Recognizing the harm of ‘conversion therapy’

The state Legislature wrapped up its lawmaking session in Sacramento this week, sending Gov. Jerry Brown dozens of bills, regulating hunters, farmers, used-car dealers.

But one bill in particular piqued my interest. It would limit the kind of therapy that counselors can offer to gay children.

And it would make California — depending on your perspective — either a national leader in protecting gay and lesbian kids, or a symbol of nitpicky “nanny state” intrusion.

If it becomes law, California will be the only state in the nation that forbids mental health professionals from trying to convert young patients from gay or lesbian to straight.

The bill, written by state Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), had rough sledding early on. It was opposed by a coalition of groups representing psychiatrists, psychologists, family therapists and counselors, who worried that its language and sanctions would “inhibit and prevent attempts by therapists to legitimately explore sexual identity and gender concerns.”

But months of negotiations eased some of its restrictions and referred sanctions to state licensing boards. Now mental health professionals are supportive.

“It’s very hard to take psychological concepts and turn them into a piece of legislation,” said Jo Linder-Crow, executive director of the California Psychological Assn.

“But what this bill is saying is that you can’t, if you are a mental health professional, say to a parent, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll help make your kid straight.’”

Not even if the parent asks you to. Or if a therapist’s own bias or agenda suggests that gay-to-straight might work.

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The notion that homosexuality is a disease that needs curing was renounced by the mental health mainstream half a century ago. And treatment aimed at converting gays has been discredited by virtually every professional counseling group.

Even the World Health Organization has pronounced conversion therapy “a serious threat to the health and well-being — even the lives — of affected people.”

So why does the Legislature need to get involved, to put this “quackery” off-limits?

Because parents need to recognize, Lieu said, that efforts to change a child’s sexual orientation are akin to “psychological abuse.”

Raising the profile of the practice is a way to knock it down. “This conversation has already influenced the discussion around the country,” he said.

Since the bill was introduced last spring, the psychiatrist whose research gave the conversion process credence has admitted his research was flawed, and the head of Exodus International, a Christian “reparative therapy” group, pronounced the concept a failure, even harmful.

It’s part of a bigger movement, a cultural shift that encourages acceptance and respect for children’s emerging, and sometimes unconventional, gender identity.

It’s a subject that can make well-meaning parents clumsily uncomfortable. Counseling can help. But the challenge, said Linder-Crow, “is how do we allow ... legitimate exploration and prevent something that has long-term damaging effects.”

Good therapy looks like this, she said:

“If you had a minor come and say, ‘I am having same-sex attractions.... I can’t be gay. My parents will kill me. My church will reject me,’ legitimate therapy would mean there’s a conversation: ‘Let’s talk about why you think it would be the worst thing in the world if you were gay.’

“That’s very different from saying, ‘You’re right, you can’t be gay and I’m going to help you fix that.’ That’s saying you need to change how you are.”

And that’s a recipe not for change, but for saddling vulnerable young people with guilt and fear and shame.

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The bill passed this week with a comfortable margin, along partisan lines that reflect a broader philosophical and political divide.

There was grandstanding by Democrats about the need to protect gay children from self-esteem-wrecking therapists. That, mind you, is the same party that couldn’t muster the courage to buck deep-pocket union campaign donors and back a bill that would have protected children by making it easier to remove sexual-predator teachers from classrooms.

And there were complaints from Republicans that the bill encroaches on parents’ rights to impose their values on their children. “Who are we,” asked Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-San Bernardino), “to go out there and tell parents what they can and cannot do in the interests of their children?”

There’s no telling what Gov. Brown will do. Last year he vetoed legislation requiring snowboarders under 18 to wear a helmet on the slopes to protect developing brains from trauma.

“Not every human problem deserves a law,” the governor said then. Yet a few weeks later, he approved a law banning 17-year-olds from tanning salons.

He’s right that not every problem deserves a law. And no law will end conversion therapy — as long as there are parents desperate for a fix, and pastors, prayer groups and “ex-gays” who are convinced that it works.

But the legislation affirms a message that parents need to hear. It’s not just the therapy but the attitude that puts gay youths at risk.

Studies show that young people who experience “family rejection” tied to their sexual orientation are more likely to be depressed, use illegal drugs or attempt to kill themselves.

There’s no upside to trying to pretend that you can bend your child’s sexual orientation to your values or your will.

Just ask the mother of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University student who jumped to his death two years ago from the George Washington Bridge after his college roommate broadcast video of Clementi in a private moment with a gay friend.

The roommate was found guilty of invasion of privacy. But some say Clementi’s parents share the blame.

Two days before he left for college, he told his mother he was gay, that he had known since middle school.

Later, he texted a friend: “Mom has basically completely rejected me.”

His mother now knows that “sexual orientation is not up for negotiation,” as she told a reporter for the New York Times last month.

“I think some people think that sexual orientation can be changed or prayed over,” she said in the article. “I don’t think my children need to be changed. I think that what needed changing is attitudes, or myself, or maybe some other people I know.’”

What children need is not an expert, or a parent, telling them their feelings are wrong. What they need, no law can guarantee:

A safe place to ask questions and the security that they are unconditionally loved.

sandy.banks@latimes.com