For Immediate Release
Contact:
Dr. Scout, scout@cancer-network.org, 310-786-8500
The LGBTQIA+ Cancer Network Condemns Supreme Court Ruling on Conversion Therapy
Executive Director’s Personal Experience Sheds Light on the Harm of Conversion Therapy
Providence, Rhode Island – The following statement is attributable to our Executive Director, Dr. Scout: “As the Executive Director of The LGBTQIA+ Cancer Network, I confront barriers to care for my communities daily; they delay our diagnosis and routinely let cancer echo more largely in our lives than it should. Yet no access to care barrier has been so insidious in my own life as being a survivor of both religious and medical conversion therapy. From the ages of 12-18 I had to deal with church leaders and doctors telling me that being gay or trans was a sin and a disease. These were some of the most influential people in my life and they were insisting that what I was was faulty; something to be fixed, erased, eliminated. I directly credit this with my suicidality during those same years.
I’m extremely proud I survived that phase but I know that it set me back years in my development. Even more brutally, I know some will not survive the same insidious efforts to tell kids that they are broken. I cannot imagine any person who underwent conversion therapy would consider it anything less than child abuse. Again and again, studies have proven the harm I experienced was not isolated but a common consequence of conversion therapy. This is why the practice is rejected by every major medical association, including the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, and American Medical Association.
In my educated opinion, today’s decision will reopen the doors to unethical providers doing harm to vulnerable youth. My heart breaks for the impressionable children who will be further swept up in this atmosphere of intolerance towards phenomena that have been proven to be a routine part of the natural world, sexual and gender nonconformity.
I firmly believe this decision will not stand the test of time; it is a product of the well funded campaigns to divide communities over little known issues. I only hope the jurisprudence that flows from such a flawed decision is fixed expediently. To the kids who have to endure authority figures in their lives attempting to tell them they are broken – hear me: you are amazing as you are and you are absolute superheroes for growing up in a time that has given you so little love.”
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The LGBTQIA+ Cancer Network works to improve the lives of LGBTQIA+ cancer survivors and those at risk by educating the LGBTQIA+ communities about our increased cancer risks; training health care providers; and advocating for LGBTQIA+ engagement in mainstream cancer organizations. Learn more at cancer-network.org.
