NY moves to stop gay-conversion therapy

Associated Press

NEW YORK

New York is taking steps to stop therapists from trying to change young people’s sexual orientation, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday, joining a number of states that have acted against what’s known as gay-conversion therapy.

The Democratic governor’s move, announced Saturday, comes as gay-rights advocates have campaigned state by state with mixed results to try to ban a practice that major mental-health organizations have repudiated.

Using executive power in a state where legislative bids to ban the therapy have stalled, Cuomo announced planned regulations that would bar insurance coverage for the therapy for minors and prohibit mental-health facilities under state Office of Mental Health jurisdiction from offering it to minors.

“Conversion therapy is a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice” that punishes people “for simply being who they are,” Cuomo said in a statement.

It’s unclear how prevalent the practice is in New York. Cuomo’s office didn’t immediately respond to inquiries Saturday; nor did a handful of New York mental-health organizations.

The American Psychological Association and other mental health groups say conversion therapy, sometimes called reparative therapy, wrongly treats being gay as a mental illness and may make young people feel ashamed, anxious and depressed. Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration called last year for an end to the practice.