By Miriam Specka
On Friday, July 10, lawmakers in Mexico City approved an initiative presented by Deputy Temístocles Villanueva which proposed to reform the city’s penal code and impose up to five years in prison as punishment for anyone who forces another person to receive conversion therapy. Eduardo Santillán Pérez, president of the Commission of Administration and Procurement of Justice, added that the punishment would be even greater in cases where the victim of enforced conversion therapy is a minor.
Conversion therapy is a pseudoscientific practice aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity to heterosexual and/or cisgender, using psychological, physical, or spiritual means. Although countless medical practitioners and mental health experts worldwide have made clear the physical and psychological harms of the practice, only a few countries have nationwide bans on conversion therapy.
On Wednesday, just two days before the vote in Mexico City, Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the UN Independent Expert on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity called for a global ban on conversion therapy, stating “These interventions exclusively target LGBT persons with the specific aim of interfering in their personal integrity…They are inherently degrading and discriminatory and rooted in the belief that LGBT persons are somehow inferior.”
The proposal will now be presented before the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Mexico’s Congress, and is expected to be approved in the coming weeks. The banning of conversion therapy in Mexico City would set a precedent for the rest of the Mexican states, as well as other nations in the region, to increase their support and protection of the LGBT+ community.
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