The New York State Assembly is set to ban a medical practice that has been condemned for years by most in the medical community -- therapy to "cure" homosexuality in minors.
New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) is sponsoring the legislation, S04917B, alongside Assemblywoman Deborah Glick (D-66th District), who is sponsoring A06983B, the Assembly version. Hoylman is the only openly gay member of the New York Senate.
The bill has been referred to a third reading in the Assembly and is expected to be debated on the Assembly floor and voted on within a week. The Senate bill has been referred to the higher education committee and still must come to a floor debate and vote. In New York state, both houses must pass the bill and send it to the governor for signature before it becomes law.
"On one level it's pretty nutty stuff," Holyman said, "but it's happening in New York by licensed therapists."
The therapy has recently been banned in New Jersey and California and New York is now looking to join that list. The American Psychological Association has condemned the therapy, as has the Pan American Health Organization, which as far back as two years ago released this statement on the matter:
"Since homosexuality is not a disorder or a disease, it does not require a cure. There is no medical indication for changing sexual orientation," said PAHO Director Dr. Mirta Roses Periago. "The practices known as 'reparative therapy' or 'conversion therapy' represent 'a serious threat to the health and well-being -- even the lives -- of affected people.' "
The bill Hoylman and Glick are looking to push through states in part, "Being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is not a disease, disorder, illness, deficiency, or shortcoming. The major professional associations of mental health practitioners and researchers in the United States have recognized this fact for nearly 40 years."
The bill adds any mental health professionals that engage in sexual orientation change efforts will be subject to penalties.
PAHO's push against the practice of therapy to "cure" homosexuality actually began back in May of 2012 as the organization put together a series of recommendations for governments, academic institutions, professional associations, the media, and civil society that included the following:
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* "Conversion" or "reparative" therapies and the clinics offering them should be denounced and subject to adequate sanctions.
* Public institutions responsible for training health professionals should include courses on human sexuality and sexual health in their curricula, with a focus on respect for diversity and the elimination of attitudes of pathologization, rejection, and hate toward nonheterosexual persons.
* Professional associations should disseminate documents and resolutions by national and international institutions and agencies that call for the de-psychopathologization of sexual diversity and the prevention of interventions aimed at changing sexual orientation.
