Opinion: Conversion Therapy Should be Banned Federally

Conversion therapy should be banned in a federal level in the United States because of its inefficiency as a proposed solution, the damages it causes to individuals, and the stigmas it perpetuates.

Conversion therapy as the practice to change an individual’s sexual orientation is still legal in many states of the United States, even though there is a clear scientific consensus of its inefficiency. Not only that, the existence of the practice itself is a clear indication that having a different sexual orientation is still wrong. The idea, including all different attempts and methods, has evident negative impacts on people’s self-esteem and physical and mental health, leading to depression, suicide, and substance abuse.

To support that, sexual minorities have almost twice the odds of suicidal thoughts and increased number of suicide attempts when compared with gay individuals who have never participated in a conversion therapy session.

The practice targets adults and teenagers who have problems overcoming the challenges of having a different sexual orientation. Historically, many different methods have been reported by patients; all of them are ineffective. These include hypnosis, drugs or consumption of certain foods, hormones, lobotomy, psychoanalysis, forcing a relationship with an opposite-gender person, and aversion therapy. The latter, explored in different methods to cause aversion to homosexual behavior, includes induction to vomit, physical abuse, self-inflicting pain, or discharge of electric shocks when feeling aroused for the same gender.

If these sound sickening, consider that some teenagers are forced by their parents to undergo conversion therapy.

While people can be unhappy with their sexual orientation, and they have the right to try to change it if they want to, evidence suggests that for years, conversion therapy does not help ease the struggles attached to having a different sexual orientation. Since conversion therapy lacks evidence of efficacy, these struggles—that do not go away—are added to the guilt and frustration of failing to change.

It is evident, though, that the patients of such practices are more worried about maintaining their social status, relationships, and religion attachments more than they are uncomfortable about their sexual orientation. The solution, instead, is to find support by family and society members, attached to guidance by a mental health professional in overcoming the challenges of being different.

Examples of “ex gays” are common as a form of luring families into a therapy practice that has worked. In opposition to that, in most cases, “even people who purport to have changed their orientation from homosexual to heterosexual still report significant struggles with homosexual urges,” leading to the conclusion that you can suppress a behavior, but not change a sexual orientation. It is also not uncommon the reports of people that “come out” as a sexual minority after affirming that they were “cured” or ex-queers.

Usually, it comes attached to exposing how bad conversion therapy was for their mental health.

Besides all the reasons that oppose such practice, there is also collateral damages. When patients “force” themselves to create relationships with opposite sex individuals, they include a second person that will be affected by the failed conversion therapy. Not only that, but just the existence of such practice implies that gays need to be cured or changed, implicating in social impacts to other members of the community that are satisfied with their orientation.

Setting the example, other countries have already banned conversion therapy federally. Mostly in Europe and Latin America, countries have established some policy or punishment against the practice, with Brazil leading the way back in 1999. Also, the government of U.K. has declared its intentions of banning it since 2018.

With all the evidence supporting not only the inefficiency of the practice, but also the damaging results of it, it is surprising that conversion therapy is still allowed federally in the United States. It is also surprising that they have not created a homophobia cure yet.