Today I introduced the Stop Harming Our Kids (SHOK) resolution because being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered is not a disease to be cured or a mental illness that requires treatment.
medicine, it’s quackery, and we should not be supporting it with taxpayer dollars.
Conversion or reparative therapies are based on the lie that being gay or gender non-conforming means that something is wrong and needs to corrected. This view has been rejected as scientifically invalid by the American Psychiatric Association and other mental health groups for nearly 40 years.
California led the nation on this issue when Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 1172, a law that prohibits state licensed mental health professionals from engaging minors in these harmful and abusive therapies. Governor Brown did the right thing and I am urging all states to consider similar laws.
The SHOK resolution encourages each state to take steps to protect minors from efforts that promote or promise to change sexual orientation or gender identity or expression, based on the premise that homosexuality is a mental illness or developmental disorder that can or should be cured.
I am also investigating whether or not federal taxpayer funds have been spent on the practice of conversion therapy with minors through Medicaid or TRICARE reimbursements.
In my cursory investigation, I have found two additional instances of so-called mental health professionals that advertise these services and appear to be eligible for federal dollars. This morning, I sent letters of inquiry to Medicaid and TRICARE to determine if these instances reflect systemic weaknesses that allow federal taxpayer dollars to go to harmful, illegitimate medical services.
http://1.usa.gov/U2S2zk