The Michigan state legislature advanced two bills on Wednesday that would prohibit mental health professionals from subjecting LGBTQ minors to anti-LGBTQ “conversion therapy.”
Health professionals widely agree that the discredited pseudo-therapeutic practice — which attempts to change an LGBTQ person’s sexual orientation or gender identity — is incredibly dangerous. Indeed, decades of studies have demonstrated that undergoing such treatment increases a person’s likelihood of experiencing depression and attempting suicide, and many survivors of the practice have likened it to torture.
LGBTQ youth already experience higher rates of depression and suicidal ideation than their heterosexual and cisgender peers — and research published in 2020 from the University of California Los Angeles found that people who were subjected to conversion therapy were almost twice as likely to attempt suicide than those who were not subjected to or threatened with such treatment.
These numbers are likely an undercount, as the study did not include transgender people in its research and focused only on lesbian, gay and bisexual people in adulthood, not youth who were forced to undergo the harmful practice.
In spite of the demonstrated dangers of conversion therapy, some far right conservatives have voiced support for keeping the practice available under the guise of protecting “parental rights.”
According to a survey from the Trevor Project, in the year 2022, 11 percent of LGBTQ children in the U.S. said they were threatened with conversion therapy by their parents, with another 6 percent saying they were actually subjected to it.
Twenty-one states plus Washington D.C. have passed laws banning conversion therapy. Michigan is aiming to become the next state on that list.
The two bills that would ban its use in the state passed along party lines, with 56 Democrats voting in their favor on Wednesday and 53 Republicans voting against them. The measures now go to the Democratic-controlled state Senate, where they’re expected to pass. They will then advance to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who is expected to sign them into law.
LGBTQ groups celebrated the advancement of the bills on Wednesday.
“Michigan’s LGBTQ+ youth should be free from needless attacks and torture, and deserve to live in a state where they can be healthy, safe, and reach their full potential. This legislation…is an important step in making Michigan a safer place for LGBTQ+ youth and their families,” Equality Michigan Action Network wrote in a series of tweets on Wednesday night.
“LGBTQ+ youth deserve to be accepted and supported without exception! We are now one step closer to codifying this life saving legislation into law and becoming the 22nd state with statewide legislative protections against ‘ct,'” Human Rights Campaign in Michigan said.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.