A group of LGBTQ advocates, ranging from legislators and medical professionals to activists, held a press conference Monday to raise support for a proposed bill to ban conversion therapy for minors in the state.
The public health committee hearing is Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. in the Legislative Office Building.
Conversion therapy has been rejected as legitimate therapy by about 40 organizations in the state. On a national level, several groups have rejected it including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.
The prevalence of conversion therapy, however, as well as a definition of what precisely constitutes conversion therapy, was not made available by state lawmakers.
State Rep. Jeff Currey, who introduced the bill, described it broadly as a practice that “attempts to shame young people into denying aspects of their identity that are at the core of who they are.”
The specifics of the proposed bill will not be drafted until after the public hearing. As of now, the main tenet of the bill is to dissuade any licensed health professional from practicing conversion therapy through state disciplinary action, according to state officials.
“We would set guidelines for the Department of Public Health that could lead up to the withdrawal of their licensure here in Connecticut,” Currey said at the press conference.
Currey introduced himself as one of two openly gay legislators in Connecticut — “Not a market I am looking to corner by any means, but the recruitment of LGBT brothers and sisters here in Hartford is another matter for another day,” he said. State Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, who is also gay, also introduced the bill but was unable to attend the press conference.
“As a gay youth, and as a gay adult for that matter, never was I broken, nor needed to be fixed. Being gay is not a disease and therefore does not require a cure,” Currey said.
State Rep. Matt Ritter, the majority leader of the House of Representatives, and State Sen. Bob Duff, the majority leader of the Senate, both affirmed support for the bill at the press conference.
Those who do question the proposed bill, such as Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, are seeking data on pervasiveness of conversion therapy in Connecticut.
“According to our research, we haven’t been able to turn up any evidence that [conversion therapy] actually exists in Connecticut, and if they have actual evidence they should put it forward. It appears to be a solution in search of a problem,” Wolfgang said.
“There are thousands of bills for the legislature and only a small portion get a public hearing. Tomorrow we’re going to get one to outlaw a thing that does not exist,” he said.
The data is hard to come by, said David McGuire, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut, because it’s not something people feel comfortable talking about. The ACLU of Connecticut is one of the supporters of the bill.
“We know that there are therapists [in Connecticut] that hold themselves out as offering conversion therapy. It is very difficult to pinpoint folks who have been directly harmed by it because it’s a very difficult thing for people to talk about, but we do know that there are therapists holding themselves as offering it,” McGuire said.
Each of the speakers at the press conference spoke of personal experiences with conversion therapy either they, or the youth they work with, had encountered — though not all were in Connecticut.
Peterson Toscano, a native of Stamford, underwent conversion therapy. His experience, written in a statement, was read by Donna Warren, an LGBTQ advocate and PFLAG mother. Warren joined PFLAG, an LGBTQ advocacy group, after her son transitioned 20 years ago, which was “the best thing he could’ve done,” Warren said.
Toscano, whose statement Warren read, underwent conversion therapy for 17 years — eventually going back for another 10 years of therapy to “undo what conversion therapy had done.”
“Fear and shame led me into conversion therapy and it almost ruined me. I urge you to do everything in your power to protect young people from going through a similar experience,” read Toscano’s statement.
Conversion therapy legislation has been passed in five other states and the District of Columbia. Similar legislation is proceeding in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Colorado.
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