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TOPIC: lgbti

LGBTQ Plus

Where Conversion Therapy Is Banned, And Where Its Practices Are Ever More Extreme

After almost five years of promises, the UK government says it will again introduce legislation to ban conversion therapy — and in a policy shift, the proposed law would include therapies designed for transgender people.

Conversion therapy, which includes a range of practices that aim to change someone’s sexuality or gender identity, has long been controversial. Many in the LGBTQ community consider it outright evil.

As the practice has spread, often pushed on young people by homophobic family members, there has been a worldwide push to make conversion therapy illegal, with the UK as the latest country set to ban such practices as electric shocks, aversion therapy and a variety of other traumatic, dangerous techniques to try to change someone's sexual preferences or gender identity.

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The British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy, the professional body which governs therapists in the UK, calls the practice “unethical (and) potentially harmful.”

In France, journalists have documented many healthcare professionals offering the pseudoscientific practice. In one case, a self-described “LGBT-friendly” therapist offered to “cure” a young lesbian through so-called "rebirth therapy," a dangerous practice that was banned in some U.S. states after unlicensed therapists killed a 10-year-old girl during a session.

For one Canadian man, therapy included prescription medication and weekly ketamine injections to “correct the error” of his homosexuality, all under the guidance of a licensed psychiatrist. Some people are forced into treatment against their will — often minors — but most of the time, those who receive conversion therapy do so willingly.

The UK announcement of plans to ban conversion therapy for England and Wales comes after four separate British prime ministers had promised, for almost five years, to ban the practice.

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LGBTQ+ Seniors In Mexico: Between Aging, Identity And Isolation

Growing old in Mexico brings uncertainty, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. However, being LGBTQ+ brings additional challenges, which the pandemic accentuated.

MEXICO CITY — Mario is 69 years old. He found a new sense of peace 13 years ago, materialized in a birth certificate that finally reflected a truth he had always known but struggled to put into words: "I am a trans man."

“I feel like a survivor of many things," he says. "Believe me that the new life challenges no longer harm me. I think that I have already gone through all the ugly things of life, all the ignorance, all the pain, the sadness, and everything else. For me what follows is to say: ‘of course I can!’.”

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Smartphone App For Gays Banned In Turkey, Prostitution Cited

ISTANBUL — The battle over gay rights in Turkey is now centered around a smartphone app.

A Turkish court has banned the application Grindr, which gives gay men a way to meet and share information, on grounds of obscenity and misuse of personal information. The ban went into effect last month after the 14th Anatolia Criminal Court of Istanbul ruled in favor of an anonymous complainant who charged Grindr with using his personal data without consent. The court described the app as “a friendship website that has gay members,” and “features prostitution and obscenity.”

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Gays, Lesbians And "Marriages Of Formality" In China

It's a weekend morning. Y, a lesbian woman, changes out of her usual masculine attire and puts on an elaborate woman's outfit to go and visit the parents of A, a homosexual man. The visit is to inform the parents that Y and A are getting married, and hope that they will approve of their marriage.

This kind of marriage is called Xinghun, literally meaning a marriage of formality in Chinese. It can involve little of any true substance. Both Y and A respectively have had hid a girlfriend and boyfriend for years, while being constantly pressured by their parents to get married.

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LGBTQ Plus
Santiago Valenzuela

Being LGBT In Colombia: Victims Of Hatred, Casualties Of Civil War

BOGOTA — The LGBTI community (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual/Transgender and Intersexual) in Colombia has suffered disappearances, forced migrations, mutilations, humiliation and abuse.

The phrase "damaged bodies, silent crimes' has come to be used by this community to describe their suffering often made even worse by the civil war that has torn Colombia apart over the past decades.

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