Conversion Therapy

A practice, now recognized by health and psychological bodies as pseudoscientific and harmful, that attempts to change a person's sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression to conform to heterosexual or cisgender norms, typically through a form of psychological pressure or a purported physical intervention, and documented as ineffective at achieving its stated aim while frequently causing significant, lasting psychological harm to those subjected to it. A growing number of jurisdictions have made providing, advertising or profiting from conversion therapy on a minor, or on an adult unable to freely consent, a specific criminal offense, including Canada's 2021 amendments to its Criminal Code and Belgium's Law on Protection against Conversion Treatments, which imposes a fine or a prison term of up to two years on a person who performs the practice on someone under eighteen or on a non-consenting adult.