Homosexuality has not been regarded as a disorder in the mainstream West for decades, yet the debate has resurfaced in Spain, a country which has been at the forefront of gay rights.

A clinic in the north-eastern region of Catalonia is under investigation for allegedly offering treatments to “cure” homosexuality, the regional authorities announced – and the clinic is reportedly not the only one of its kind in Spain.

There is no scientific evidence of homosexuality being a disease, Catalan regional Health Minister Marina Geli said.

If the investigation confirmed that the clinic in Barcelona tried to change the sexual orientation of gays, it would face a fine, she said.

The United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders two decades ago, but a very small minority of Spanish mental health professionals continues to differ.

“Nobody wants to be a homosexual, it just happens to people,” said psychiatrist Joaquin Munoz, who works at the clinic that the authorities are investigating.

“If (gays) could change their sexual orientation with a pill, 99 per cent would take it,” Munoz told the daily Periodico de Catalunya.

The Barcelona clinic, which allegedly treats homosexuality with therapy and medication, is not the only one to offer such treatment in Spain.

“We know of many cases of people who undergo such treatments and then repent,” but do not lodge complaints about such practices, said Miguel Gonzalez from the Collective of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals in Madrid.

Many of the gays seeking such treatments are believed to be religious people trying to adapt to the teachings of the Catholic Church, which regards homosexuality as being against the Bible, or of other denominations.

Some of the “treatments” that were earlier given to Spanish gays included prayer, having sex with women and causing themselves physical pain – for instance by pulling on a rubber band which had been placed around the wrist – when feeling attracted to a member of the same sex, the daily El Pais reported.

“It was terrible,” said Jose L., a 35-year-old who had treatment that included weekly therapy sessions and spending time with people claiming to be an ex-gay three years ago.

“It amounted to brainwashing,” he told El Pais. “I thought I was sick and felt guilty.”

“Homosexuality cannot be cured,” and attempts to do so “cause depression, self-destructive behaviour, anxiety and can lead to suicide,” psychologist Silvia Morell said.

Despite such evidence, a high-level Catalan politician sided with the Barcelona clinic.

Why should homosexuals not be allowed to try to change in a society which sees “sexuality as a changeable … option,” Josep Antoni Duran Lleida, secretary general of the large Catalan regionalist formation CiU, wrote in an apparent reference to practices such as sex change operations.

Duran Lleida denied regarding homosexuality as a disease, but his comments nevertheless sparked protests by leftist parties which slammed them as “backward.”

Formerly know as a conservative Catholic country, Spain has changed radically since the 1939-75 rule of dictator Francisco Franco, when homosexuality was outlawed, and thousands of gays were detained or placed in institutions for the mentally deranged.

In 2005, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero´s socialist government became one of the first in the world to grant homosexuals full marriage rights, including the right to adopt children.

More than 15,000 gay couples have wed since the reform, which faced vehement opposition from Spain´s Catholic Church.

Spain also allows transsexuals to change names without undergoing sex change operations, and some regions finance such operations from public coffers.

“Being homosexual is not something one chooses or suffers from,” said Jordi Arcarons, spokesman for the gay association Convergais. “One simply is gay, and that is it,” he added.

via Debate about homosexuality ‘disorder’ resurfaces in Spain – Feature | Earth Times News.