Senate set to pass ban on gay conversion therapy

The Netherlands is on course to outlaw gay conversion therapy after a Senate majority emerged in favor of a ban during a debate on Tuesday. A final vote is due on June 9.

The bill cleared the lower house of parliament last September, so approval by the upper house would make it law.

It would become a criminal offence to subject gay or transgender people to treatment, including faith-healing, intended to change or suppress their sexual orientation or gender identity. Punishments could range up to a year in prison.

The bill is a cross-party initiative led by five MPs, from centrist social liberal D66, the right-wing liberal VVD, the left-wing Progressief Nederland, the socialist SP and the animal rights party PvdD. Before the debate, the LGBTI rights group COC Nederland handed senators a petition signed by 8,000 people urging them to back it.

About 15 individuals and organisations are thought to offer the practice in the Netherlands, mostly within orthodox religious communities where being gay or transgender is regarded as an illness, according to research in 2020 for the health ministry.

What would count as a crime

The plan nearly failed. The Council of State warned in 2023 that a blanket ban would be hard to enforce and could compromise religious freedoms. Many instances of conversion therapy are also already prosecutable under laws against coercive behaviour.

The sponsors then narrowed the bill so that only intrusive, systematic attempts to change someone’s orientation are criminal.

An occasional conversation with a member of the clergy or a youth worker would not be, and faith schools would keep the freedom to teach their own beliefs. Disapproval of homosexuality, for example, would not be an offence, said VVD MP Bente Becker, one of the sponsors.

Where the parties stand

The compromise brought round earlier critics including the Christian Democrats (CDA) and NSC. But the farmer-citizen movement BBB, which backed the bill in the lower house, has withdrawn its support in the Senate, now citing the Council of State’s original objections.

The remaining opposition is the far-right PVV, Forum for Democracy (FVD), the reformed Protestant SGP and the Christian Union, along with BBB.

The SGP and Christian Union frame their objections around religious freedom and pastoral care rather than as a defence of the practice. An attempt to refer the amended bill back to the Council of State failed for want of support.

The cabinet is in favour: justice minister David van Weel told senators he had no major concerns about enforceability and that the bill fitted the coalition agreement.

Push for a global ban

The United Nations has called for conversion therapy to be banned worldwide. In a 2020 report, its independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity concluded that the practice inflicts severe pain and suffering, is inherently discriminatory and, when forced, can amount to torture.

The Dutch research linked it to depression and suicidal thoughts, though it could not gauge how often the practice occurs.

Attempts to measure the harm have been made abroad: a US study by the Williams Institute at UCLA found that gay, lesbian and bisexual people who had undergone conversion therapy were almost twice as likely to consider or attempt suicide as those who had not.