The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) calls on the LGBT community and the general public to urge delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention to reject the party’s proposed platform and work to end the dangerous and discredited practice of LGBT conversion therapy. Delegates to the convention, which is set to begin Monday, will vote on a platform that includes, among other extreme anti-LGBT provisions, a resolution approving the use of so-called “therapies” that attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Such practices have been condemned by every major medical and mental health organization across the country because they are known to lead to extreme depression, substance abuse, and suicide.
Vermont Joins Growing Number of Jurisdictions Protecting LGBTQ Kids from Conversion Therapy
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed Senate Bill 132 into law, making Vermont the eighth jurisdiction—behind California, New Jersey, Oregon, Illinois, New York, Washington D.C., and Cincinnati—to protect LGBTQ youth from the dangers of conversion therapy.
NCLR Applauds U.S. Senators Murray and Booker for Introducing Bill to Protect LGBT People from Conversion Therapy
U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Corey Booker (D-NJ) introduced the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act, a companion bill to HR 2450, introduced in the House of Representatives by Ted Lieu in 2015. The bill would define the provision of conversion therapy for profit as consumer fraud and, additionally, take Rep. Lieu’s bill one step farther by empowering states to take their own action against these dangerous and discredited practices. The senators’ move comes just two months after the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), along with partner organizations Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission encouraging the federal government to investigate conversion therapy as a violation of existing consumer fraud laws.
World’s Largest Psychiatric Association Condemns Conversion Therapy
The world’s largest organization of mental health professionals—representing more than 200,000 people in 118 countries—called for an end to the discredited practice of “conversion therapy,” which is linked to serious harms, including depression, substance abuse, and suicide.
National Organizations Target ‘Conversion Therapy’ Quacks with Historic Federal Consumer Fraud Complaint
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a federal consumer fraud complaint against People Can Change, an organization that preys on vulnerable LGBT people and families by using damaging and discredited claims that it can change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
NCLR Applauds Governor Cuomo for Taking Bold Executive Action to End Conversion Therapy in New York
New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a series of comprehensive regulations to prevent the practice of so-called lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender “conversion therapy,” which has been deemed harmful to patients by a wide variety of leading medical and mental health professionals. The multi-agency regulations announced today ban public and private health care insurers from covering the practice in New York State and also prohibit various mental health facilities across the state from conducting the practice on minors.