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This Is What Conversion Therapy Looks Like

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This Thursday, advocacy group Born Perfect presents a digital event featuring a film and panel discussion focusing on notorious conversion therapy group Love In Action.

On Thursday, May 21, anti-conversion therapy advocacy and support group Born Perfect will present a digital event based around the film This Is What Love In Action Looks Like. In addition to the film, the event will feature a panel discussion moderated by Born Perfect’s Virginia Ambassador, Adam Trimmer.

This Is What Love In Action Looks Like is a documentary film released in 2012. It tells the story of Tennessee teenager Zach Stark, whose parents responded to him coming out to them by sending him to a Memphis-based conversion therapy program called Love In Action. Stark’s confinement at the camp sparked a nationwide protest, and the film follows a six-year span of events touched off by Stark’s experiences. Since the film was released, Love In Action changed its name to Restoration Path, and the program’s founding director, John Smid, went from identifying as “ex-gay” to accepting himself and marrying his partner, Larry McQueen, in 2014.

Love In Action also figures into Garrard Conley’s Boy Erased, a memoir about his experiences with conversion therapy that became the basis for the 2018 film of the same name. Conley will be one of the participants in the panel discussion to follow the screening of This Is What Love In Action Looks Like. He’ll be joined by Lisa Linsky, the principal drafter of a document known as The White Paper, which outlined the history of conversion therapy and gave some important background on the essential fraudulence of Love In Action. Also on the panel will be Luke Wilson, the survivor of conversion therapy at Liberty University who recently told of his experiences in a GayRVA article, and Born Perfect co-founder Matthew Shurka.

While Virginia did recently become the 20th state to ban conversion therapy for minors, the widely discredited practice remains a real issue, even within the Commonwealth — as Wilson’s recent GayRVA article makes clear. Trimmer hopes this event will help facilitate a wider understanding of just what it is that makes conversion therapy an ongoing problem for the LGBTQ community.

“Conversion therapy impacts our community in multiple settings, including organizations like Love in Action, college campuses, and licensed professionals’ offices,” said Trimmer. “I am hoping that Virginians will see how serious and ubiquitous this issue is as we talk through our own experiences, the legislative protections, and the history of conversion therapy.”

Born Perfect’s digital event will take place over Zoom; the event, which begins on May 21 at 5:30 PM, is free to attend. However, advance registration is necessary; those interested can register online at bornperfect.org/bpevents.

Image from This Is What Love In Action Looks Like, via TLA Releasing

A Ban On Conversion Therapy Has Now Passed Both Houses of the General Assembly

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Virginia’s as close as it’s ever been to banning conversion therapy for minors. And it seems likely we’ll get there before the end of the current General Assembly session.

On January 24, Virginia Senator Scott Surovell’s bill banning conversion therapy for minors passed the Senate. And on Monday, February 3, Delegate Patrick Hope’s similar bill passed the House of Delegates. These two advances put Virginia closer to passing a full ban on conversion therapy than it’s ever been. And it’s only taken the General Assembly’s transfer to Democratic control to make it happen.

In previous years, when Republicans controlled both houses of the state legislature, bills banning conversion therapy were repeatedly struck down, often never making it to a floor vote in the House Of Delegates. Advocates for the ban have instead had to work through other means.

They’ve been successful to an extent — the Virginia Board of Psychology and multiple state agencies within the Department of Health Professions have released guidance stating that conversion therapy is a violation of standard practice. Additionally, both Richmond and Virginia Beach City Councils have passed resolutions asking the General Assembly to enact a ban on conversion therapy.

While the bills must still go through the reconciliation process, in which each House passes the other’s bill and the bills are combined into one that can be sent to the governor for signing, the bills passed their biggest hurdle just by getting the initial votes needed to pass each house of the General Assembly. And Adam Trimmer, Virginia ambassador for anti-conversion therapy group Born Perfect, was grateful to see that happen.

“When I think about my experience, I get pretty angry,” Trimmer told WTVR, referring to his own experience undergoing conversion therapy. “I had years of my life taken away from me, and I’m excited that doesn’t have to happen with youth anymore.”

Top Photo By Varmin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia

Resolutions And Flags Aren’t Enough – LGBTQ Advocates Want Laws

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Three state regulatory boards have passed guidance to ban conversion therapy, but Virginia’s LGBTQ community wants laws passed that will outlaw the practice outright.

Adam Trimmer attended several of the Pride week events leading to Saturday’s VA PrideFest on Brown’s Island. 

