World
Efforts to ban conversion therapy gain traction around the world
Global Equality Caucus lawmakers play prominent role
Efforts to ban so-called conversion therapy gained significant traction around the world in 2022.
Only four countries at the end of 2021 had explicit laws that banned the widely discredited practice. Numerous jurisdictions around the world in 2022 have enacted legislation or taken executive action. The Global Equality Caucus, an international network of lawmakers who have committed themselves to fight discrimination based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity, has driven many of these efforts.
Global Equality Caucus Vice President Tamara Adrián, who is also the first openly transgender woman elected to the Venezuelan National Assembly, told Washington Blade that “any compulsive therapy to modify sexual orientation is contrary to human rights. Subjecting a person to conversion therapy will be unsuccessful and can create very serious mental health problems, as these therapies use invasive behavioral methods to try to modify sexual orientation.”
“The consequence is that no one modifies their sexual orientation but may become unable to have relationships with any person and that is the reality in this matter. They are a mechanism intended to erase LGBT people from the earth,” Adrián added.
Canada and France in January introduced LGBTQ-inclusive bills to ban conversion therapy for minors and adults, regardless of perceived “consent,” in clinical and religious settings. Anyone found guilty of offering or practicing conversion therapy is subject to a fine or jail time.
New Zealand in February passed the Conversion Practices Prohibition Act with the same breadth of protections as Canada and France. And in May 2022, following an amendment to the Health for All Act, lawmakers in Greece passed measures explicitly prohibiting conversion therapy for persons under 18 and “non-consenting” adults.
A law that lawmakers in the Australian state in Victoria passed in 2021 took effect in February. The law, first proposed in 2020, has been hailed as a model for legislation to ban conversion therapy and certainly inspired New Zealand’s ban.
Several Mexican states also banned conversion practices this year, following the nation’s first prohibition that Mexico City approved in 2020. Lawmakers in Jalisco, Baja California, Puebla, Hidalgo and Sonora states approved measures to ban them.
The British government’s decision to support a trans-exclusive bill to ban conversion therapy prompted advocacy groups to boycott an LGBTQ and intersex rights conference that was to have taken place in London during Pride Month. The conference was later cancelled.
Nick Herbert, a member of the British House of Lords who advised then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson on LGBTQ and intersex issues, is a member of the Global Equality Caucus.
Indirect conversion therapy bans are “when countries do not explicitly prohibit them through legislation, however, they are not allowed from a mental health standpoint,” Global Equality Caucus Membership and Programs Coordinator Erick Ortiz told the Blade.
Israel’s Health Ministry in February issued a directive that said medical professionals are prohibited from offering, advertising or performing conversion therapy, and those who violate the ban could face punishment. The Knesset in 2020 passed a conversion therapy ban bill, but lawmakers have yet to codify the directive.
India’s National Medical Commission the same month in a filing with the Madras High Court clarified that any licensed medical professional in the country who is found guilty of offering conversion therapy can face prosecution for professional misconduct. India, like Israel, does not explicitly ban the practice throughout the country, but the filing reaffirmed a 2021 court order that prohibits any attempt to “cure or change” the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ people.
Vietnam’s Health Ministry in 2021 issued guidance to clarify that homosexuality and transgender identities are not considered curable diseases, and that doctors should not engage in coercive treatments that attempt to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Paraguay in November joined Argentina and Uruguay in becoming the third South American country to amend its mental health law to prohibit a mental health diagnosis on the basis of “sexual choice or identity.”
Lawmakers in several countries in 2022 introduced bills to ban conversion therapy; but they have not been passed because of legislative processes, timelines and elections.
Icelandic MP Hanna Katrin Fridriksson, a Global Equality Caucus member, in January introduced a bill in the Althing (Iceland’s Parliament,) but it has not yet progressed. Dutch Sen. Boris Dittrich, helped champion a bill in his country’s Parliament, but it was referred to committee. A bill in Cyprus also reached the committee stage and is likely to be passed in 2023.
Former Colombian Congressman Mauricio Toro introduced a bill, but it was not passed before the new Congress took office in July. A group of lawmakers from various political parties have reintroduced the bill.
Norwegian Equality Minister Anette Trettebergstuen introduced a bill proposing a total ban on conversion therapy, going beyond plans the previous government first announced in 2021. Lawmakers are currently reviewing the measure. The Belgian Cabinet has approved a similar proposal, but the lower house of the country’s Parliament has not given its final approval.
The Mexican Senate after nearly four years of stalemate approved a federal bill after consultations with Yaaj Mexico, an LGBTQ and intersex rights group, and talks at the Global Equality Council summit that took place in Mexico City earlier this year. The measure will take effect once the Mexican Chamber of Deputies approves it, which will likely take effect in 2023.
