New Obama Administration Report Calls for End to unsafe “Conversion Therapy”

Compiled by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a part of the Federal Health and Human Services department, today’s report entitled “Ending Conversion Therapy: Supporting and Affirming LGBTQ Youth” aims to provide practical tools to help families and allies support LGBTQ youth, as well as dispel the belief that ex-gay therapy works.

A federal agency released a report today, Thursday, October 15, calling for efforts to curb the use of the practice known as reparative therapy for LGBT youth. None. Anything clearer than none?

A new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that the therapy is harmful and risky, and that variations in sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression are normal. Another 21 states and the U.S Congress have considered or are considering bans.

The discredited practice is already banned in four states and Washington, D.C., with other states considering similar legislation.

The recent, highly-publicized death of Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old transgender woman who committed suicide after her parents forced her to attend conversion therapy, particularly incited calls for change.

The authors, who are psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers from SAMHSA and the American Psychological Association (APA) said there is no credible evidence that conversion therapy has any effectiveness in changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. This damaging claim, however, is still being echoed despite statements made by mainstream medical and mental health associations, such as the American Medical Association as well as the American Psychological Association.

The extent of stress such practices can create can “put young people at risk of serious harm”, it said.

The report jives with literally every major medical and mental health organization that has weighed in on conversion therapy, and they have all said that the practice has precisely zero empirical support. But, more importantly, young people are seeing their heroes stand up for them. For the first time in history, advocates are seeing our national leaders prioritize what is too often an issue of life and death for LGBTQ youth.

Better information, training, and education for behavioral health providers and decreasing stigma and negative attitudes toward LGBT identities also help eliminate harmful practices, it says.

The American Psychological Association offers resources for LGBTQ youth. What is new about this report, said Brian Altman, director of the division of policy innovation at SAMHSA, is that the psychologists and other experts convened for it also came to a consensus about the best ways to help children who may be grappling with gender identity or expression, meaning they may be trans. “Unscrupulous quacks must not be allowed to warp young minds with their harmful pseudoscience”.