The road to the LGBTQ community has been difficult for 30-year-old Trimmer. He considers himself a survivor of conversion therapy — a practice that uses physical or psychological tactics in an effort to change a person’s sexuality. Trimmer’s pastor recommended he start conversion therapy after a suicide attempt in college. Now Trimmer is the Virginia ambassador for Born Perfect, a campaign that seeks to end the practice.

“When you grow up being told that you’re going to hell, that is not something that you want, and I think that is why conversion therapy is so prevalent, especially in the South,” Trimmer said. “All we really want is to not feel ashamed of ourselves.” 

Though Pride flags were raised this week by Richmond’s mayor — whose resolution banning conversion therapy recently passed Richmond City Council — and three state regulatory boards have offered guidance to ban the practice, the LGBTQ community wants more.

They want legislators to pass a law banning the practice.

Members of Richmond’s City Council (Photo taken from Richmond’s City Council’s Facebook)

A resolution like Mayor Levar Stoney’s is nonbinding, and will not become a statewide law. Only the Virginia General Assembly has the power to ban the practice. Virginia is one of 31 states that does not have laws preventing conversion therapy, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

In the past, state legislators introduced laws on conversion therapy, but none of these bills passed the Senate floor:

  • SB262 – Introduced in January 2016 by Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax. The bill prohibited any health care professionals from performing conversion therapy on minors and said that state funds could not be spent on the practice. In 2018, Surovell introduced an identical bill, SB 245, that also did not pass.
  • SB1773 – Introduced in January by Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico. The bill would require Virginia health boards to release regulations or guidance documents defining what conversion therapy is and what is deemed unprofessional conduct for minors.
  • SB1778 – Introduced in January by Sen. Steve Newman, R-Bedford. Would prohibit the usage of electroshock, aversion or any other physical treatments when performing conversion therapy on minors.

Three Virginia boards that advise mental health professions — the Board of Psychology, Board of Counseling, and Board of Social Work — all voted to prohibit conversion therapy on minors. The boards have the executive power to create a regulation change without legislative approval and to take disciplinary action against anyone who offers conversion therapy to minors. Virginia residents were allowed to weigh in on the proposed bans during a public comment period. 

Josh Hetzler, legislative counsel for The Family Foundation of Virginia, wrote that the boards’ guidance is “overtly at odds with the laws of Virginia and the Constitution of the United States.” The faith-based public policy group believes the ban usurps a parent’s right to make decisions concerning the upbringing of their child, and subjects them to “discrimination on the basis of religious conviction.” They believe it might not hold up to legal scrutiny.

Hetzler also referred to the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that “professional speech” receives the same First Amendment protection as ordinary speech.

The Virginia Catholic Conference, a public policy agency representing Virginia’s Catholic bishops and their two dioceses, is also against the ban.

“When minors have unwanted same-sex or mixed-sex attractions, they and their families should be free to seek counseling towards the resolutions they desire,” Jeff Caruso, VCC executive director, wrote in the forum. “Licensed professionals with years of education and experience should not be removed from the process of helping children work through these sensitive and deeply personal issues.” 

Caruso also said the ban would affect “the fundamental rights of parents for their children” as well as the “limits on regulatory authority that ensure consistency with the General Assembly.” 

The Trevor Project conducted an inaugural LGBTQ Youth Mental Health survey this year. The research concluded that a small percentage of LGBTQ youth undergo conversion therapy (5%) and that 42% of those who do attempt suicide. That’s compared to 17% of LGBTQ youth who attempt suicide but do not undergo conversion therapy. 

“I am proud that members of Richmond’s City Council joined me in opposing the inhumane and regressive practice of conversion therapy and affirming the sexual orientation and identities of all Richmonders,” Stoney said earlier this month on social media.

A rainbow flag was raised on Sept. 23, along with a trans flag and the Philly Pride Flag, for Richmond Pride. (Photo from City of Richmond Flickr account)

Equality Virginia, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, applauded Richmond’s leadership for taking the initiative to regulate conversion therapy.

“It’s exciting to see Richmond wanting to be vocal on this issue,” said James Parrish, executive director for Equality Virginia. But, he said, it is more important to see health professionals advocating for permanent, statewide change. 

Parrish and Equality Virginia hope the practice is banned in the state because mental health advocates believe it “mentally and physically harms people.”

“At the end of the day, we need everyone working to end this practice,” Parrish said.

Written by Christopher Brown, Capital News Service. Top Photo: Mayor Levar Stoney raising a rainbow flag on Sept. 23. (Photo from City of Richmond’s Flickr account)