It’s hard to imagine the Trump presidency going down in history as a fantastic time for LGBT rights. And yet LGBT people have been scoring several successive victories on the state and local level on a particularly critical issue: making conversion therapy a crime.
Since Donald Trump and Mike Pence took office, five states—New Mexico, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Nevada, Washington—have banned the medically condemned practice of trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation and gender identity, bringing the total number of U.S. states with such bans up to 10.
Several Florida municipalities, major cities like Philadelphia and New York, and other smaller cities have also now banned conversion therapy during the Trump-Pence administration.
These bans on conversion or “reparative,” therapy are still coming with seemingly accelerated momentum: As Amber Phillips noted in her recent Washington Post appraisal of state-level LGBT victories, it seems “likely” that over a dozen states and D.C. will have made it illegal to subject a minor to this ostensibly therapeutic but demonstrably cruel practice by the end of the legislative session.
To be clear this is happening DESPITE the fact that Trump and Mike Pence are in office, not BECAUSE they are in office.
I think it is far more appropriate to give President Obama the credit for moving things forward for the LGBTQ community, than to assign credit to Trump/Pence.
Still good news is good news, and this is indeed good news.
Source https://ift.tt/2HBGgy2
