Doctors ban gay conversion therapy as risks 'mental damage'

[Behind the Aegis]

A ban on conversion therapy by Israeli doctors will help protect gay people from treatments that claim to make them straight, but more work needs to be done with religious groups that support controversial ‘cures’, activists said on Wednesday.

Members who perform conversion therapy could now be expelled from the Israel Medical Association (IMA), which represents 90 percent of the country’s doctors, if a complaint is filed to its ethics committee, said IMA spokeswoman Ziva Miral.

“The treatments to change one’s sexual orientation have been found to be ineffective and could cause mental damage, such as anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies,” the IMA said in a position paper on the practice.

Conversion therapy, which can include hypnosis and electric shocks, is based on the belief that being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is a mental illness that can be cured.

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[GWC58]

1. Could be because

ITS QUACKERY and does not work. My belief is people are born one way, or the other.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. It is quackery.

Sadly, too many people (and countries) refuse to acknowledge it as bullshit and still insist on damaging GLB people, sometimes to the point of death. So, to see an announcement like this, is a spark of hope. Many states in the US don't ban it.

[Odoreida]

4. Not merely quackery, but ...

This is something that was first tried in the 1950s, back when behaviorism was all the rage and homosexuality considered a disease.

It was abandoned by reputable practitioners, not because doctors suddenly became all progressive, but simply because it did not work. An honest attempt to find a "cure" that failed.

More recently, it was dusted off by religious crazies and claimed to be a new thing just because they threw in some prayer.

[GWC58]

5. An old thing, dusted off & shined up.

But in the end it had the same corrosive effect. ☠️