Bill would ban therapy aimed at ‘converting’ LGBTQ youths
Arizona this year could become the 10th state to bar mental-health professionals from practicing “conversion therapy,” making attempts to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity illegal.
Senate Bill 1160, introduced Friday by Sen. Sean Bowie, would apply “regardless of the willingness of the (minor) or the person’s parent or legal guardian to authorize the conversion therapy.” Regulatory health boards would decide how to punish violators.
Bowie, D-Phoenix, acknowledged that the bill faces an uphill battle in Arizona’s conservative Legislature, despite the wiggle room it allows for religious and other unlicensed groups.
But he said he “wanted to at least introduce something to bring attention to the issue.”
“This bill aims to protect LGBTQ
teenagers from a practice that really is harmful,” he said. “It has been found by a lot of medical groups to not be effective.”
Pima County outlawed paid conversion therapy last year. A December poll conducted by Hart Research Associates found that 59 percent of Arizona voters would back a statewide ban, while 20 percent would not.
Extreme conversiontherapy methods over the years have included administering electric shocks, inducing nausea or vomiting, or snapping elastic bands against the skin to create negative associations with samesex attractions or urges.
More-moderate strategies include hypnosis, instruction in “heterosexual dating skills,” masculinity workshops and spiritual counseling.
People might pursue conversion therapy because they are conflicted about their identities, are desperate to maintain family ties, want to reconcile sexual feelings with their religious faiths, or hope to create “traditional” families of their own.
Though Arizona practitioners and recipients of conversion therapy did not immediately respond to requests for comment, websites for “reparative” groups and professionals displayed testimonials of people who consider themselves “cured” and “ex-gay.” Others wrote that they continued to have unwanted urges but could successfully control them after therapy.
At least nine major health and counseling organizations in the U.S. — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association — have disputed the effectiveness of conversion therapy, however. They say the practice is based on “questionable” science and warn patients of potential harm.
The American Psychiatric Association cites depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior as possible conversiontherapy consequences,
“This bill aims to protect LGBTQ teenagers from a practice that really is harmful.” Sen. Sean Bowie D-Phoenix
“since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce selfhatred.”
The Trevor Project, a national crisis-intervention organization for LGBT youth, also notes “increased depression, increased suicidal ideation and increased substance abuse” in teens facing conversion therapy.
“It not only tears the individual apart, but it can also tear the family apart,” said Sam Brinton, head of advocacy and government affairs for the group. “If we’re going to stop LGBT youth from dying by suicide, then we need to be addressing this.”
Brinton, who was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder after being forced into conversion therapy years ago, has pushed for state-level bans since 2012 on behalf of the Trevor Project.
After a string of defeats in 2014, the effort appears to be gathering momentum throughout the country, with both Republican and Democratic governors signing bans.
Lawmakers in Washington and Virginia introduced conversion-therapy legislation about the time Bowie did in Arizona, Brinton said. The Trevor Project expects at least three other states to propose bans in the coming weeks.
“In addition to the equality or protection argument, there is an economic argument,” Brinton said. “I truly feel that this is consumer fraud if people are stealing money from hardworking Americans with the false hope that they’ll be able to change.”
Legal challenges to conversion-therapy bans in other states, including California and New Jersey, have been defeated, with courts disagreeing that the bans constitute a violation of free-speech or religious rights.