November 7, 2016
West Palm Beach City Hall
(West Palm Beach, Florida) At this evening's meeting, the
West Palm Beach City Commission
unanimously voted to prohibit licensed mental health professionals from
engaging in conversion therapy on minors within city limits. The ban
goes into effect immediately.
Conversion therapy, also known as
reparative therapy, or sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE),
encompasses a range of discredited counseling practices by which health
care providers or counselors seek to change a person's sexual
orientation, gender identity, or gender expression through aversion
treatment.
The action was taken at the request of the
Palm Beach County Human Rights Council
(PBCHRC), the county's most effective civil rights organization. Over
the past 28 years, the independent non-profit organization has succeeded
in having local public officials enact more than
110 laws and policies providing equal rights, benefits and protection for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) community.
Attorney W. Trent Steele, a longtime member of the PBCHRC Board of
Directors, focused on the need to protect children from practitioners of
conversion therapy.
"Conversion therapy is usually forced on
minors by parents who find it impossible to accept the fact that their
children identify as gay or lesbian," said Steele. "This so-called
'treatment' is extremely harmful."
PBCHRC is partnering with the
National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and the
Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC). Both organizations have been successful in their efforts to
protect minors from being subjected to the harms caused by conversion
therapy.
"Conversion therapy is an extremely dangerous and
fraudulent practice that claims to change an individual's sexual
orientation or gender identity," said Scott McCoy, senior policy counsel
for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "This bogus practice is premised
on the lie that LGBTQ individuals have a 'condition' that needs to be
cured. This evening, the West Palm Beach City Commission took a step in
the right direction by approving this ordinance to ban this harmful
practice on minors. The commission has sent a message to LGBTQ youth:
'You are perfect the way you are and do not need to be 'fixed.'"
At the first reading of the ordinance on October 24, Dr. Rachel Needle, a licensed psychologist who practices in
West Palm Beach, told commissioners that the practice of conversion therapy is based on two false premises.
"First,
it is based on the falsehood that being gay, lesbian or transgender is a
mental disorder or defect that needs to be cured, " said Needle. "And
secondly, it is based on the presumption that being LGBTQ is something
that can actually be changed through therapy."
Needle, who is
also an adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University, told city
commissioners that the potential risks of conversion therapy on children
include shame, guilt, depression, decreased self-esteem, increased
self-hatred, feelings of anger and betrayal, loss of friends, social
withdrawal, problems in sexual and emotional intimacy, hostility and
blame towards parents, high risk behaviors, confusion, self-harm,
substance abuse and suicidal ideation.
To support her assertions,
Needle provided the city with "abstracts of eleven highly regarded
academic studies which empirically conclude that conversion therapy is
at best ineffective, and at worst extremely harmful"
"Any
ethical mental health practitioner should not attempt to cure or repair
gender identity or sexual orientation through these scientifically
invalid techniques," Needle stated. "Attempting to change someone's
sexual orientation or gender identity can have a devastating impact on a
minor."
"I strongly believe the commission should enact this
ordinance to protect children and adolescents from a practice that is
far outside the bounds of any ethical psychological treatment plan,"
said Needle. "Passage of this ordinance will send an important message
to LGBTQ youth in our city: there is nothing wrong with your sexual
orientation or gender identity."
Although Dr. Julie Herren Hamilton, a psycholgist from Palm Beach Gardens who is a member of the
South Florida Association of Christian Counselors,
spoke out against the ordinance at the October 24 City Commission
meeting, neither the mayor nor the city commissioners were moved.
While she did not identify herself as such, Dr. Hamilton served as the President of
The National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) for several years.
NARTH
was a small, but well-funded for-profit organization made up of
therapists who sought to diminish the rights of LGBT people by singling
them out as having mental disorders. The organization advocated
anti-LGBT therapy for children as young a three years old and encouraged
parents to have their children marginalize and ridicule their LGBT
classmates.
At a NARTH conference Dr. Hamilton organized in West Palm Beach in 2009 drew more than 100 anti-NARTH protesters.
In 2012, the organization's 501(c)(3) tax exempt status was revoked by the Internal Revenue Service.
During the week prior to
tonight's
vote, the mayor and city commissioners received dozens of e-mail
petitions urging them not to enact the ban. The petitions were the work
of Robert Tyler Hamilton, a coach at The Kings Academy, who is married
to Dr. Julie Hamilton. The Kings Academy is a private Christian College
which refuses to prohibits the hiring of openly LGBT personnel and
refuses to allow open LGBT students to attend the school.
