More than a million EU citizens are pressuring the Commission to ban conversion therapies – but the path to a ban is anything but straight.

Conversion therapy, condemned by UN experts as a form of “torture,” encompasses practices that aim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity – typically from non-heterosexual to heterosexual – through psychoanalysis or other methods. A 2024 study by the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) found that 2% of LGBTQ individuals had been subjected to conversion attempts, and 5% had been offered such “therapies.”

Currently, only seven EU countries – including France, Germany, and Belgium – have enacted partial or complete bans. Elsewhere, the practice remains legal or poorly regulated.