As one who works with Junior and Senior High School youth, I find it horrific that "conversion therapy" is still allowed anywhere in the United States, much less in Virginia. From my own experience and the experiences of the youth I work with, it is already difficult to find your place in the world and your identity in it. How much harder still it must be for those identifying as LGBTQ. It is a fact that being LGBTQ is not a mental illness but the barbaric practices performed in "conversion therapy" can lead to a life-long struggle with it, that is if those on whom such "therapies" don't end up taking their own lives. I ask you to ban this inhumane practice and reach out instead with therapies that help people come to terms with their own identities. Please!