This Tuesday, the Ministry of Equality opened a sanctioning file following the complaint filed by the Association against Conversion Therapies against seven Spanish dioceses for hosting this type of practices aimed at trying to modify sexual orientation or gender identity. The complaint was filed on December 30 and it accuses the dioceses of Madrid, Barcelona, Alcalá de Henares, Getafe, Valencia, Sigüenza-Guadalajara and Málaga, in addition to individuals, a company and a foundation, of violating what is known as the Trans Law.
The department led by Ana Redondo, who has met with the lawyer and president of the entity, Saúl Castro, “will analyze the content” of the complaint with the objective “of studying the actions to be promoted within the framework of its powers.” , the ministry explained through a press release.
The complaint is for the “active commission” or omission of “very serious” administrative infractions of Law 4/2023 for the real and effective equality of trans people and for the guarantee of the rights of LGTBI people, which for the first time At the state level, it pursues “the promotion or practice” of this type of methods or programs “regardless of the consent that their victims or their legal representatives may have given.” The rule considers it a very serious infraction with fines ranging from 10,001 to 150,000 euros.
The complaint indicates that the project Transformedwhich, according to the association, has been brought to at least 13 parishes between 2023 and 2024. “This is an initiative that has also promoted documentaries for the practice of conversion with the idea that homosexuality is not an orientation natural sexual nature, but is the result of different traumas in the development of identity and maturity,” Castro stated at the time, who assures that the initiative consists of homosexual people living “in chastity” and carrying out daily religious practices, including reading the Bible, daily prayers, attending mass and confession, so that “the love you seek in people of your same gender is replaced by the love that God gives you.”
In the complaint, several members of the most ultra sector of the Church appear and who seek to stop any hint of opening within it. For their part, the bishops of Madrid and Barcelona have distanced themselves from the therapies and have assured that they have not given permission for them to be carried out.
The details of the complaint were shared this Tuesday in the meeting held with representatives of the ministry, among them, the general director for real and effective equality of LGTBI+ people, Julio del Valle, who highlighted “the need to open a debate “about what conversion therapies mean” and has focused on the effects they have: “They can have psychological consequences throughout life, affecting their emotional-sexual life,” he said at the end of the meeting.
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