Dear Virginia Board of Medicine,

Please vote to approve this guidance document which would ban so-called "conversion therapy." As an openly gay man, I was fortunate to have parents who strongly supported my coming out as a teenager in the late 1970s, instead of rejecting me and my true essence and requiring me to undergo vicious, unsuccessful conversion therapy, which uses rejection, shame and psychological abuse to force young people to try to change who they are. These practices are extremely dangerous and can lead to depression, decreased self-esteem, substance abuse and suicide. They have been thoroughly discredited by science and medicine and have no place in a modern society. They are supported only by those whose bigoted, discriminatory political agenda seeks to feed off and multiply ignorance, fear and hatred for their own selfish, narrow political and financial interests. Please protect Virginia's LGBTQ+ youth by approving this guidance document and ending conversion therapy in our great Commonwealth.

Thank you for your consideration,

Ron Bookbinder