In addition, on November 3rd, The Liberty Counsel sent letter notifying
West Palm Beach Mayor Jeri Muoio
that if the city enacted a ban on conversion therapy, his organization
"stands ready to vindicate the rights of counselors, minors and
parents."
The
Liberty Counsel,
a legal organization advocating for anti-LGBT discrimination under the
guise of religious liberty, has long been classified as a hate group by
the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Throughout the year, Muoio has made it known that banning conversion therapy on minors is one of her priorities.
"Conversion
therapy reinforces the erroneous message that being gay, lesbian or
transgender is something that is wrong and needs to be fixed," said
Muoio. "We are going to prohibit this junk science and put an end to the
harm it can cause LGBTQ youth."
Despite the petitions and the
Liberty Counsel's veiled threat, City Commissioners unanimously voted
to protect LGBT youth by banning conversion therapy.
"The discredited practice of conversion therapy has long been rejected
by virtually all of our nation's mainstream medical and mental health
organizations" said
PBCHRC President and Founder Rand Hoch.
"We are grateful that Mayor Muoio and the city commissioners have
enacted a law to protect LGBTQ youth from these unethical practices."
Nearly
every major medical and psychological association in the country has
come out in opposition to conversion therapy. These include the American
Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of
Pediatrics, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy,
the American College of Physicians, the American Counseling Association,
the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association,
the American Psychoanalytic Association, the American Psychoanalytic
Association, the American School Health Association, the National
Association of School Psychologists, the Pan American Health
Organization, the Regional Office of the World Health Organization and
the World Psychiatric Association.
"The American
Psychological Association has linked conversion therapy to depression,
substance abuse and even suicide, and these risks are particularly
acute for youth," said Carolyn Reyes, Youth Policy Counsel and Coordinator of NCLR's BornPerfect Campaign to end conversion therapy "We
applaud the efforts by the Commission to ensure that the children of
West Palm Beach County are protected from these harms, and that their
families aren't duped by trusted professionals to whom they turn for
support during a vulnerable time."
In addition,
conversion therapy has been soundly rejected by the American Association
of School Administrators, the American Federation of Teachers, the
American School Counselor Association, the National Association of
Social Workers, the National Association of Secondary School Principals,
the National Education Association and the School Social Work
Association of America.
Last May, the Southern Poverty Law Center published a comprehensive report entitled "
Quacks: 'Conversion Therapists,' the Anti-LGBT Right, and the Demonization of Homosexuality". (
www.splcenter.org/20160525/quacks-conversion-therapists-anti-lgbt-right-and-demonization-homosexuality).
Around
the nation, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, the
District of Columbia, Cincinnati and Seattle have all banned conversion
therapy. In Florida, West Palm Beach now joins Miami, Miami Beach,
Wilton Manors and Bay Harbor Islands in enacting laws to prevent
licensed mental health providers from offering conversion therapy to
minors. Two other Florida municipalities - North Bay Village and El
Portal - are considering enacting similar bans before year's end.
The
West Palm Beach ban on conversion therapy - and all of the similar bans
enacted to date - applies only to state-licensed therapists. Unlicensed
therapists, such as those associated with faith-based groups, retain
their religious freedom to engage in such work. Additionally, adults
remain free to seek out conversion therapy.
Although there have
been several court challenges to the constitutionality of banning
conversion therapy, all have failed. On three occasions, the U.S.
Supreme Court has declined to hear challenges to the constitutionality
laws banning conversion therapy for minors.
U.S. Senators Patty
Murray (D-WA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) have introduced the Therapeutic
Fraud Prevention Act to empower the Federal Trade Commission to crack
down on conversion therapy. Specifically, the law would make sexual
orientation change efforts illegal under the Federal Trade Commission
Act, and classify advertising these services or providing them in
exchange for monetary compensation as fraudulent, unfair, and deceptive.
The bill would also explicitly clarify that the Federal Trade
Commission has the duty to enforce this provision and would further
provide state attorneys general the authority to enforce it in federal
court.
In addition, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the
Southern Poverty Law Center and the Human Rights Campaign (a Washington,
DC-based LGBTQ rights organization which is not affiliated with PBCHRC)
filed a federal consumer fraud complaint with the Federal Trade
Commission seeking to ban conversion therapy nationwide.
During the 2016 legislative session,
State Senator Jeff Clemens (D-Atlantis) introduced a bill to prohibit conversion therapy statewide (
S. 258). However, the Senate refused to take action on the bill.
"When
it comes to protecting LGBTQ people - especially children - the city of
West Palm Beach is not just going to wait for the state or the federal
government to take action," said Muoio. "
