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Published on: 06/04/2026 - 17:47
Electric shocks, forced hormones, legal ruqyah, religious rituals... practices that are still practiced today in the name of “therapy.” So-called “conversion therapies” claim to change sexual orientation and “cure” gay people, while UN experts have described them as potentially amounting to torture. Is homosexuality a disease that needs treatment? Or is trying to "cure" it the real problem? Questions asked by Salma Bungara to the guests of this episode of “In the Orbit of the Forbidden” ✦ Testimony of a journalist who conducted an investigation into conversion therapies and went through this experience himself, to reveal what really happens behind closed doors ✦ A psychiatrist explains why these practices are criminalized in a number of countries and what are their long-term psychological effects ✦ Why is the controversy still continuing in the Arab world? ✦ Families: victims of fear and stigma or parties to the suffering? ✦ Is it possible to recover from the effects of these experiences after years? Personal testimony, scientific data, and questions spark widespread debate about one of the most sensitive and divisive issues in our societies.
What are “conversion therapies”
“You're going to be heterosexual, son.”
A short sentence, but it summarizes the experience of thousands of young men and women in the Arab world and beyond, who found themselves faced with an imposed choice: either change, or be treated.
Conversion therapies, or what their proponents call “rehabilitation,” are a group of practices that aim to change the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians. Over the decades, these practices have taken many forms: from forced electric shocks and hormonal treatments in the medical setting, to ruqyah and faith rituals in the religious setting. What unites them all is the idea that homosexuality is a mistake that must be corrected.
Conversion therapy is not a single practice, but rather three categories documented before the UN Human Rights Council:
The unified result for all these categories? It is not a change in sexual orientation, because that has not happened in any scientifically documented case, but a series of profound psychological damage: self-loathing, chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal thoughts.
Mental health experts describe these practices as not changing a person, but rather teaching him to hate what he cannot change.
Conversion Therapies: What Does Medicine Say?
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Since then, international medical organizations have continued to reject conversion therapies as scientifically baseless and even documentedly harmful.
In 2020, Victor Madrigal, the independent UN expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, submitted his report to the Human Rights Council, deeming these practices “discriminatory in nature, and may amount to torture depending on their severity and the physical and psychological pain they inflict on the victim.”
However, these practices still occur in medical clinics, religious sessions, and closed rooms.
Europe criminalizes... but it cannot impose
At the legal level, several European countries have taken legislative steps to ban and criminalize conversion therapies: Malta in 2016, Germany in 2020, France in 2022, Greece in 2022, Belgium in 2023, Spain in 2023, and Portugal in 2024.
However, the European Commission, despite its continuous call for member states to take a unified position, was unable to impose a mandatory ban at the union level due to legal obstacles related to the powers of member states. Brussels wants but cannot oblige.
On the other hand, the US Supreme Court’s decision in March 2025 was shocking, when it ruled that the Colorado state law prohibiting these practices was unconstitutional, based on freedom of expression, in a precedent that casts a shadow over the process of international criminalization.
In the Arab world: They do not call it a treatment
In the Arab context, conversion therapies do not have the same name nor the same form. There are no declared clinics or documented institutions in most countries, but the practice exists: within the family, through sheikhs and religious guides, and sometimes with the complicity of doctors who respond to pressure from families.
What makes the situation more complex in this context is that homosexuality is legally criminalized in most Arab countries, which makes talking about the victims almost impossible because the victim herself is at risk of legal prosecution if she speaks.
Episode guests:
- Bouhdid Belhadi, Executive Director of the “Shams” Association in Tunisia - Paris - France
- Professor Sami Risha, Psychiatrist - Beirut - Lebanon
- Raphael Abdel Nour, former journalist and comedian - Paris - France
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