New York moves to stop LGBT ‘conversion therapy’
NEW YORK – New York is taking steps to stop therapists from trying to change young people’s sexual orientation, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday, joining a number of states that have acted against what’s known as gay conversion therapy.
The Democratic governor’s move, announced Saturday, comes as gay rights advocates have campaigned state by state with mixed results to try to ban a practice that major mental health organizations have repudiated.
Using executive power in a state where legislative bids to ban the therapy have stalled, Cuomo announced planned regulations that would bar insurance coverage for the therapy for minors and prohibit mental health facilities under state Office of Mental Health jurisdiction from offering it to minors.
“Conversion therapy is a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice” that punishes people “for simply being who they are,” Cuomo said in a statement.
It’s unclear how prevalent the practice is in New York.
Nationwide, there are no firm figures on the extent of conversion therapy. But proponents and critics have said it is not rare for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths to undergo some sort of program aimed at changing their sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.
The American Psychological Association and other mental health groups say conversion therapy, sometimes called reparative therapy, wrongly treats being gay as a mental illness and may make young people feel ashamed, anxious and depressed.
Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration called last year for an end to the practice. The White House had been petitioned after the suicide of a transgender teen who left behind writings mentioning religious therapy.
California, Oregon, Illinois, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati have outlawed the practice. But efforts to ban it have fallen short in several other places, including Colorado, Nevada and Iowa.
New York’s new regulations wouldn’t apply to counseling that discusses but doesn’t try to change questions of sexual orientation or gender identity.