Michigan Joins Growing Number of States Finally Outlawing So-Called ‘Conversion Therapy’

The practice of so-called “conversion therapy,” where abusers like medical and mental health providers quacks and church-affiliated bullies come together and try to oust the “gay” out of LGBTQ+ individuals, has finally been outlawed for use on minors in Michigan. After state Democrats pushed two anti-conversion therapy bills through the legislature last month, the state’s Democratic Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has now officially signed them into law.

“As a mom of a member of the community and a proud, lifelong ally, I’m grateful that today we’re banning the horrific practice of conversion therapy in Michigan,” Governor Whitmer tweeted after signing. “In doing so, we are taking action to make Michigan a more welcoming, inclusive place.”

One of the bills, 4616, bans mental health professionals from using conversion therapy on minors under threat of licensing sanctions. The other, 4617, does the difficult job of assigning a legal definition to conversion therapy and adding it to Michigan’s official health code. Their description calls it a practice that “…seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including, but not limited to, efforts to change behavior or gender expression or to reduce or eliminate sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward an individual of the same gender.”

According to a blog post about the state’s new laws from the Trevor Project, an organization that works to prevent suicide in LGBTQ youth, Michigan became the 22nd state to pass protection laws around conversion therapy. This is so important because not only is conversion therapy homophobic and transphobic, but it’s also dehumanizing and sometimes deadly. Plus, it doesn’t even work (not that we’d want it to), so this whole situation is a big lose-lose. 

A study by the Trevor Project found that “LGBTQ youth who underwent conversion therapy were more than twice as likely to report having attempted suicide and more than 2.5 times as likely to report multiple suicide attempts in the past year.”

And according to a 2022 study also by the Trevor Project, in Michigan specifically, 45% of the state’s LGBTQ youth had considered suicide in the past year. Could some of this suicidal ideation have been prompted by communities that want so much to guilt and shame and dangerously “convert” the gay out of their kids so badly that there needs to be a law to stop them from engaging in this dehumanizing practice? Yeah, maybe.

(featured image: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)