In the first of our new series of Intersections reports, we examine the exposure of LGBTIQ people in Europe to conversion practices, drawing on data from the FRA LGBTIQ III Survey (2023).
For the first time, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) included questions on conversion practices in its 2023 LGBTIQ III Survey. The survey gathered responses from more than 100,000 LGBTIQ people across the 27 EU Member States, as well as Albania, North Macedonia, and Serbia, offering unprecedented insight into the prevalence and nature of these harmful practices in Europe.
Two questions were used to capture respondents’ experiences. The first asked whether individuals had been subjected to experiences that could amount to conversion practices, including intervention by family members; prayer, religious rituals, or religious counselling; psychological or psychiatric treatment; medication; physical violence; sexual violence; or verbal abuse and humiliation. The second question explored consent, asking whether respondents had freely consented, consented due to pressure or threats, or had not consented at all.
This briefing examines the responses to these two questions in depth. It assesses how likely different groups of LGBTIQ people are to experience conversion practices and explores the links between exposure to such practices and other forms of marginalisation. The findings shed light on the scale, characteristics, and wider impacts of conversion practices on the lives and wellbeing of LGBTIQ people across Europe.
Conversion practices, previously also called so-called “conversion therapies” are interventions which purport to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of a person. These have regularly been described as harmful practices and they may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
