Conversion Therapy Ban

Conversion Therapy Ban Talking Points

• Conversion therapy is fraudulent, dangerous, and inflicts immeasurable harm on its victims

• So-called “reparative therapy” is a debunked practice that purports to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.

• Not only is it ineffective in actually changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, it puts LGBTQ youth and their families at risk.

• Conversion therapy can be extremely dangerous and, in some cases, fatal.

• Minors are especially vulnerable to the dangers of conversion therapy, which has been tragically proven to lead to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness, self-harm and suicide.

• Research shows that lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults who reported higher levels of family rejection during adolescence were more than eight times more likely to report having attempted suicide, more than five times more likely to report high levels of depression, and more than three times more likely to use illegal drugs compared with their peers.

• No reputable research has found that conversion therapy can be effective - so-called reparative therapy practices have been debunked by every mainstream medical and mental health organization - including the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

• LGBTQ youth are born perfect, and all of them deserve to grow up knowing they are celebrated and valued for exactly who they are.

Medical and Psychiatric Associations on Conversion Therapy

-American Psychological Association “advises parents, guardians, young people, and their families to avoid sexual orientation change efforts that portray homosexuality as a mental illness or developmental disorder and to seek psychotherapy, social support, and educational services that provide accurate information on sexual orientation and sexuality, increase family and school support, and reduce rejection of sexual minority youth.”

-The American Psychiatric Association “opposes any psychiatric treatment such as reparative or conversion therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that a patient should change his/her sexual homosexual orientation.”

-The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated: “Therapy directed at specifically changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation.”

-The Pan American Health Organization, a regional office of the World Health Organization, has stated that these practices “lack medical justification and represent a serious threat to the health and well-being of affected people.”

-World Psychiatric Association “considers same-sex attraction, orientation, and behaviour as normal variants of human sexuality... It acknowledges the lack of scientific efficacy of treatments that attempt to change sexual orientation and highlights the harm and adverse effects of such ‘therapies’.”

Other Resources: 

Downloadable Testimony Sheet to help you share your story.