White House Response to Petition on Conversion Therapy
In December of 2014, Leelah Alcorn, a young transgender woman in southern Ohio wrote a message that appeared online posthumously after her suicide. In the message she attributed a significant portion of her despair to attempts by her family and church to fix her gender identity using what is known as conversion or reparative therapy. She called for those reading to “Fix Society” so that others like her might have productive lives. At age 17, she had already lost that hope.
Leelah’s message touched hearts around the world. The Transgender Human Rights Institute, working with several other organizations (including Everything Transgender NYC and Trans-parenting) sponsored a pair of online petitions through Change.org and We the People calling for an end to conversion treatments that have the goal of changing a subject’s sexual orientation or gender identity, with special emphasis on protecting young people. Both petitions exceeded their signature goals.
In their official petition response statement of April 8, 2015, the White House joined with accredited health organizations, and several state governments in condemning the practice of coercive conversion treatment. The White House called on families to be accepting and more supportive of their LGBTQI+ children and asked state governments to ban conversion treatments by licensed therapists.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/response/response-your-petition-conversion-therapy [Read more…]
