The Resurrection of Conversion Therapy

States are overturning laws that prohibit this kind of therapy for minors

This week on The Suburban Women Problem we chatted with Vanessa Joy, host of the podcast Transcending Humanity and Co-Executive Director of Ohio Equal Rights. Vanessa is a powerful trans rights advocate at a time when an anti-LGBTQ+ crusade has erupted in the US over the last few years.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Episode 3 in Season 1 of our limited series podcast, The Cost of Extremism, where we explore the flood of state-level efforts to restrict transgender rights. We also take a look at how the political debate is escalating at a dangerous rate, putting the physical and mental health of trans youth at risk.

One way this is happening is through conversion therapy. 

Conversion therapy refers to a range of dangerous and discredited practices aimed at changing one’s sexual orientation or gender identity and it often takes the form of verbal counseling. The American Psychological Association (APA) has concluded that conversion therapy lacks “sufficient bases in scientific principles” and that people who have undergone it are “significantly more likely to experience suicidality and depression.” 

As a country, we were making good progress in the 2010’s when eighteen states and dozens of local governments passed laws forbidding mental health professionals from attempting conversion therapy on minors. 

In 2015, former Governor of Oregon Kate Brown, became emotional as she signed the Youth Mental Health Protection Act which prohibits licensed therapists from using conversion therapy on minors. Brown said "There are many things that young people need, but breaking them down based on their sexual or gender identity is not one of them -- and in fact, it's inexcusable."

Yet by 2020, all of that progress seems to have come to a halt as Republican state legislatures started passing laws targeting transgender and nonbinary children at school—restricting their access to bathrooms, barring them from participating in sports, and stopping educators from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity. The most intense attacks have banned doctors from providing treatments for gender dysphoria even though these treatments are backed by all major US medical associations. Over 100,000 trans youth live in states where access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy has been wiped out.

Madison Pauly, a reporter at Mother Jones recently published a feature called “First They Tried to “Cure” Gayness. Now They’re Fixated on “Healing” Trans People. Inside the movement to resurrect conversion therapy.” 

In it she talks about how she received leaked emails illustrating how anti-trans laws are crafted and pushed by a network of anti-trans activists and powerful Christian-right organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom. 

Alliance is trying to resurrect conversion therapy by overturning laws that prohibit this kind of therapy for minors. This push to overturn conversion therapy bans is being fueled by the rise of anti-trans politics, which maintains that trans teenagers are simply troubled and need help to embrace the sex they were assigned at birth. 

In a handful of states (like Indiana), they’ve started winning.

In 2023, Indiana passed a law halting enforcement of local bans. Senate Bill 350 prohibits local governments from enforcing any sort of ban on services provided by social workers, marriage and family therapists, addiction counselors or mental health counselors — including conversion therapy. The new law went into effect upon passage.

This year, legislators in two more states, Iowa and West Virginia, introduced similar bills.

There are those who not only see being trans as a problem, but they see conversion therapy as a solution even though there is clear evidence that conversion therapy does not work, and that it is harmful to LGBTQ+ people. A peer-reviewed study by The Trevor Project’s researchers, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that LGBTQ+ youth who underwent conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to report having attempted suicide and more than 2.5 times as likely to report multiple suicide attempts in the past year.

We have to say enough is enough. 

Trans people deserve acceptance, support, and love. 

We encourage you to follow friend of The Suburban Women Problem, Erin Reed, to learn more about what bills are targeting trans people and how you can speak out against them.