(Source: MIRS.news, Published 05/25/23) In Michigan, an estimated 3% of minors are protected from forced conversion therapy, but 58 Democratic lawmakers signed onto proposed legislation that aims to change that to 100%.
SB 348 and SB 349, sponsored by Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak), and HB 4616 and HB 4617, sponsored by Reps. Felicia Brabec (D-Ann Arbor) and Jason Hoskins (D-Southfield), respectively, would add a section to the mental health code that bans any practice or treatments by licensed mental health professionals that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Those who violate that prohibition would face disciplinary action and licensing sanctions.
“Michigan has made huge strides to become a more welcoming state, but we must do more to protect our kids when they’re at their most vulnerable: growing up, figuring out who they are and how they fit in with the world around them,” McMorrow said. “Kids who are subjected to conversion therapy in an attempt to change their gender identity or sexual orientation attempt suicide at more than double the rate of their LGBTQ+ peers, and, in short, this junk science amounts to nothing more than child abuse.”
The tie-barred Senate bills have been referred to the Housing and Human Services subcommittee while the House version, also tie-barred, has been referred to the Committee on Health Policy.
Conversion therapy, or “reparative therapies,” are interventions designed to alter same-sex attractions or gender expression in favor of heterosexuality.
The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry said conversion therapy lacks scientific credibility.
While some may think it is in the past, The Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health found that 17% of LGBTQ youth reported having been threatened with or subjected to conversion therapy.
Twenty-one states have banned conversion therapy, and of those, at least eight were enacted under Republican governors.
In Michigan, only eight cities – Ann Arbor, Berkley, East Lansing, Ferndale, Hazel Park, Huntington Woods, Madison Heights and Royal Oak – have a local ordinance prohibiting conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth, while zero counties have such an ordinance, according to the Movement Advancement Project.
“Protecting the young people of our state from conversion therapy practices is a top priority,” Brabec said. “As a clinical psychologist, I recognize the severity of this issue and understand how harmful this practice can be to the mental health of our children. Banning such an adverse and outdated practice is a great first step Michigan can take toward affirming its LGBTQ+ youth.”
State laws banning conversion therapy have made their way through the courts.
In March, Washington marriage and family counselor Brian TINGLEY asked the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) to overturn a Ninth Circuit Court decision upholding the state’s 2018 ban on gay conversion therapy. Tingley, and a number of organizations as well as attorneys general from 12 states who support his position, argue a conversion therapy ban violates free speech.
However, SCOTUS has three times – April 2019, February 2016 and May 2015 – allowed a lower court’s decision upholding New Jersey’s 2013 anti-conversion therapy law to remain in effect and in 2014 and 2017 it refused to hear challenges to California’s anti-conversion therapy law.
“Conversion therapy is an outdated practice based on the belief that being LGBTQ+ is something in need of fixing,” said Hoskins, who is the first openly gay person of color serving in the Michigan Legislature. “We know better today, and it’s time to protect Michigan’s children from this injustice.
“I’m very optimistic we can come together on this, because it just feels so commonsense to remove every vestige of abuse or discrimination like this, from the paths of children and young adults,” he said.
