The amount of states where the discredited practice is legal continues to drop.
Last week, New Hampshire made history by becoming the first Republican-controlled State to sign protections for transgender people into law. And now the state is continuing to make strides in the advancement of LGBTQ-rights, after the Senate voted to ban gay ‘cure’ therapy for minors.
The bill, HB 587, seeks to ban “persons licensed to provide counseling services to propose to engage or engage in conversion therapy with a person under 18 years of age.”
If this bill is signed into effect by the State’s governor, Chris Sununu – who has confirmed that he would sign the bill –, then New Hampshire is set to become the thirteenth state to ban the practice. Bills seeking to ban the practice in Hawaii and Maryland are currently waiting for their governors to sign them into effect.
If the bills are signed then Hawaii will ban the practice on July 1 later this year and Maryland will ban it on October 1. Meanwhile, the New Hampshire bill, if signed into effect, will come into force on January 1, 2019.
Currently, only ten other U.S. states have banned the harmful practice. They are New Jersey, California, Oregon, Illinois, Vermont, New Mexico, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Nevada and Washington.
Fifteen other states are currently debating bans on the practice. They are Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
However, even though the practice is still legal in most of the states, certain cities like Cincinnati in Ohio or Miami in Florida have banned the practice.
The Human Rights Campaign’s Senior Vice President for Policy and Political Affairs, JoDee Winterhof praised the passing of the legislation, saying: “Children across the Granite State deserve to live their lives authentically and should never be subjected to the abusive practice of so-called conversion therapy.
“This dangerous practice has no basis in science and is uniformly rejected by every major medical and mental health organization in the country. We thank the state legislators who voted to protect LGBTQ youth. Governor Sununu now must sign this crucially important legislation.”
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