Several other countries have expressed they support conversion therapy bans, but their governments or congressmen have yet to submit a parliamentary bill. They include the Ireland, Sweden, Finland and some states in Australia.
Peruvian Congresswoman Susel Paredes will lead a bill to ban conversion therapies in her country
“Congresswoman Susel Paredes is waiting for the right moment to present the project due to the political problems Peru is facing,” Ortiz said.
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are expected to compete in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics that open on Friday.
Outsports.com notes eight Americans — including speedskater Conor McDermott-Mostowy and figure skater Amber Glenn — are among the 44 openly LGBTQ athletes who will compete in the games. The LGBTQ sports website also reports Ellis Lundholm, a mogul skier from Sweden, is the first openly transgender athlete to compete in any Winter Olympics.
“I’ve always been physically capable. That was never a question,” Glenn told Outsports.com. “It was always a mental and competence problem. It was internal battles for so long: when to lean into my strengths and when to work on my weaknesses, when to finally let myself portray the way I am off the ice on the ice. That really started when I came out publicly.”
McDermott-Mostowy is among the six athletes who have benefitted from the Out Athlete Fund, a group that has paid for their Olympics-related training and travel. The other beneficiaries are freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, speed skater Brittany Bowe, snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick, alpine skier Breezy Johnson, and Paralympic Nordic skier Jake Adicoff.
Out Athlete Fund and Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood on Friday will host a free watch party for the opening ceremony.
“When athletes feel seen and accepted, they’re free to focus on their performance, not on hiding who they are,” Haley Caruso, vice president of the Out Athlete Fund’s board of directors, told the Los Angeles Blade.
Four Italian LGBTQ advocacy groups — Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano — have organized the games’ Pride House that will be located at the MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan.
Pride House on its website notes it will “host a diverse calendar of events and activities curated by associations, activists, and cultural organizations that share the values of Pride” during the games. These include an opening ceremony party at which Checcoro, Milan’s first LGBTQ chorus, will perform.
ILGA World, which is partnering with Pride House, is the co-sponsor of a Feb. 21 event that will focus on LGBTQ-inclusion in sports. Valentina Petrillo, a trans Paralympian, is among those will participate in a discussion that Simone Alliva, a journalist who writes for the Italian newspaper Domani, will moderate.
“The event explores inclusivity in sport — including amateur levels — with a focus on transgender people, highlighting the role of civil society, lived experiences, and the voices of athletes,” says Milano Pride on its website.
The games will take place against the backdrop of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s decision to ban trans women from competing in women’s sporting events.
President Donald Trump last February issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams in the U.S. A group of Republican lawmakers in response to the directive demanded the International Olympics Committee ban trans athletes from women’s athletic competitions.
The IOC in 2021 adopted its “Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations” that includes the following provisions:
• 3.1 Eligibility criteria should be established and implemented fairly and in a manner that does not systematically exclude athletes from competition based upon their gender identity, physical appearance and/or sex variations.
• 3.2 Provided they meet eligibility criteria that are consistent with principle 4 (“Fairness”, athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity.
• 3.3 Criteria to determine disproportionate competitive advantage may, at times, require testing of an athlete’s performance and physical capacity. However, no athlete should be subject to targeted testing because of, or aimed at determining, their sex, gender identity and/or sex variations.
The 2034 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place in Salt Lake City. The 2028 Summer Olympics will occur in Los Angeles.
China
Two Chinese men detained over AI-generated picture of pandas engaging in same-sex behavior
Arrests part of increased online surveillance, LGBTQ rights crackdown
Chinese authorities have detained two men after they shared an artificially altered image that linked queer identity with a specific city.
The Washington Post on Jan. 21 reported the men — who are 29 and 33 — circulated an AI-generated picture depicting pandas engaging in same-sex behavior in Chengdu, a major city in southwestern China often referred to as the “panda capital” due to its association with giant panda conservation. Local officials described the sharing of the image as “malicious,” and police in Chengdu took the men into custody.
Authorities also suspended the two men’s social media accounts, accusing them of spreading misinformation presented as legitimate news. According to the Post, the artificially generated image was posted alongside a fabricated headline, giving the appearance of an authentic news report. The image depicted two male pandas mating.
According to an official police report, police said the fabricated image was presented in the format of a legitimate news article and accompanied by a false headline. The caption read, “Chengdu: Two male Sichuan giant pandas successfully mate for the first time without human intervention,” authorities said.
Chinese regulators have in recent years tightened oversight of AI and online content.
Under the Interim Measures for the Administration of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services, issued in 2023, providers and users of generative AI systems are required to comply with existing laws, adhere to social and ethical standards, and refrain from producing or disseminating false or misleading information. Additional rules that took effect on Sept. 1, 2025, require online platforms to clearly label AI-generated content, a measure authorities have said is intended to curb misinformation and maintain order in digital spaces.
