Allegheny County Council votes to ban conversion therapy

Allegheny County Council voted Tuesday to ban the practice of conversion therapy in the county.

Conversion therapy is a widely discredited practice used to attempt to change a person’s feelings of same-sex attraction or to change their gender identity.

Council voted 13-2 in favor of the ordinance, which was introduced by Paul Klein, D-Point Breeze.

“Call it what you will, this practice causes real harm and, as such, is a public health and safety threat,” Klein said.

Tom Baker, R-Ross, broke rank to vote with council’s 12 Democrats.

Cindy Kirk, R-McCandless, and Sam DeMarco III, R-North Fayette, voted against the bill.

Council was not scheduled to vote on this ordinance Tuesday. It was fast-tracked after DeWitt Walton, D-Hill District, motioned for a vote to bypass committee review and a second reading.

This is not the first time county council has taken up the issue of banning conversion therapy.

Klein first introduced a bill to prohibiting “mental health providers” from using conversion therapy in March 2019.

That version of the bill broadly defined mental health providers as anyone who provides mental health services.

The version passed Tuesday prohibits any licensed mental health provider — including psychiatrists, psychologists, marriage and family therapists, social workers and nurses — from performing conversion therapy treatments on minors.

The ordinance does not include a criminal penalty or a fixed schedule of fines to be applied if someone is found to be practicing procedures prohibited by the ordinance but courts could order them to stop, Klein said.

DeMarco was scheduled to introduce a separate ordinance to address conversion therapy — which was identical to a bill introduced by Republicans on council last year — at Tuesday’s meeting.

“My bill bans methods, Klein’s bill bans goals,” DeMarco said. “My bill protects free speech. I believe theirs violates free speech.”

DeMarco’s bill would prohibit involuntary treatment or counseling of a minor. It also prohibited “any therapy method causing physical pain to a minor” — including “electroshocking a minor’s body part; penetrating a minor’s fingers with needles; injecting a minor with drugs to induce vomiting; slapping, hitting, punching, kicking…” or other physical contact that inflicts pain or the fear of pain — but was not an outright ban on conversion therapy.

DeMarco said he is confident that Klein’s bill will be challenged in court over limiting free speech of mental health providers.

Conversion therapy has been discredited by several national organizations, including the American Psychological Association and American Academy of Pediatrics.

Both take the position that “homosexuality is not a mental disorder and thus is not something that needs to or can be ‘cured,’” according to a 2008 report issued by the associations.

Pittsburgh City Council passed a ban on conversion therapy in 2016. Allentown and Philadelphia later did the same.