The plenary session of Senate of the Republic approved this Friday to prohibit and sanction the conversion therapies, that seek to change people of sexual orientation.
With 77 votes in favor, four against and 15 abstentions, the senators approved to prohibit the so-called Efforts to Correct Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity (ECOSIG) that have encouraged the violation of the human rights of the LGBT community.
✅ To prohibit and sanction the so-called conversion therapies, known as Ecosig, it is approved to reform, with 77 votes in favor, four against and 15 abstentions, the Federal Penal Code and the General Health Law. pic.twitter.com/cVdhut6zAU
— Senate of Mexico (@senadomexicano) April 26, 2024
This initiative was approved when considered by international organizations, such as the United Nations Organization (UN) like an act of torture consist of violent actswith physical and psychological attacks against people to force them to give up their sexual preferences.
In the afternoon session in the Senate that lasted more than 11 hours, the reform of the Federal Penal Code and the General Health Law where they warned that, for those who attack people’s sexual orientation, sanctions from fines to prison sentences would be applied.
“It is a holiday for all people, for all people who have the right to love whoever they want as they want and there is no one abnormal or any illness in this, it is a pride to vote on this day,” said the senator. Malú Micher.
What are conversion therapies and why were they banned?
The UNAM and the COPRED define the ECOSIG (Efforts to Correct Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) as “practices of various types (psychological, psychiatric, religious sessions, academic talks, etc.) that have the intention of changing the sexual orientation, identity or gender expression of homosexual, bisexual and trans people to what has been established as the normative, “a cisgender binary heterosexuality”’.
The LGBT+ community have denounced over the years that these types of sessions represent acts of violence, discrimination and tortureunder the false premise that people of sexual diversity are “sick.”
According to the UN, this type of therapies can consist of physical and psychological attacks, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that seek to force people to put aside their sexual preferences, which result in “deep physical and psychological trauma to the people who suffer them.”