Police under Chinese law are permitted to impose administrative detention of up to 15 days for offenses deemed to disrupt public order, a category that includes the fabrication or dissemination of false information online. Such cases are handled outside the criminal court system and do not require formal prosecution.
According to a statement the Chengdu Public Security Bureau’s Chenghua branch released, police opened an investigation after receiving public reports that online accounts were spreading false information about the city. Authorities said officers collected evidence shortly afterward and placed the two individuals under administrative detention.
The detentions are not an isolated case.
The Washington Blade in July 2025 reported a Chinese female writer was arrested and subjected to a strip search after publishing gay erotic fiction online. At least 30 other writers — most of them women in their 20s — in the months that followed publicly described similar encounters with law enforcement, including home raids and questioning related to their online writing.
ShanghaiPRIDE, a Chinese LGBTQ advocacy group that organized annual Pride events in the city, has remained indefinitely suspended since 2021. In the same period, dozens of LGBTQ-focused accounts have been removed from WeChat, China’s largest social media platform, as authorities intensified oversight of online content related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
Authorities in 2021 detained the founder of LGBT Rights Advocacy China. They later released them on the condition that he shut down the organization, which ceased operations shortly afterward.
China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 when it removed consensual same-sex sexual relations from the country’s criminal code. The Chinese Society of Psychiatry in 2001 formally removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Despite those changes, same-sex relationships remain unrecognized under Chinese law, and there are no legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Public advocacy for LGBTQ rights remains tightly restricted, with authorities continuing to limit community organizing, public events and online expression related to sexual minority issues.
Within China’s LGBTQ community, transgender and gender non-conforming people remain among the most vulnerable. Under current regulations, access to gender-affirming surgery is subject to strict requirements, including being at least 18 years old, unmarried, obtaining parental consent and having no criminal record — procedures that are required in order to legally change one’s gender on official documents.
China’s system of online governance places responsibility on both users and platforms to prevent the spread of prohibited content. Social media companies are required to conduct real-name verification, monitor user activity and remove posts that violate regulations, while individuals can be punished for content authorities determine to have caused public misunderstanding or social disruption.
“Actually, at least three similar incidents have occurred in Chengdu recently, all involving netizens posting on social media linking Chengdu with homosexuality, resulting in legal repercussions. This isn’t just about giant pandas. I think the local police’s reaction was somewhat excessive,” said Renn Hao, a Chinese queer activist. “The content was actually praising Chengdu’s inclusivity, and there was no need to punish them with regulations like ‘maliciously spreading false information.’”
“This situation reflects the strict censorship of LGBT related content in the area,” they added. “This censorship makes LGBT-related content increasingly invisible, and people are even more afraid to post or mention it. This not only impacts the LGBTQ+ community in China but also hinders public understanding and awareness of this group.”
Advocacy groups are demanding the Trump-Vance administration not to deport two gay men to Iran.
MS Now on Jan. 23 reported the two men are among the 40 Iranian nationals who the White House plans to deport.
Iran is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
The Washington Blade earlier this month reported LGBTQ Iranians have joined anti-government protests that broke out across the country on Dec. 28. Human rights groups say the Iranian government has killed thousands of people since the demonstrations began.
Rebekah Wolf of the American Immigration Council, which represents the two men, told MS Now her clients were scheduled to be on a deportation flight on Jan. 25. A Human Rights Campaign spokesperson on Tuesday told the Blade that one of the men “was able to obtain a temporary stay of removal from the” 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the other “is facing delayed deportation as the result of a measles outbreak at the facility where they’re being held.”
“My (organization, the American Immigration Council) represents those two gay men,” said American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick in a Jan. 23 post on his Bluesky account. “They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump (administration) denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.”
“They are terrified,” added Reichlin-Melnick.
My org @immcouncil.org represents those two gay men. They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump admin denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.
They are terrified.
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:26 AM
Reichlin-Melnick in a second Bluesky post said “deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act.”
“That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights,” he added.
Deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act. That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights. www.ms.now/news/trump-d…
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:27 AM
HRC Vice President of Government Affairs David Stacy in a statement to the Blade noted Iran “is one of 12 nations that still execute queer people, and we continue to fear for their safety.” Stacy also referenced Renee Good, a 37-year-old lesbian woman who a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, and Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador last year.
“This out-of-control administration continues to target immigrants and terrorize our communities,” said Stacy. “That same cruelty murdered Renee Nicole Good and imprisoned Andry Hernández Romero. We stand with the American Immigration Council and demand that these men receive the due process they deserve. Congress must refuse to fund this outrage and stand against the administration’s shameless dismissal of our constitutional rights.”
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