In early December, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal to a Washington State law prohibiting licensed health care professionals from practicing conversion “therapy” as it applies to minors.
In The Trevor Project’s 2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young People, 1 in 20 LGBTQ+ youth reported being subjected to conversion therapy, and another 10 percent were threatened with it. Fifteen percent of LGBTQ+ youth cited the fear of being subjected to conversion therapy as a reason they did not seek out desired mental health care.
A 2020 peer-reviewed study published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that LGBTQ+ youth who underwent conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to report having attempted suicide and more than 2.5 times as likely to report multiple suicide attempts in the past year. A 2022 peer-reviewed study published in JAMA Pediatrics found that the practice of conversion therapy on LGBTQ+ youth and its associated harms, including substance abuse, depression, anxiety and suicide attempts, costs the U.S. economy a total estimated $9.23 billion annually.
Conversion therapy has been condemned by every major medical and mental health organization as unscientific, ineffective and dangerous. Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C. have enacted laws since 2012 banning licensed professionals from subjecting minors to conversion therapy, and five more states and Puerto Rico have implemented partial bans against it.
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Rebecca Barnabi
