Conversion Therapy Argumentative Essay

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In her suicide letter which she posted to the social media website Tumblr, 18-year-old transgender teenager Leelah Alcorn stated: “The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender.” Leelah had been the recipient of what is commonly known as conversion therapy. Living with friends and parents who did not support her, Leelah was forced to attend therapy for simply being herself. Her mother took her to the therapy, in which Leelah responds with, “[she] would only take me to Christian therapists (who were biased), so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure my depression. I only got more Christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.”Based on countless stories similar to Leelah’s, we can only conclude that conversion therapy indeed does not help, and it can lead to depression, anxiety, and even suicide.
Conversion therapy is a psychological treatment based on the idea that being homosexual or any other sexual orientation that deviates from heterosexual is a disorder. This type of therapy has been practiced since the 1930’s, and is commonly practiced by people of religion. Changing someone’s sexual …show more content…

In 2017, bills to ban this therapy has been sent to Congress in regards to 17 more states (Florida being one of them). Several municipalities such as Miami Beach, Cincinnati and Seattle have also banned minor conversion therapy. A petition has even been created in honor of Leelah Alcorn to ban all LGBTQ conversion therapies. Recently in the U.S. government, Mike Pence has been accused for supporting conversion therapy and even possibly funding it. The U.S.’s Republican Party decided in their platform that conversion therapy is a medical practice and that parents have the right to decide what medical advice their minor children

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