South Florida Locales Repeal Conversion Therapy Bans
metroweekly.com2020 study from the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ think tank at the UCLA School of Law, found that lesbians, gays, and bisexuals subjected to conversion therapy are twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who never underwent it.
A similar peer-reviewed study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that LGBTQ youth subjected to conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to report having attempted suicide and more than two-and-a-half times as likely to report multiple suicide attempts over the past year.But the South Florida bans were soon challenged by two marriage and family therapists in Palm Beach County, who claimed that the bans on conversion therapy discriminated against the therapists’ right to engage in and provide counseling consistent with their clients’ religious beliefs, and their clients’ right to seek treatment to deal with “unwanted same-sex attraction” or gender dysphoria, based on their religious beliefs opposing homosexuality.A federal judge initially ruled against the therapists, but on appeal, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals issued injunctions barring localities from enforcing the bans in November 2020. Palm Beach County and Boca Raton asked for a rehearing of the case before the full court, but the court denied that request, ultimately issuing a mandate finalizing its decision this past July, according to the Palm Beach Post.But LGBTQ advocates who once rallied behind passage of such bans are now encouraging localities in Florida (as well as Georgia and Alabama, which are covered by the 11th Circuit) to reverse the prohibitions on conversion therapy of their own accord — just as Palm Beach County and Boca Raton recently did.
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