I think the question of acceptance of LGBT folks really does depend on geography.
In some places on Earth I would say, when it comes to legal equality and cultural acceptance
absolutely there’s been this revolution, and progress has occurred at a pace that even
in our own lifetimes was almost inconceivable in terms of how quickly things had evolved.
At the same time, just today 2.8 billion people live in countries around the globe where being
gay is a crime.
And in some places like India progress toward equality has actually been reversed.
So back in 2013 India’s supreme court recriminalized sodomy and same sex activity, which had become
legal.
So there are examples of countries where progress has actually been reversed.
When we talk about how have things changed in terms of equality or the movement toward
equality for LGBTQ folks I think the biggest and most dramatic example is marriage equality
which somewhat miraculously I think—and not inevitably—did become the law of the
land, and all 50 states thanks to the Supreme Court and the Obergefell decision are now
required to recognize same sex marriage.
But I think it’s important to remember that marriage equality does not mean or is not
synonymous with full equality in terms of constitutional protections.
And it is in fact true that a couple could get married on a Sunday and then one of the
partners goes to work on Monday, puts a picture of his husband or her wife on the desk and
gets fired, because in the majority of U.S. states it is still completely legal for people
to be fired on the basis of sexual orientation.
And the Civil Rights Act of 1964 doesn’t cover sexual orientation or gender identity.
There’s a movement among activists and gay rights organizations to expand the scope of
the 1964 Civil Rights Act to go beyond race and gender and color and national origin,
which are covered categories.
But at this point sexual orientation is not covered by the 1864 legislation.
I guess the context is, it wasn’t until 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association
came to the conclusion that homosexuality in general is not a mental illness, and that
was the year when the APA voted to take homosexuality out of its diagnostic manual.
Until that point every gay person, no matter how well adjusted or healthy or functioning,
was considered mentally ill.
So that’s the background, and really that wasn’t so long ago that our most progressive
doctors were under the assumption or were working on this theory that homosexuality
was, in fact, a mental disease.
So I think conversion therapy is kind of the contemporary cousin to that belief that gay
people are sick, and that they can be cured or that they need to be cured.
And certainly, you know, dozens of medical establishment organizations ranging from the
AMA to youth organizations have condemned conversion therapy.
But this idea that people who are gay can be converted into not being gay is indeed
still alive.
My sense is that at this point seven states have outlawed conversion therapy among minors,
meaning that in the other 43 states it’s still allowed for parents to send their children,
their minor children into this kind of therapy and to require that kids under 18 go through
this process.
There have been studies of people who have undergone the therapy and consistently there’s
this sense of finding that therapy not only doesn’t change people from being gay to
straight but inflicts its own harm and trauma.
And there is federal legislation being considered where there would be an national ban, which
again I think is common sense.
And I hope that as we see a new generation of young people becoming more open and more
accepting, and the sense of allies among teenagers and young people, I think that’s the key
to ultimately ending conversion therapy.