Earlier this month, Parliament’s committees hosted a public hearing in response to the European Citizens’ Initiative calling for EU-wide action to end so-called “conversion practices”. Now, this topic has been introduced as a plenary debate.
Conversion practices, which target LGBTQ+ people and have been described by the UN as a form of torture, claim to change, repress or suppress a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
Organisers of this initiative describe them as discriminatory, degrading, harmful and fraudulent. They are urging the European Commission to put forward binding rules banning conversion practices across the EU, where only some countries have passed relevant laws.
The European Parliament has repeatedly condemned all forms of discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, including conversion practices and the pathologisation of trans and intersex people.
The European Citizens’ Initiative is a mechanism that enables citizens to bring policy proposals directly to EU institutions