Tuesday saw the signing of Executive Order 2022-2 by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, which intends to safeguard the state’s LGBTQIA+ population against conversion therapy’s damaging practises.
On Tuesday, Wolf tweeted that the law instructs Commonwealth agencies to “1) Take all possible measures to oppose conversion therapy 2) Actively encourage LGBTQIA+ patients to get evidence-based medical care. 3) Revise policies and practises to better serve Pennsylvanians who identify as LGBTQIA+.”
In a news statement, Wolf said that “conversion therapy is a traumatising procedure based on fake science that actively damages the individuals it claims attempts to rehabilitate.”
“It has been shown that LGBTQIA+ adolescents who are exposed to this discriminatory practise suffer poorer consequences in terms of their mental health, which is generally opposed by medical and scientific authorities. This has to do with protecting our kids from harmful extremes like bullying.”
The governor’s administration used a 2022 study from The Trevor Project, a charity that focuses on suicide prevention initiatives in the LGBTQIA+ community, to prove how dangerous conversion therapy may be. The survey revealed that 45% of LGBTQIA+ kids seriously contemplated suicide in the previous year.
The poll also revealed that those who had undergone conversion therapy or suffered trauma were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide.
The Trevor Project poll revealed that conversion treatment is also quite expensive. Conversion treatment costs the United States $9.23 billion yearly when the damages it produces—such as poor mental health outcomes and drug abuse—are taken into consideration.
Any effort to alter a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression is referred to as conversion therapy by GLAAD. Conversion therapy “can be limited to individual or group settings, or at facilities that have been dubbed as “conversion” or “reprogramming” camps, where some participants recounted being subjected to punitive measures like electrocution and physical abuse,” according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner.
According to GLAAD, almost half of the nearly 700,000 people in the U.S. who have undergone conversion therapy did so as children.
According to the presidential order, laws and regulations safeguarding children against conversion therapy are present in 25 states plus Washington, D.C.
Other political figures praised Wolf’s decision, with State Rep. Brian Sims tweeting, “We have been trying to outlaw conversion abuse in Pennsylvania for the last ten years because it has no place in contemporary culture. Thank you, Governor, for bringing the issue of conversion abuse in the Commonwealth one step closer to being completely eradicated.”
The use of conversion treatment in the state is not prohibited by the decree. According to CBS Pittsburgh, Wolf argued for a complete prohibition on conversion therapy, but added that the Republican-led General Assembly would need to approve it.
In a statement to the media, Wolf stated, “I want LGBTQIA+ kids and people throughout Pennsylvania to know that I stand with you. I acknowledge you, I value you, and I am with you.