WHITE PLAINS – Westchester County legislators have passed a measure prohibiting healthcare professionals from providing “conversion therapy” to minors in the county.
The practice, which seeks to alter a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, has been discredited and denounced by agencies the likes of the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychology and the World Health Organization.
“I’m happy to see that across the political spectrum, legislators have been able to join together to pass this,” Board Chairman Benjamin Boykin said following Monday night’s vote. “This is an inhumane practice. Young people just coming of age face long-term psychological harm from these coercive programs.”
Boykin said by banning them, “we’ve been able to keep young people on the road to healthy self-acceptance.”
County Executive George Latimer, who proposed the measure, will sign it shortly.
