Denver to consider banning gay conversion therapy on minors
The Denver Post
Denver’s Office of Human Rights and Community Partnerships has proposed banning conversion therapies aimed at changing the sexual orientation of minors.
The proposal will be presented to a City Council committee Wednesday, according to Mayor Michael Hancock’s office. It will target state-licensed therapists with practices in the city and county who claim that being gay or transgender is a mental illness. The proposal comes following a recommendation by Denver’s LGTBQ Commission, according to the news release.
“These terrible practices that target our youth, simply for being who they are, are dangerous and immoral,” Hancock said in a statement. “We’re going to make sure that they never happen within our city.”
In conversion therapy, counseling and psychotherapy is used in an attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation. The American Psychiatric Association opposes the practice, saying same-sex orientation does not need to be changed and that efforts to do so risk harming individuals.
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