A proposed LREM law to clearly prohibit pseudo "conversion therapy", practices aimed at imposing heterosexuality on lesbian, gay, bi and trans (LGBT) people, arrives Tuesday at the Senate where the right intends to open the debate on the gender identity.
"It is a useful text, on a very underground phenomenon, but which awakens old demons", notes the centrist rapporteur in the Senate, Dominique Vérien.
Adopted at first reading unanimously by the National Assembly in October, and supported by the government, the text of the deputy Laurence Vanceunebrock provides for a specific offense against so-called "therapists" or religious who claim to "cure" homosexuals . According to the bill, "practices, behaviors or repeated comments aimed at modifying or repressing the sexual orientation or gender identity, true or supposed, of a person and having the effect of altering their health physical or mental are punished by two years imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros ”.
The sanction is increased to three years' imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros in the event of aggravating circumstances, in particular when the victim is a minor, dependent or the perpetrator is in the ascendant. The senators adopted the text in committee with a handful of amendments by the rapporteur which do not upset the general balance. In particular, this involves ensuring that people who make repeated comments aiming to encourage caution before initiating a gender reassignment medical course are not incriminated.
In committee, the senators also rejected the amendments made by Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio (LR) aimed at removing gender identity from the text, considered to be an ill-defined concept.
But the debate is not closed: the senator of Val d'Oise will again defend in the hemicycle these amendments co-signed by more than twenty of her colleagues from the Les Républicains group, including their president Bruno Retailleau.
"Gender identity, I don't know what it is"
“Is the right of the Senate preparing to plunge back into its archaic and retrograde vision of society by excluding gender identity from the scope of the prohibition of conversion therapy?
“Asked Socialist Senator Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie on Twitter, who anticipates“ the return ”of the debate on marriage for all.
"We are not archaic and backward people," responded Senator LR. "Obviously we are all defenders of freedom and tolerance, except that here everything is mixed up", she explains. “Gender identity, I don't know what it is, there is no definition, we are influenced by what comes to us from the United States”. The centrist rapporteur argues that the concept is established and already present in the Criminal Code. “Not naming transgender people would mean leaving them victims of a barbaric practice,” she emphasizes.
Another amendment by Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio, which was not adopted in committee either, is also likely to cause debate: it proposes to ban puberty-blocking treatments, hormone therapy and surgical operations before the age of 18.
For the rapporteur, this is "a medical subject", which requires in-depth reflection and cannot be decided "at the bend of a text which has nothing to do".
Hypnosis, electroshock and exorcism
There is no national survey in France to assess the extent of the phenomenon of "conversion therapy", which can take a wide variety of forms. During a parliamentary mission in 2019, Laurence Vanceunebrock and the Insoumis Bastien Lachaud referred to "a hundred recent cases", being alarmed at "the increase in reports". They describe treatments by “hypnosis”, “hormones” or even “electroshock”, “religious” drifts between “calls for abstinence” and “exorcism” sessions, or the use of heterosexual “forced marriages”.
Other countries have explicitly banned them: in Europe, Malta and Germany, and several provinces in Spain.
In 2019, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on EU member states to ban them.
In Canada, a bill banning "conversion therapy" was passed unanimously on December 1 in the Commons, the lower house of Parliament.
It must now be approved by the Canadian Senate.
Politics
The end of conversion therapy voted by the National Assembly
Society
"Gender reassignment therapy": "These unworthy practices are not based on any medical or therapeutic basis"
The Republic on the Move (LREM)
LGBT movement
The Republicans (LR)
Senate
Society
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