Lawmakers in Mexico City Ban Conversion Therapy
On Friday July 10, lawmakers in Mexico City voted to ban conversion therapy, Reuters reports.
Conversion therapy is defined by GLAAD as the practice of attempting "to change a person's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression." Also referred to as "reparative therapy," the practice has not only been scientifically discredited but also determined to cause psychological harm to those who have been subjected to it.
As the Trevor Project explains, those who practice conversion therapy "use a variety of shaming, emotionally traumatic and physically painful stimuli to make their victims associate those stimuli with their LGBTQ identities."
With further approval, Reuters reports, Mexico City, with its population of approximately 8.9 million, would be "the first jurisdiction in the country to ban conversion therapy." This is a significant step forward for the LGBTQ+ community in a primarily Catholic country.
To date, only Brazil, Ecuador and Malta have imposed nationwide bans on the practice; and in May, Germany banned the practice on children. However, on Wednesday July 8, United Nations' sexual orientation and gender identity expert Victor Madrigal-Borloz, "called for a global ban on the practice during a meeting of the Human Rights Council in Geneva." Madrigal-Borloz described the practice as "inherently degrading and discriminatory and rooted in the belief that LGBT persons are somehow inferior."
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