Kansas City bans gay conversion therapy on LGBTQ youth
This marks the second city in the Missouri state to ban the archaic practice
By Steve Brown
Words: Steve Brown
Kansas City has become the second city in Missouri to ban gay conversion therapy on LGBTQ youth.
On Thursday (November 14), the City Council of Kansas City voted unanimously in favour to ban any attempt to ‘change’ the sexual orientation or gender identity of young people under the age of 18 years old, Kansas City Star reported.
Just one other city in Missouri has banned the archaic and widely discredited practice – where many people undergo shock treatment, water torture and ‘pray the gay away’.
However 31 other US states still legalise the practice despite a study by The Trevor Project which found that 42 per cent of young people who had undergone the so-called therapy had attempted to take their own lives over the last year.
The number was considerably higher for trans and gender non-conforming people.
Conversion therapy has been condemned and dubbed dangerous and ineffective by every leading US medical organisation and the United Nations and World Health Organisation have both likened it to torture.