‘Conversion therapy’ ban advances

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Minnesota is one step closer to banning “conversion therapy” on minors and vulnerable adults with the March 2 approval of House File 2156 by the House Preventative Health Policy Division.

The bill was approved along a 7-4 party line vote and was referred to the House Health and Finance Policy Committee.

While Obergefell v. Hodges established equal marriage rights for same-sex couples in 2015, it still left many anti-LGBTQ practices in place, up to the discretion of the states. One of those practices is conversion therapy.

Conversion therapy is a practice that allegedly converts a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender (the sex a person was identified as having at birth). While adults sometimes seek the practice out, many people who undergo conversion therapy are children, there because of parents who want their children to be heterosexual or cisgender. According to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, nearly 700,000 people in the United States have received conversion therapy. About half of them received it as adolescents.

Talk therapy is the most prevalent technique used in conversion therapy. Some techniques include hypnosis or thought redirection. There is also faith-based therapy, often termed “reparative therapy.” Other techniques, however, have included aversion therapy: causing clients to throw up, using electric shocks, or slapping them when they became aroused by same-sex erotic images or thoughts.

Many people consider the practice to be pseudoscience. The American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics all oppose conversion therapy, stating that it is harmful and ineffective. The American Medical Association has attested that the practice results in “significant psychological distress, depression, anxiety, self-blame, lowered self-esteem, sexual dysfunction, and more.”

The “What We Know” Project at Cornell University conducted a literature review of 47 peer-reviewed studies about conversion therapy and also concluded that “there is no credible evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.”

The Williams Institute found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people who had undergone conversion therapy were almost twice as likely to attempt suicide compared to those who had not experienced conversion therapy.

In a 2019 poll conducted by Ipsos/Reuters, 56% of U.S. adults believed that conversion therapy for youth should be made illegal, while 18% supported keeping it legal. Former leaders of the so-called ex-gay movement have condemned conversion therapy as causing grave harm. Yet, this practice continues to be legal in more than half of the states.

California became the first state to pass a conversion therapy ban in 2012. Since then, 19 other states have banned conversion therapy, and over 100 U.S. cities have also banned it. Several Minnesota cities have ordinances prohibiting conversion therapy, including the Twin Cities and Duluth. Some in Minnesota would like to add it to the list of states banning the practice.

In July 2021, Gov. Tim Walz signed Executive Order 21-25 which restricts conversion therapy in Minnesota, stating at the time that the order “aims to protect young and vulnerable Minnesotans from the cruel and discredited practice of conversion therapy.” The order, however, did not ban the practice outright. It took away public funding for conversion therapy and prevents deceptive practices relating to it. And this order could be overturned by another governor.

Legislation would make the ban permanent. There have been previous attempts to ban the practice, but the measure has failed to pass due to lack of support from Republicans. The current bill, HF2156, was sponsored by Rep. Athena Hollins, DFL-St. Paul. Under the bill, mental health practitioners would not be able to offer conversion therapy to people under the age of 18. Fraudulent or deceptive advertising about conversion therapy would also be prohibited.

At a March 2 hearing of the House Preventative Health Policy Division, Hollins avowed that conversion therapy “preys on the fears of parents and does irreparable harm to children and young adults.”

Her statement was bolstered by the testimony of Aubrey Dobson, who underwent conversion therapy. As a youth, Dobson was taken from her home and placed into a “wilderness program” for 10 months. Dobson described the experience as torture. For Dobson, the experience was futile, as she is now married to a woman.

When parents do not accept their LGBTQ children, they are eight times more likely to have reported attempting suicide, according to findings from San Francisco State University. The same study found that rejected LGBTQ youth were six times more likely to have high levels of depression and they were four times more likely to use illegal drugs.

However, a number of people and organizations expressed opposition about the bill. Those opposed to the bill say banning conversion therapy is a dangerous overreach that infringes not just on religious freedom but also on parenting choices. According to the Born Perfect organization, a national organization aiming to ban conversion therapy, there are 28 organizations in Minnesota either conducting or supporting conversion therapy, along with 86 therapists who offer it.

One of those organizations is Agape Ministries. Daren Mehl of Agape First Ministries said at the hearing that the bill was “religious tyranny and an attack on the rights of parents.” Mehl testified that a school changed the gender identity of a child and attempted to the force the parents to use the child’s preferred pronouns. Another Agape staff member, Luca Groppoli, apparently lived as a transgendered male for 34 years before a spiritual intervention. On Agape First Ministries’ website, the organization also expressed concern that the bill’s language “infringes on our constitutional rights by prohibiting what they call promotion, sales, services of ‘conversion therapy.’”

Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen, R-Glenco, rejects the bill as well as how the practice of conversion therapy is defined by its opponents. Gruenhagen said, “We’re not trying to attack people per se, as much as to address behaviors and the opportunity to get the type of counseling you want.”

Hollins declared: “Let me be very clear, conversion therapy is not a therapy at all.”