Democrats introduce federal conversion therapy ban

Congressional Democrats on Monday reignited an effort to pass federal legislation outlawing the discredited practice of “conversion therapy,” which is a scientifically discredited practice that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act, introduced Monday in the House by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) would make it unlawful to provide conversion therapy to “any individual” or promote efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The bill, which has 62 Democratic co-sponsors, would also make it illegal to “knowingly assist or facilitate” in the administration of conversion therapy for financial gain. A companion bill in the Senate, introduced Monday by Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), has 32 Democratic co-sponsors.

Both measures have been endorsed by LGBTQ rights groups and mental health organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign and the American Psychological Association. The Congressional Equality Caucus has also endorsed the bill in both chambers.

Conversion therapy — sometimes called “reparative therapy” — refers to a broad range of interventions designed to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, but most often involves spiritual counseling or talk therapy. It has been denounced by major medical organizations as unscientific, in part because it is underpinned by the false belief that LGBTQ identities are pathologies that need to be cured.

“Professional consensus rejects pathologizing sexual and gender identities,” the American Medical Association wrote last year in an issue brief. “In addition, empirical evidence has demonstrated a diversity of sexual and gender identities that are normal variations of human identity and expression, and not inherently linked to mental illness.”

Those who experience conversion therapy also report higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicidality, multiple studies have found.

A 2020 report from the Williams Institute, a public policy think tank, found that lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the U.S. were nearly twice as likely to report having suicidal thoughts when they were exposed to conversion therapy. The same study found that 7 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual adults had received conversion therapy, including one-third who said treatment was administered by a licensed health care provider.

A 2022 study from The Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ youth suicide prevention organization, found that about 17 percent of LGBTQ 13- to 24-year-olds had been threatened with or subjected to conversion therapy.

Lieu in a Monday statement slammed conversion therapy as a “harmful sham” that hurts LGBTQ young people and “turns a profit for scammers posing as mental health professionals.”

“Numerous major medical organizations have concluded that the practice has no validity and is based entirely on fake science,” said Lieu, who has introduced iterations of the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act in each of the last four Congresses. “I’m pleased that many states have joined our movement and enacted conversion therapy bans. Now it’s time to end this scam once and for all and pass a federal ban.”

Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws that ban conversion therapy for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks state-level policies impacting LGBTQ Americans, and five states have enacted partial bans.

Three states — Alabama, Georgia and Florida — are unable to enforce bans on conversion therapy because of an injunction in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that prevents them from doing so.