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A week after a week, teenage Brandon Long sat through advisory sessions, which, as he said, formulated his identity as a failure.
Currently, the ordained minister in northern Kentucky, Long said Kentucky State Landmakers about years spent on therapy to get rid of his “attractions of the same sex people.”
“Imagine that you were told, the session after the session, that if you remained as you were, you would be rejected,” he said.
He testified for a long time in February before the House Committee in Kentucky against the sponsored by the Republican Bill This would cancel the democratic governor of Andy Beshear 2024 Executive ordinance This banned the controversial practice known as “conversion therapy” of minors.
Conversion therapy is a definition of a controversial efforts to change sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ+people. Sometimes called “reparative therapy”, it may include conversation therapy and religious counseling electric shockscausing pain Aversion therapy AND Physical insulation.
The bill, Long told the legislators: “creates a legal shield for conversion therapy, enabling parents to force their children to practice condemned by every important medical and mental organization around the world.”
The legislator controlled by the Republican Kentucky adopted a bill He crossed the Governor’s veto in March.
Conversion therapy has been condemned by the main medical organizations, including American Medical AssociationIN American Psychological AssociationIN American Psychiatric Association and American Academy of Child and adolescent psychiatrist. They say that this is ineffective and harmful and exposes LGBTQ+ people at the risk of depression, the apply of substances, suicides and other mental health problems.
More than half of the states He banned or circumscribed practice for juvenile patients, because California became the first to do so in 2012, in accordance with the Advancement movement project, a non-profit research organization, which follows the laws and principles related to LGBTQ+.
But political currents change. The conservative majority in the courts, in state legislation and at federal level transformed the legal landscape, opening the door to republican legislators and conservative Christian groups in order to restore practice, which was completely discredited by the medical community.
In March, the Supreme Court of the United States he agreed to hear the case defiant No conversion therapy in Colorado 2019 based on freedom of speech. The decision means a change from 2017When the court refused to hear the challenge for the ban on California and 2023when he refused to hear the challenge for the ban on Washington.
The decision of the Supreme Court, which cannot be expected only next year, may reverse – or strengthen – prohibitions of conversion therapy throughout the country.
Last month, a court in Virginia struck State law prohibiting the therapy of juvenile conversion, victories for conservative Christian organizations. GOP legislators in Michigan introduced a draft act on repealing the ban on the state. AND MissouriThe Republican Prosecutor General filed a lawsuit for the overthrow of local conversion therapy prohibitions.
On the other hand, in Wisconsin, the State Supreme Court He cleaned the way At the beginning of this year, the state may permanently prohibit this practice.
“The world has changed”
While organized attempts to “cure” homosexuality have been existing for centuries, a group of “ex-gers”, which promised to change the sexual orientation of a person in the 1990s, when political debates appeared in the case of marriages of the same sex and gays serving in the army, said Dr. Jack Drescher, psychiatrist and psychoanalytical in private practice. He is also a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, whose research focused on sex and sexuality.
But after Massachusetts legalized the marriages of people of the same sex in 2004 and subsequent states, the influence of supporters of conversion therapy fell.
This year, 23 States and Washington, DC, prevents licensed healthcare providers to be subject to juvenile conversion therapy, in accordance with analysis state provisions as part of the movement progress project. Four subsequent states limit practice, for example, not allowing public financing for conversion therapy services.
State provisions usually impose fines or discipline professional licenses of practitioners who try to engage minors in conversion therapy. They do not necessarily prevent the clergy or unlicensed advisers before trying to advise.
Drescher said that bans are a more public statement about the acceptance of LGBTQ+people than a commonly used preventive measure.
“Bans are strengthening the belief that if homosexuality is not a mental disorder or illness, there is no reason to pretend to be treated, and anyone who tries to act outside the mainstream of science,” said Drescher Stateline.
American Medical Association wrote Model recipes For state legislators who want to prohibit conversion therapy, reflection of a wide consensus in the medical community, that homosexuality and gender incompatibility are not mental illness, said RJ Mills, a representative of the American Medical Association, in a statement to status.
In the past, some leading psychiatric and psychological associations fluctuated before the support of state restrictions, because they perceived the rules as an invasion of a physician or a therapist-patient, said Drescher.
Now, stimulated Trump administration policy which impose recent restrictions for LGBTQ+ i the most conservative The US Supreme Court in generations are medical organizations Growing more vocals In opposition to conversion therapy.
“The world has changed,” said Drescher. “Everyone understands what he was about now.”
The argument of freedom of speech
Conservative legal companies have filed lawsuits in states such as ColorIN Michigan AND Virginia On behalf of Christian advisers who claim that the laws prevent them from practicing in accordance with their faith -based values. They say that bans should be repealed so that the practitioners will not face the loss of a career in the scope of providing services informed by their faith.
The court in Virginia last month supervised the decree of consent in which Virginia He agreed not to fully enforce the ban on conversion therapy 2020 and allow advisers to get involved in the therapy of conversions of conversations with minors. The reasons for the case were John and Janet Raymond, licensed by state vocational counselors in Virginia, who were represented by the Freedoms Law Center, an organization that adopts conservative legal causes.
Josh Hetzler, Raymonds’s lawyer, during a public press conference after the court’s decision, said that conversation therapy may include conversation, prayer and sharing written materials, such as religious letters, said during a public press conference.
“In this court decision, every advisor in Virginia will now be able to freely, truthfully and honestly with clients who want to conduct these critical conversations about their identity and listen to the insights based on faith from trusted professionals,” he said.
Conservative legislators also cite their Christian faith in attempts to withdraw state bans.
The representative of the state Michigan Josh Schriver, a Republican, placed a packet of bills last month, the purpose of which was to repeal a handful of what he calls “Antichrist regulations“including Michigan 2023 On youth conversion therapy.
The legislative adjutant said that Schriver was not available for an interview, and instead directed Stateline until the recent Suback post, which he sent to his voters.
“As a legislators, we are scared to delete laws that exceed the power transferred by our state and federal constitutions,” Schriver he said on the post.
For a long time, Minister Kentucky said that bans are needed because “no one enters into conversion therapy.”
“The only reason that this child would survive is that a trusted authority in his life – a parent, pastor or therapist,” told them that they were broken and should be repaired. “
At least five states have the right or policy prohibiting or discouraging to regulations at the local level that aim to protect youthful people from conversion therapy.
Some states without such provisions are ongoing municipalities that banned conversion therapy.
The Republican Prosecutor General Missouri Andrew Bailey in February sued Jackson County, Missouri, home for Kansas City, questioning the regulation on the county in 2023 and the regulation in Kansas City in 2019, both of which forbade licensed advisers to engage in the therapy of conversion with minor.
“Our children have the right to therapy, which allows for honest, unlimited conversations, free of transgender indoctrination,” said Bailey Wa statement in February He called the rites “dangerous exaggerated” that violate the freedom of speech and the law of religious freedom.
Republican loss
In at least one condition, conservatives achieved a legal road blockade.
In Wisconsin, the administration of the democratic governor Tony Evers has been trying since 2020. introduce a ban on conversion therapy throughout proposed by a state agency that supervises the supplier’s licensing.
But the ban was Twice blocked By the Legislative Committee controlled by the Republicans.
The Evers administration sued.
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin on the Evers side last month ruled that the State Legislative Committee exaggerated and cannot block this principle.
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