More states ban conversion therapy
Jurisdictions take aim at discredited treatment to alter sexual orientation
A record number of jurisdictions this year are taking aim at conversion therapy for minors: an attempt to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity through tactics as obvious as hypnosis or as subtle as inducing shame.
Almost 50 bills have been introduced in 24 states targeting conversion therapy, which has been discredited by dozens of medical associations and child-welfare institutions. On Tuesday, 11 of them — including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Counseling Association — released a letter urging states to make such bills a priority.
“Being LGBTQ is not an illness,” said Xavier Persad, legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ rights advocacy group.
Momentum has been building in legislative sessions this spring for the bans, which prohibit state-licensed mental health professionals from practicing conversion therapy for anyone under 18. On March 28, Washington state became the 11th state plus the District of Columbia to enact a law or regulations. California was the first in 2012. And on April 4, Maryland lawmakers passed a ban that Gov. Larry Hogan has indicated he will sign.
More than 40 municipal bans and resolutions condemning the practice are also on the books in cities and counties — in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Washington, Arizona and New York — seven of which passed this year.
Last year, two conversion therapy bans were signed into law by GOP governors. “This is something that is bipartisan and should be,” Persad said.
Opponents of such bans say there is no precedent to outlaw conversion therapy. “We think people should have the freedom to pursue their own goals in therapy, and therapists should be free to assist them,” said Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council.
But proponents says the consequences on young people are devastating. Persad recites a laundry list of cascading harms: depression, anxiety, homelessness, suicide.
“I don’t even like the term because it legitimizes it as an actual therapy when it isn’t,” said Scott Leibowitz, medical director of Behavioral Health for the THRIVE Gender Program at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
In earlier days, therapists may have used more blatant tactics such as triggering nausea while showing a young
person a homoerotic image or applying electric shocks.
Aspects of conversion therapy now are more understated, Leibowitz said. There can be conventional counseling or even aversion therapy, such as having the person snap an elastic band around a wrist when aroused by same-sex photos. “Even a negative facial reaction that a therapist might make when a youth declares a certain sexual attraction can induce shame and perpetuate the notion that ‘there is something wrong with me,’ ” Leibowitz said.
Despite the legislative momentum, young people remain vulnerable. At least 20,000 LGBTQ people ages 13 to 17 will undergo conversion therapy from a licensed health care professional before the age of 18, according to a 2018 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA. And about 57,000 will receive treatment from a religious or spiritual adviser, the think tank found.
For Randy Thomas, 49, of Orlando, the issue is raw. After Thomas came out in 1987 at 19, his mother kicked him out and he moved in with a drag queen who happened to be Christian.
He warmed to the faith and became Christian at 24 in 1992 and “got involved in the conservative side of things pretty quickly.” From 2002 to
2013, Thomas worked with Exodus International, a now-defunct group whose mission was to steer gay Christians into a “straight” life.
His work with Exodus took Thomas down a dark path by a group that actively promoted what it called “reparative therapy.”
Thomas hit the breaking point in
2013 when a friend of 23 years who had gone to an Exodus support group Thomas led came back out as gay — and committed suicide because he couldn’t reconcile his faith and his identity as a gay man.
“I was just wailing. I lost it,” Thomas recalled. “I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ ” Thomas, who had risen to the position of executive vice president of the group, decided with others that Exodus needed to be shut down. In the aftermath, he lost all of his Christian and conservative friends.
Then Thomas took an extraordinary step: He reached out to gay activists who had been adversaries in his time with Exodus, and he finally found the peace he sought for so many years.
“They were so life-giving to me,” he said. Thomas came out again in 2015 with a new revelation that it was possible to have a strong faith in God — and be gay.
His simple message for young LGBTQ people: “They can be healthy and whole — and believers.”