"Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation." - The American Academy of Pediatrics, 1993 (https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/92/4/631.full.pdf)

Several leading medical, pediatric, psychiatric, psychological, and education organizations have denounced the practice of conversion therapy. Numerous studies over the past 30 years have indicated that not only does conversion therapy not yield a desirable outcome (unsurprising, since you cannot fix a person who is not inherently broken), it produces long-lasting harmful ramifications such as those noted above. Please read more about the professional opinions of the negative side effects of conversion therapy here: https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/just-the-facts.pdf.

Children need our help: we should feed them, clothe them, educate them, and tell them that they matter and that they are loved... it is no one's place to tell children that how they present themselves or how they feel about other people is wrong. Teach them kindness, not rigid gender or sex stereotypes. A person's sexual orientation is not a person's character; it is simply an immutable aspect of the person that was born into this world.

Thank you for the publication of this guidance. Our great Commonwealth should not support this form of child abuse.