A/HRC/44/53 cent of victims), suicidal attempts (2.9 per cent), depression (5.9 per cent), anxiety (6.3 per cent), shame (6.1 per cent), self-hatred (4.1 per cent) and loss of faith (3.5 per cent).4 20. The term “therapy”, derived from the Greek, denotes “healing”. Practices of “conversion therapy” are however the contrary, relying on the medically false pathologization of sexual orientation and gender identity, manifested through interventions that inflict severe pain and suffering and result in psychological and physical damage. In 2012, the Pan American Health Organization noted that “conversion therapies” had no medical justification and represented a severe threat to the health and human rights of the affected persons,5 and in 2016, the World Psychiatric Association found that “there is no sound scientific evidence that innate sexual orientation can be changed”,6 conclusions supported by the consensus of professional associations around the world. 7 21. It is generally unethical for health-care professionals to purport to treat anything that is not a disorder, 8 and they are compelled by the “do no harm” principle not to offer treatments that are recognized as ineffective or purport to achieve unattainable results. 9 For those and other reasons, the Independent Forensic Expert Group of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, a group of preeminent international medicolegal specialists from 23 countries, has declared that offering “conversion therapy” is a form of deception, false advertising and fraud. 10 22. The pathologization of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities is the result of historical processes, as previously identified by the Independent Expert (see A/73/152). 11 In the late 19th century, scientists began to scrutinize – and eventually classified as illnesses – behaviours considered morally unacceptable, including homosexuality and transvestism, 12 and theorized possible cures for them. Most schools within psychology and psychiatry, bolstered by the mental disorder classifications of the 1940s to early 1970s, operated as providers of “conversion therapy”.13 23. From the mid-20th century, sexual and gender diversity began to be recognized as part of the normal range of human development,14 a process that gained coherence with their removal as mental health diagnoses under international classifications. 15 Understanding of and opposition to the often severe physical and psychological harm caused by practices of “conversion therapy” also began to increase. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Submission by LGBT Foundation. See also OutRight Action International, “Harmful treatment: the global reach of so-called conversion therapy”, 2019. Available at outrightinternational.org/reports/global-reach-so-called-conversion-therapy. See www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=17703. See https://3ba346de-fde6-473f-b1da-98661f9c.filesusr.com/ugd/e172f3_e7d4dac33acd 4000921b942f7ec70df0. pdf. See www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2816%2900013-1; http://media.mlive.com/news/detroit_impact/other/APA_position_conversion%20therapy.pdf; www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/therapeutic-response.pdf; and Lucas Ramón Mendos (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association World), “Curbing deception: a world survey on legal regulation of so-called ‘conversion therapies’”, 2020 Available at ilga.org/Conversiontherapy-global-research-ILGA-World. See www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5032493/. See www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-geneva/; and www.wma.net/policies-post/wmainternational-code-of-medical-ethics/. See www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1752928X20300366. See also www.researchgate.net/publication/282671297_The_legacy_of_medicalising _’homosexuality’_A_discussion_on_the_historical_effects_of_non-heterosexual_diagnostic_ classifications. Jack Drescher, “Queer diagnoses: parallels and contrasts in the history of homosexuality, gender variance, and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual”, Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 39. See ilga.org/Conversion-therapy-global-research-ILGA-World. Carl G. Streed and others., “Changing medical practice, not patients - putting an end to conversion therapy”, The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 381. A/73/152, paras. 10–16. 5