justdad7 Profile picture
Retired lawyer from Canada with interest in human rights and medical ethics. Women have a right to same sex spaces and sterilizing children is unethical. 🇨🇦

Oct 2, 2020, 8 tweets

🇨🇦 You can follow the progress of #billc6 to ban 'conversion therapy' at this link.
parl.ca/LegisInfo/Bill…
The bill is the same wording as Bill C8 from the last session with all the multiple drafting flaws. While Minister of Justice @MinJusticeEn David Lametti has been /2

that the bill is not intended to criminalize private conversations or expressions of opinions, he has not been very clear on what it does ban. Everyone is agreeing that certain forms of conversion therapy' very band and should be banned but nobody can say what they are. /3

This is not acceptable when you are talking about criminal laws which carry a maximum penalty of give years in prison. Is there anyone in the government who can give a concrete example of a practice that the bill will ban or an example of a practice that is permitted? /4

For example, would it be acceptable for a therapist to recommend that a teenager for cross sex hormones because he or she had autism spectrum issues which had not been explored. What about a blood condition that might make hormone treatment dangerous?
genderreport.ca/gender-dysphor…
/5

Some of the drafting is just thoughtless. There is a blanket ban on any attempt to reduce or repress non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior. The plain meaning of these words would ban therapy for minor attracted person or someone with a harmful sexual fetish. /6

The bill defines conversion therapy as changing gender identity to "cisgender." How do non-binary, agender, gender fluid or any of the hundreds of other possible gender identities fit into this wording? How will this language impact therapy for detransitioners who want to /7

re-identify which their natal sex? Did anyone in the government consider these issues? Will anyone in Parliament consider them before the bill is passed?

Please note that I do not equate being LGBT with pedophilia. The bill fails to make this distinction. At minimum, it needs to be amended to permit therapy to repress or reduce sexual behaviuor which is harmful or unlawful.

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