Victims of so-called gay conversion therapies say the practice is widespread in Spain and they are leading an effort to criminalise it.
This week, the campaign organisation No es terapia (“It’s not therapy”) presented a proposal before the Spanish parliament for the law to be reformed to clamp down on the practice. Conversion therapies, which are widely discredited, purport to change the sexuality of young people from the LGBTQ community to make them heterosexual.
They are banned in Spain and individuals or organisations using them can face large fines. However, the No es terapia association, supported by several left-wing parties, wants the law to go further and for those responsible to face jail sentences.
“It must be criminalised because currently victims are not protected,” Xavi Martínez Cal, who says he was subjected to such therapy, told El País. “If it is not criminalised, these people will keep doing it.”
Eric Adams, the New York mayor at the heart of Donald Trump’s attempt to reshape US justice department
Thanks to Trump, Saudi Arabia gets a big week in international diplomacy
Trump has flown US into turbulence and Americans aren’t sure where they’re going to land
Polls indicate German federal election will return Merkel-style coalition
Conversion therapy has been widely condemned by the medical profession, which has warned that attempts to change sexual orientation are not only ineffective but potentially harmful.
Martínez Cal (28), says he underwent treatment for four years at the hands of the Catholic Church-sponsored family-orientation centre Mater Misericordiae. Last week, the archbishopric of Valencia shut down the centre and accepted the resignation of its president, Federico Mulet, following testimonies of children as young as 11 who said they had been subjected to therapies there. The archbishopric of Valencia was not available for comment when contacted for this article.
Martínez Cal said the therapy he underwent included invasive interrogations about his private life, sessions with a psychiatrist, physical work, sport and the taking of pharmaceuticals. Martínez Cal stopped participating after suffering depression.
He said that Es Posible la Esperanza, the umbrella association that oversaw the activities of the Mater Misericordiae centre, had been carrying them out for 20 years.
The public prosecutor’s office in Valencia has opened an investigation into Mulet and his centre’s activities. That is part of a broader series of recent investigations into individuals and institutions accused of treating young people with conversion therapy.
Also in Valencia, prosecutors are investigating the San Vicente Mártir foundation. The left-wing Compromís party has filed a complaint, alleging that the foundation was training teachers at schools it oversees to give “a pathologising and shameful image of homosexuality”.
Meanwhile, the equality ministry has opened its own investigation into seven dioceses following complaints by the No es terapia association.
Saúl Castro, president of No es terapia, told The Irish Times that his association has filed 12 separate complaints about the use of conversion therapy in different regions across the country but that this was “just the tip of the iceberg”.
“The main problem linked to conversion therapies in Spain is not that people are in favour of them, it’s that people don’t know about them,” he said. “And the people and groups who perpetrate them tend have a great deal of power and influence and a lot of money.”
Last week, an attempt by the Más Madrid party to push a motion through Madrid’s local parliament calling for the regional government to take tougher action on the issue was blocked as parties on the right voted against the initiative.
Marta Lavín, head of family affairs for the local wing of the conservative Popular Party which governs in the Madrid region, said that conversion therapies “are not [and] never have been a significant reality”.
She accused the left of “waging civil war at the expense of freedom of religion and conscience, weaponising sexuality”.
