Published: May 3, 2022
By: Lura Stabiler
BATON ROUGE, La. (LSU Manship School News Service) – A bill that would have prohibited licensed medical professionals from engaging with minors in conversion therapy was met with opposition and voluntarily deferred Tuesday at a House hearing.
The bill defined conversion therapy as practices intended to change a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity or both. Under the bill, a medical professional who participated in such therapy could have had his or her license revoked.
“We have a large population of vulnerable youth here, and we need to do everything we can to at least let them know that there are people here who care about them,” the bill’s author, Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, said at the House Committee on Health and Welfare meeting.
Some conservative and religious groups believe that gay people can be persuaded to change their sexual orientation, while many experts dispute that.
Landry amended her bill, House Bill 605, by providing further definitions about health providers and consent and removing criminal language to satisfy other lawmakers, but that did not stop opposition.
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LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 