CALGARY—Peter Gajdics was a driving force behind Vancouver’s ban on conversion therapy, which seeks to change people’s sexual orientation and/or behaviour.

But Gajdics, a survivor of conversion therapy, says modern versions of the practice may be slipping under the radar of municipal bans, even as more cities across Canada move to enact bans of their own.

“Ultimately, what needs to happen is some sort of federal ban,” he said. “This is the best way to ensure that these types of things don’t occur across the country.”

As public attitudes toward conversion therapy have changed, so have the practices themselves. Experts say modern conversion therapy is harder to define, and harder to legislate as well. However, Ottawa has promised to make changes to the criminal code in an effort to criminalize conversion therapy, and it has urged provinces and territories to enact bans of their own.

The Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) opposes conversion therapy, which it defines as “any formal therapeutic attempt to change the sexual orientation of bisexual, gay and lesbian individuals to heterosexual,” adding this “can include prayer or religious rites, modification of behaviours, and individual or group counselling.”

Experts say that in Canada, conversion therapy is no longer openly advertised. “It’s more secretive, it’s more underground,” says Kristopher Wells, Canada Research Chair for the Public Understanding of Sexual and Gender Minority Youth.

‘Modern’ conversion therapy

According to Simon Fraser University epidemiologist Travis Salway, in the mid-20th-century, conversion therapy was practised by licensed health care professionals. But when the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as an illness in 1973, it created a market for conversion therapy outside of the medical world.

Salway said the methods have evolved over time, but the principles have remained more or less the same.

“They’re borrowing largely outdated theories and notions around psychology and development. But what’s changed is who’s practising them, and how they’re being advertised or promoted. And ... that does create a lot of challenges in banning the practice.”

He said materials promoting such practices have moved from talking about changing sexual orientation or gender to something more akin to behavioural therapy.

Wells agreed. “Now it’s not about changing someone’s sexual orientation … it’s around helping them to manage or reduce their same-sex attraction.”

He said modern versions include talk therapy, aversion therapy (subjecting a person to an unpleasant stimulus while they’re engaged in the targeted behaviour), or gender coaching (teaching people to exhibit certain masculine or feminine characteristics). Wells said those practices are just as damaging.

“Rather than helping people come to terms with their identity, what they’re doing is increasing the shame and the stigmatization,” he said.

LGBTQ advocate Pam Rocker works with survivors of conversion therapy. She said a lifetime of homophobic rhetoric from family or faith communities can make people feel like they have no choice but to try to change.

Psychologist Ashleigh Yule said that in her work with LGBTQ youth, she sees this kind of choice as acting upon years of internalized shame.

“We tend to feel best when the things that we do and the ways that we’re seeing match up with who we know we are,” she said. “When we’re living in that level of incongruence, it causes deep psychological damage.”

How effective are conversion therapy bans?

In June, the federal government sent a letter to every provincial health and justice minister, signed by federal Justice Minister David Lametti, then-Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor, and Randy Boissonnault, then an MP from Edmonton Centre and the prime minister’s special adviser on LGBTQ issues.

The letter calls for a multi-level approach to ending conversion therapy, and says the government plans to use the Criminal Code to ban it on a federal level.

The 2019 Liberal election platform reinforces its promise, saying it will “work with provinces and territories to end conversion therapy in Canada, including making amendments to the Criminal Code that will prohibit this harmful and scientifically disproven practice, especially against minors.”

Ontario has banned conversion therapy on minors, as has Nova Scotia. Manitoba has banned the practice outright. B.C. has tabled legislation to do the same, but the legislation has not made it past a second reading. Prince Edward Island has also passed a ban.

In May, the Alberta government withdrew formal support for a working group tasked with studying potential legal steps against conversion therapy. At the time, the press secretary for Health Minister Tyler Shandro told the Star in an email that conversion therapy “isn’t practised in Alberta and can’t be.”

Vancouver was the first city in Canada to pass a ban in June 2018. St. Albert, a small city in Alberta, passed a motion to create a ban in July 2019, as did Fort McMurray in October. Edmonton passed a motion to create a ban in August, the second major city in Canada to do so.

