Lyon elected officials join the million Europeans calling for a ban on conversion therapy

A symbolic milestone was reached on Friday, May 16. As the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia is celebrated today, a petition led by the association Against Conversion Therapy (ACT), calling for a ban on conversion therapy against LGBTQIA+ people in Europe, has reached one million signatures.

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Several Lyon political figures have also shared the petition on their social media. This is particularly the case for the Green mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet, who is calling for support "in numbers for the end of conversion therapy in the European Union, to restore to everyone the dignity they deserve," and for the Green president of the Lyon Metropolis, Bruno Bernard. The LFI MP for the Rhône, Anaïs Belouassa Cherifi, also welcomed this large-scale mobilization. "The mobilization is paying off," she declared. She added: "We're not giving up: aiming for 1,200,000 signatures to ensure the petition's validity!"

With the threshold of one million signatures now reached, the European Commission must now respond to this, although there is no legal obligation to transform it into a new European legal act. As the ILGA association points out, only eight countries, including France, currently prohibit conversion therapy in Europe. These therapies claim, in particular, to be able to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender, equating homosexuality with an illness.