(Source: MIRS.news, Published 06/07/23) Banning conversion therapy was voted on in the Michigan Legislature Wednesday for the first time and the House Health Policy Behavioral Health Subcommittee agreed to move the legislation forward.
HB 4616 and HB 4617, sponsored by Rep. Felicia Brabec (D-Ann Arbor) and Rep. Jason HOSKINS (D-Southfield) would ban conversion therapy for minors and were referred to the House Health Policy Committee after hearing testimony.
Conversion therapy has devastating mental and physical health consequences such as depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal ideation, gastrointestinal distress, and sexual dysfunction, said Brabec, the subcommittee chair, a practicing clinical psychologist with a master’s degree in clinical social work and more than two decades of experience.
“This is a suicide prevention bill. Period,” said Erin Knott, executive director at Equality Michigan, who quoted estimates from The Trevor Project stating that 58,000 Michigan LGBTQ youth have seriously considered suicide.
Twenty-one other states have banned conversion therapy, including seven states with Republican governors, making this a bipartisan issue, Brabec said.
The issue is really one of consumer protection, said Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak).
McMorrow told a story of a parent who sought out a licensed mental health professional for her child after coming out, only to find out the therapist was telling the child her feelings were wrong.
McMorrow said it’s hard enough from a parent’s perspective to find a quality mental health professional as it is, especially during a shortage of mental health practitioners.
Mathew Shurka, a survivor of conversion therapy, said he was introduced to it after coming out to his father, who told him he loved him and had nothing to fear. When his father sought out therapy to better understand what coming out meant for his family, his father was told “being gay is nothing more than a mental illness,” Shurka said.
His first treatment required that Shurka not speak to his mother and two sisters to ensure he would not pick up any “effeminate behaviors, or see girls and women as my peers,” Shurka said.
Shurka said he became depressed and suicidal during his second year of treatment.
“I suffered from extreme anxiety and was not able to sexually perform. My therapist instructed me to take Viagra by prescribing it to my father. As a young man, I did not suffer from erectile dysfunction. I was a young, healthy, 17-year-old gay boy,” Shurka said.
“As someone who has known they were gay for a very long time, I can tell you that I don’t need to be ‘cured’, nor do any other LGBTQ members of our community here in Michigan,” Hoskins said. “I hope all of you out there that know you’re gay, or straight, or trans, that the world is a better place with you in it.”
Brabec said her work as a mental health clinician has made her believe that the practice is dangerous and lacks credible evidence.
“It’s not all that long ago when I remember wishing that I could have [conversion therapy], and I’m very grateful that it never escaped the bounds of my mind,” Rep. Noah ARBIT (D-West Bloomfield) said.
Conversion therapy is an expression of stigma with no scientific evidence to support its efficacy, said Joy Wolfe Ensor, former President of the Michigan Psychological Association.
“The bill is about banning conversion therapy, which is a pseudo-scientific garbage practice that only results in mental abuse and trauma for young LGBTQ kids,” Arbit said.
One opponent of the bills cited violating First Amendment rights of therapists, saying the bill would do more harm than good.
“Not banning this would result in dead kids. That’s a harm I won’t accept,” said Rep. Carrie A. Rheingans (D-Ann Arbor).
