Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill Wednesday that bans licensed professionals from subjecting minors to conversion therapy, the discredited practice that attempts to turn LGBTQ+ people heterosexual. Conversion therapy has been denounced as unnecessary, ineffective, and harmful by major medical and mental health organizations. Photo: Officer of Gov. Spencer Cox
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill Wednesday that bans licensed professionals from subjecting minors to conversion therapy, the discredited practice that attempts to turn LGBTQ+ people heterosexual.
Conversion therapy has been denounced as unnecessary, ineffective, and harmful by major medical and mental health organizations.
Some exceptions are allowed under HB 228. Someone who is “both a health care professional and a religious advisor” and “acting substantially in the capacity of a religious advisor and not in the capacity of a health care professional” is exempt from the ban, according to the bill. Health care professionals who are also the parents or grandparents of their client also are exempt.
In 2020, Utah’s Division of Professional Licensing restricted conversion therapy from being used on minors.
The Utah law will make the ban on the practice stronger. A violation would be considered unprofessional conduct and could result in punishment of up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $25,000.
Both chambers of the legislature had approved the measure unanimously in February.
Utah is one of 20 states and the District of Columbia that have outlawed conversion therapy against minors.
Cox, a Republican, has been more supportive to LGBTQ+ youth than some members of his party. For example, he vetoed a transgender-exclusionary school sports bill last year, but the legislature overrode his veto.
However, Cox did sign a bill this year that bans most gender-affirming care for trans youth.
LGBTQ+ organizations applauded Utah’s conversion therapy ban.
“Utah has shown again that LGBTQ advocates and political conservatives can work together to protect families from proven harm,” Mathew Shurka, a conversion therapy survivor and cofounder of Born Perfect, a survivor-led campaign against conversion therapy started by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in a statement.
“Conversion therapy tore my own family apart when conversion therapists — as they so often do — taught me to blame my parents for my orientation,” he said. “Utah’s law protecting LGBTQ youth recognizes that LGBTQ youth and their families are part of every community.”
In a statement, Troy Stevenson, director of state advocacy campaigns at The Trevor Project, said, “This is an encouraging step forward in the fight to protect LGBTQ youth across the nation from the dangerous and discredited practices of so-called conversion ‘therapy’.”
Added NCLR Legal Director Shannon Minter: “Utah’s leadership as the most conservative state to address this issue shows how rapidly attitudes toward LGBTQ youth are changing.
“People from all walks of life recognize that public officials have a responsibility to protect vulnerable youth from this life-threatening harm.”
