conversion therapy.

Finally, we learned that many people started conversion therapy as an adult<\/strong>, suggesting that efforts to ban conversion therapy for youth will not sufficiently remove the threat of harm for LGBTQ2 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q. How can federal legislation stop conversion therapy from continuing to happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n



In this context, there was great enthusiasm for the federal bill<\/a> (now labeled C-6), an Amendment to the Criminal Code to ban conversion therapy<\/strong>. Several researchers, survivors, and activists\u2014myself included\u2014gave testimony<\/a> to the Justice Committee in December of 2020, urging legislators to expand the scope of the bill. My team made the following recommendations<\/a> based on the research above:<\/p>\n\n\n\n