Governor Cuomo has announced a series of new measures aimed at banning "conversion therapy," a psychiatric pseudo-treatment that claims to change a homosexual patient's sexual orientation, turning them straight. "Conversion therapy is a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice that is counter to everything this state stands for," Cuomo said. "We will not allow the misguided and the intolerant to punish LGBT young people for simply being who they are."
Such conversion therapy—especially when administered to minors—has been widely denounced by medical professionals. The American Psychological Association and Human Rights Campaign have both explicitly decried the practice.
Governor Cuomo's plan to curb the practice statewide will be a multiform push. Both public and private health care insurers will be banned from covering the costs of conversion therapy for patients under the age of 18. In addition, the New York Department of Health will make it illegal to cover the practice under Medicaid. Finally, the state's Office of Mental Health will ban conversion therapy at any mental health facility that it currently licenses, funds, or operates.
"New York has been at the forefront of acceptance and equality for the LGBT community for decades—and today we are continuing that legacy and leading by example," Cuomo said. "We will not allow the misguided and the intolerant to punish LGBT young people for simply being who they are.”
In a statement, Mayor de Blasio commended the Governor's proposed ban, calling it "exactly the right one to make."
"No amount of therapy can fix something that isn't broken," de Blasio said. "No public or private insurance plans should encourage a practice found to be damaging to LGBT young people who, like everyone else, are searching for love and acceptance. The medical profession is about saving lives, not tearing them apart.”
The new measures would severely restrict conversion therapy as a supposed "treatment" for homosexuality. However, State Assembly Member Deborah Glick expressed worry that Cuomo's efforts wouldn't be able to stop independent mental health counselors from attempting to convert patients. "Any avenue that you can close off for this pernicious practice is a good thing, Glick told the Times. "I'm just saying I don't think it gets the largest number of practitioners."
California, Oregon, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington D.C. have all outlawed the practice of conversion therapy. Unsurprisingly, the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family has come out in opposition of Cuomo's proposed ban. In an email to ABC News, the group's public policy vice president Carrie Gordon Earll claimed that minors "should have access to professionally based, ethically directed care that assesses, clarifies and aligns with their deeply-held values, faith and life goals."
However, support for conversion therapy outside of the religious right is in short supply. "No young person should be coerced or subjected to this dangerous so-called therapy," Chad Griffin of the Human Rights Campaign said in a statement.
