Thank you, Madam Chair, for having me here today.
I use he/him pronouns.
I am joining you from the unceded Coast Salish territories of Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish and Musqueam nations, and I'm grateful to them.
I want to start by humbly acknowledging outspoken Canadian advocates who have endured conversion therapy and told and retold their traumatic stories in order for us to finally take action. Thank you, to Erika Muse, Matt Ashcroft, Jules Sherred, Harper Perrin, Sonya Taylor, Peter Gajdics, David Kinitz, Victor Szymanski and many more.
I'm here to share statistics and stories my colleagues and I have collected over the past year from hundreds of Canadians who have experienced conversion therapy. This research has convinced me that the current draft of the federal bill leaves many instances of conversion therapy untouched. Our research started with a national survey of 9,000 gay, bisexual, queer, trans, and two-spirit men conducted just last year. We found that one in 10, corresponding to tens of thousands of individuals, had experienced conversion therapy in Canada. To better understand how so many Canadians could continue to be exposed to these practices, we interviewed and surveyed, in English and French, 50 individuals who had direct experiences with conversion therapy.
One of the most important things we learned is that none of these individuals simply showed up to a service advertised to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Acknowledging this, we presented participants with the exact definition of conversion therapy included in the draft bill before you, and half told us that this definition did not encompass their experiences. One explained that the service he attended was described to him as a “pursuit for purity”, thereby skirting the language of being “designed to change [his] sexual orientation.” Nonetheless, the premise of this service, as with all conversion therapies, was that living as an out LGBTQ2 person was unacceptable and avoidable. This led us to conclude that the defining feature of so-called conversion therapies is not conversion but, rather, the goal of rejecting LGBTQ2 lives as compatible with being happy and healthy. For these reasons, I recommend that the definition of conversion therapy be amended to clarify that conversion therapy includes all sustained efforts that proceed from an assumption that certain sexual orientations, gender identities, or gender expressions are disordered, pathological, or less desirable than others.
Next, I will speak to the experiences of study participants who attended conversion therapy as adults. While the risk of coercion by parents and other adults may decrease with age, the psychosocial outcomes associated with conversion therapy—including isolation, anxiety, and suicide—persist. Moreover, many Canadians continue to rely upon familial support well into their 20s and beyond, making the age-18 threshold arbitrary in this context. Even for those who have moved away from home, the choice to attend conversion therapy is a false choice. One interviewee explained that his parents threatened to stop paying for his university education if he did not comply with their wish for him to reject a gay identity. For these reasons, I recommend expanding conversion therapy protections to people of all ages.
Third, I want to emphasize the critical importance of ensuring that this bill fully accounts for conversion therapy that affects transgender and non-binary people. In our national survey, conversion therapy exposure was twice as high—20%—among trans and non-binary respondents, likely owing to pervasive transphobia across multiple Canadian institutions today. As you heard from Erika Muse this morning, trans conversion therapy remains insidious, in many cases condoned by licensed professionals who claim to act in their patients’ best interests.
To trans people listening: I want you to know that I and many others see you and celebrate you for who you are.
To cisgender people listening: I encourage you to express this sentiment without hesitation to trans people in Canada.
For these reasons, I recommend that the committee adopt the recommendations offered by Erika, by legal scholar Florence Ashley, and by over 500 individuals and organizations that have signed our open letter, which will ensure equity for trans people when it comes to this bill.
Finally, I want to note that we cannot rely on a single legislative action to eradicate all conversion therapy. A fully effective strategy will require bans at multiple levels of government, as well as LGBTQ2-affirming educational resources. For these reasons, I urge that a statement be added to the preamble of the bill reiterating the need for provinces and territories to continue to pass regulatory laws, which can work in complementary ways to federal legislation.
Thank you for your time.