But municipal bans have a limited scope. For example, Vancouver’s ban prevents businesses from providing services that claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Gajdics said one example of that limited scope was an event held in Vancouver in Nov. 2018, several months after the ban came into effect. The event, called “Made in God’s Image,” was hosted by Journey Canada. On Journey Canada’s website, the event description includes the topic “Being Christian and Same-Sex Attraction” and asks “What is God’s intention for relationships?”

Journey Canada offers courses and seminars on a variety of topics as they relate to Christianity, including relationships, gender and identity, addiction and more, according to its website.

Gajdics said he thinks Journey Canada and its events should have been prohibited under the ban, because he considers what they do conversion therapy.

Journey Canada’s communications manager and Calgary program co-ordinator Graeme Lauber said the organization does not perform conversion therapy (he defined conversion therapy as attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation).

“We are saying, this is what we believe God’s plan for sexuality is. And if you want help living that out … we’re here to walk with you,” he said.

In an emailed response to Gajdics’ claims about Journey Canada and the Nov. 2018 event, Lauber said the event was “presenting basic Christian teaching on sexuality” and that calling it conversion therapy is an unreasonable stretch of the term.

Ellie Lambert, communications manager for the city of Vancouver, said the city has no reason to believe that any of Journey Canada’s events, free or paid, fall under the bylaw, which prohibits charging a fee for services that seek to change sexuality or gender orientation.

She said the bylaw states that “services that provide acceptance, support or understanding of a person or the facilitation of a person’s coping, social support or identity exploration or development, or any services related to sex-reassignment surgery” are not prohibited under the ban.

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The limited scope of municipal bans means cities can’t do much about the grey areas, such as less concrete practices that may happen within faith groups, said Linnea Strom, co-chair of Vancouver’s LGBTQ2+ advisory committee.

But it’s a start, Strom said, and seeing other municipalities do the same is heartening.

“On a city level, we did what we could,” she said. “But, you know, you start small, and if you start small, and you start setting statements, it eventually grows.”

In an email, Gajdics said he thinks Journey Canada has “learned how to play the game of political correctness” by claiming they don’t want to change a person’s sexuality or gender.

He said he’s worried that lawmakers don’t understand modern versions of conversion therapy, “making efforts to ban them ultimately a hollow and pointless endeavour.”

How can bans be more effective?

Salway said advocates are calling for a multi-pronged approach, including bans at every level of government and “working to change the settings in which conversion therapy is being practiced.”

He said there needs to be widely available alternative to settings that practice conversion tactics, whether they be community groups or schools or churches.

“If a parent has a child that’s in distress, or a teacher or a health care provider ... there have to be LGBTQ2 affirming resources available to them,” he said. “The problem right now in Canada is that the availability of those resources is really uneven.”

Wells said he thinks conversion therapy should be treated like fraudulent medical practices, so the participant’s choice to take part doesn’t remove responsibility from the practitioner.

“Whether somebody wants to wilfully undergo it or not is not the question,” he said. “The fact is, we know that it’s incredibly dangerous, harmful and not supported by scientific research.”

Rocker said she thinks there’s “no question” that the increasingly covert tactics of conversion therapy will make it harder to legislate.

“If you can’t prove that it’s happening, it’s really hard to enforce a ban,” she said.

Wells said he thinks it’s important to create reporting mechanisms to kick-start investigations, as well as ensuring legal capability for survivors to sue practitioners.

Glynnis Lieb, co-chair of the Alberta working group, said she wants to see more regulation of terms like “therapist” and “counsellor” to cut through official-sounding messaging.

Before Edmonton city council voted to move toward a conversion therapy ban, a report by city administrators said the ban would be largely symbolic.

But Lieb disagrees.

“It sends a message to the general populace of what is and what is not acceptable,” she said, adding she hopes more provinces and the federal government will take notice of bans in cities like Edmonton.

Lieb acknowledged it may be a challenge to create effective legislation, because of the “fuzzy boundaries” of freedom of expression, coercion and more. But she said the legislation will also create more awareness.

“We don’t not legislate something because it’s tough.”

Correction - Dec. 9, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Travis Salway currently works at the University of British Columbia. In fact, he moved to Simon Fraser University in Sept. 2019. As well, that article did not make clear that although Edmonton, St. Albert and Fort McMurray have passed motions to create conversion therapy bans, they have not yet passed the bylaws. The previous version also mistakenly said the American Psychological Association declassified homosexuality as an illness in 1973. In fact, it was the American Psychiatric Association that did this.

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