Indiana lawmakers this week introduced a measure that would ban conversion therapy for minors by licensed counselors.
Senate Bill 32, authored by Democratic state senator JD Ford, would ban efforts to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of anyone under the age of 18.
Therapists who violate the order will be subject to disciplinary action, including possible loss of their licenses.
“I hope my friends across the hall will see that this is not a party issue. It is a life-saving issue,” said Ford, the first openly gay lawmaker in Indiana. “I don’t want to hear ‘Oh, we can’t give your project an audience, because we have to deal with Covid-19’. Yes, the pandemic is a high priority, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time. “
Conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy or ex-gay therapy, has been widely discredited by the overwhelming majority of health organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization and even the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration.
LGBTQ Americans who have undergone conversion therapy are almost six times more likely to report high levels of depression and eight times more likely to have attempted suicide, according to GLAAD.
To date, 20 states and more than 80 cities have banned attempts to change the sexual orientations or gender identities of minors. Except in Utah, most bans were passed by Democratic-controlled legislatures.
Approving this ban in Indiana would be a turning point for the state, said Drew Anderson, a member of the Indiana Stonewall Democrats council.
“We can set a standard for other states that people see as Republicans about success in LGBTQ issues,” he said.
It would also distance Indiana from the anti-LGBTQ reputation it earned under Vice President Mike Pence, who was governor from 2013 to 2016 and represented him in Congress from 2001 to 2012.
As a member of Congress, Pence supported a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman and opposed both the Non-Discrimination at Work Act, which would have protected LGBTQ workers, and the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t say . “
As governor, he signed the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which some interpreted as allowing companies to discriminate against LGBTQ customers. The law, passed in 2015, sparked several boycotts and prompted Angie’s List to cancel a $ 40 million expansion in Indiana.
And, as vice president of Donald Trump, Pence is part of a government that opposed anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ Americans, banned transgender military service members and allowed child welfare agencies to reject future parents of the same sex.
“Pence attacked us on all counts and put a negative cloud around the state because of his own views,” said Anderson. “We are doing a lot to show people that Indiana is welcome to all communities.”
Activists claimed that Pence also endorsed conversion therapy, pointing to the language of a 2000 campaign website calling for federal AIDS funds to go to “institutions that provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior”. In 2018, Pence’s press secretary, Alyssa Farah, insisted that he “never supported conversion therapy and doesn’t support it now.”
Indiana lawmakers sought to ban conversion therapy earlier: in 2019, Democrats introduced a ban that failed to win a hearing at the General Assembly, where Republicans still hold super majorities in both chambers.
A fundamental difference since then has been the rise of ex-South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg to national prominence. Buttigieg, the first openly gay Democratic presidential candidate, went from underdog to favorite, beating most delegates in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. Last month, President-elect Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate Buttigieg as secretary of transport.
“The job Pete did, just running for president, increased LGBTQ acceptance in Indiana tenfold,” said Anderson. “Finally, all these people know someone who is gay, even if they didn’t know him before.”
Buttigieg did not respond to a request for comment on the conversion therapy bill. In 2019, he stated that being gay was something he was born with.
“If being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made way, way above my salary level,” he said at a fundraising event for the LGBTQ Victory Fund in 2019. “And that’s what I would like the Mike Pences of the world to understand. That if you have a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me – your fight, sir, is with my creator. “
In a way, culture has increasingly moved away from conversion therapy: ex-gay leaders like John Paulk called him “unmasked and discredited” and condemned his apparent presence on the 2016 Republican Party platform, which declared support for ” parents’ right to determine appropriate medical treatment and therapy for their minor children. “
Last year, Instagram announced that it would refuse ads and ban content that promotes gay “cures”.
In December, more than 370 religious leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, signed a statement calling for an end to “all attempts to change, suppress or erase sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression of A person”.
Conservative groups argue that conversion therapy bans violate the First Amendment and inhibit parents’ rights to do what they think is best for their children.
“We are totally against the idea of banning what people can hear,” said Micah Clark, president of the American Family Association of Indiana, after the 2019 state ban was introduced, according to The Indianapolis Star. “I don’t think we should prohibit what parents want for their children or what they want … It’s an order of silence against counselors.”
In 2019, a federal judge lifted a two-year conversion therapy ban in Tampa, Florida, ruling that psychotherapy regulation “is a state, not a municipal, concern.”
Liberty Counsel, an evangelical legal defense group based in Orlando, led the legal challenge against the Tampa decree, as well as unsuccessful efforts to overturn a statewide ban on conversion therapy in Maryland.
He also fought the ban in Boca Raton, Florida, which the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned in November. In a 2-1 decision, the court sided with two therapists who defied the laws in Boca Raton and Palm Beach County that prohibited licensed counselors from “treating minors with any advice, practice or treatment undertaken with the aim of changing the sexual orientation or gender of an individual’s identity. “
In the majority opinion, judges Britt Grant and Barbara Lagoa argued: “If there is a fundamental principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government cannot prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society considers the idea itself to be offensive or unpleasant. “
This week, Republicans in the state of Indiana introduced a separate bill that would prohibit licensed health care workers from assisting minors in their gender transitions.
Sponsored by the Republican state Sens. Dennis Kruse and Jeff Raatz, SB 224 would prohibit treatments designed to “change, reinforce or affirm a minor’s gender identity when the identity is inconsistent with the minor’s biological sex.”
It would also make efforts to “change, reinforce or affirm a minor’s perception of his own sexual attraction or sexual behavior” illegal.
Kruse and Raatz declined to comment on whether their project also aims to ban conversion therapy.
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