Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Federal Bill Seeks To Ban LGBT Conversion Therapy

Freshman Rep. Ted Lieu of California has announced plans to introduce a bill that would ban therapies aimed at altering a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.
In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Lieu repeatedly called such therapies, often called conversion therapy, “fraud.”

“There's nothing unusual about government going out and trying to protect consumers against fraud,” he said.
Under the proposal, conversion therapy would be labeled an “unfair or deceptive act or practice” under the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would be tasked with enforcing the law.
The bill is broader than California's first-in-the-nation law, which Lieu introduced in 2012 while in the California Senate. That law is limited to minors and does not include attempts to alter a person's gender identity.
“The bill is … broader, obviously, because it's nationwide,” he said. “But, what this bill seeks to do is to reaffirm what medical science has already stated formally: Being bay or lesbian or transgender is not a mental disease, illness or defect that needs any sort of cure.”
“There is no medical condition known as 'being gay or lesbian.' That is not a medical disease, defect, and for people to charge money to treat you for something that's no an illness is fraud. There already is an established baseline that you cannot practice medicine below a reasonable standard of care, and when you purport to treat someone for a condition they don't have, that would be medical malpractice,” he added.
Lieu said that he would introduce his bill on Tuesday. But with fewer than three dozen co-sponsors, all of whom are Democrats, the bill faces a steep incline in the Republican-led House.

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