Bills creating a criminal offence for so-called conversion therapies
File 122/000201 · 122/000167 · tabled on June 6, 2025
What it proposes
To create a specific offence for practices aimed at changing, suppressing or denying a person’s sexual orientation, sexual identity or gender expression. Two parallel bills propose different solutions: file 122/000201 would insert section 173 bis of the Criminal Code and file 122/000167 a section 175 bis. They are at different stages: the status shown at the top of this page is that of file 122/000201 (Senate); file 122/000167 is still awaiting the plenary vote on whether to take it into consideration (checked on 5 September 2026).
Parliamentary stage
- Current stage
- Under consideration in the Senate
- Checked on
- File number
- 122/000201 · 122/000167
The stage shown is the one recorded in the Congress open data on the date indicated. A bill in progress is not law: until it is eventually published in the official state gazette, the text in force set out below applies.
What would change, section by section
On the left, the text in force checked against the consolidated version; on the right, what the tabled text says.
Art. 173 bis CP (nuevo, expediente 122/000201)
Text in force
It does not exist. Such conduct is currently prosecuted, depending on the facts, as an offence against moral integrity under section 173.1 or as the injuries or coercion involved.
Text as tabled
Six months to two years’ imprisonment for anyone applying aversion or conversion methods —psychological, physical, pharmacological or otherwise— that affect bodily integrity or health or seriously harm moral integrity. The upper half applies where the victim is a minor, where violence, intimidation, deceit or abuse of a position of superiority is used, where the offender belongs to an organisation devoted to it, or where there is a profit motive. The same penalties reach parents, guardians or carers who consent to or facilitate it, with possible disqualification from parental authority for up to five years; disqualification from teaching-related work, and a six-month to two-year fine for a liable legal person.
Art. 510.5 CP (expediente 122/000201)
Text in force
Subsection 5 imposes, in hate-crime cases, disqualification from teaching, sports and leisure work.
Text as tabled
The subsection would be rewritten so that the disqualification lasts between three and five years longer than the custodial sentence imposed, having regard to gravity and the number of offences.
Art. 175 bis CP (nuevo, expediente 122/000167)
Text in force
It does not exist. Section 175 currently punishes attacks on moral integrity committed by a public authority or official.
Text as tabled
One to four years’ imprisonment and an eight to twenty-four month fine for anyone practising such therapies, referring someone for them, forcing a person to undergo them or allowing them in a setting under their supervision; a higher penalty band where the victim is a minor or particularly vulnerable. The text defines the conduct and carves out support that does not seek to change or suppress orientation, identity or gender expression.
Who it affects
Anyone offering or carrying out such treatments and the bodies organising them, and also victims, who currently have to fit the facts into general offences.
Related pages
Source: the text published in the official parliamentary gazette and the Congress of Deputies open data on legislative initiatives. Informational content; it does not replace the study of a specific case.
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