Pennsylvania taking step in right direction by limiting conversion therapy
Time and plenty of trial and error have demonstrated that bloodletting is no cure for anyone suffering a serious illness, and is far more likely to make matters much, much worse.
Lobotomizing individuals with mental illnesses and disabilities has long been discredited. The same goes for unleashing tapeworms into someone’s intestines to promote weight loss.
It’s time that another discredited and harmful practice be placed in history’s dustbin – conversion therapy targeting LGBTQ people.
In reality, “therapy” should probably be placed in quotation marks. Rather than offering anything of actual therapeutic value, conversion therapy and its push to “cure” gay, lesbian and transgender individuals has been shown to cause vastly more harm than good, particularly when it is applied to young people. After all, conversion therapy is based on the assumption that being gay, lesbian or transgender is something “wrong” that needs to be fixed – that it’s an illness, not just a part of being a human being.
Recently, Gov. Tom Wolf took a necessary step toward protecting Pennsylvanians from conversion therapy. He issued an executive order directing agencies within the commonwealth to discourage conversion therapy and ensure taxpayer dollars are not being channeled to anything associated with it. Though it doesn’t ban the practice entirely – faith-based institutions are not covered in the executive order – it restricts it, making Pennsylvania the 27th state to do so.
Wolf explained, “Conversion therapy is a traumatic practice based on junk science that actively harms the people it supposedly seeks to treat. This discriminatory practice is widely rejected by medical and scientific professionals and has been proven to lead to worse mental health outcomes for … youth subjected to it. This is about keeping our children safe from bullying and extreme practices that harm them.”
One study reported that 13% of LGBTQ youth reported being subjected to conversion therapy, and the lion’s share of those were under 18. The same study also showed that LGBTQ youth were more than twice as likely to have recently attempted suicide. And conversion therapy comes with a hefty price tag – it’s estimated that adverse mental health impacts and substance abuse that can arise from it costs America more than $9 billion annually.
Wolf’s executive order arrives at a moment when open homophobia appears to be making something of a comeback. Lawmakers in Florida approved a law earlier this year that limits classroom discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity to the point that some teachers are unsure whether they can safely mention or display photos of their same-sex spouses. Some states are looking to copy it. Even worse, some on the right are resurrecting the calumny that LGBTQ people and those who support them are “groomers” out to molest children. This is a crude, ugly stereotype that should have been buried decades ago.
There are infinitely better therapeutic approaches out there – namely, those that accept and support LGBTQ people for who they are, without apologies.