Conservative-bastion North Dakota bans conversion therapy

A legislative committee in North Dakota approved a rule-change that would ban social workers in the state from applying conversion therapy on LGBTQ persons.

The North Dakota Board of Social Work Examiners lobbied for the legislature to make he change. The Administrative Rules Committee passed it in an 8-7 vote.

“It is an ethical violation for a social worker licensed by the board to engage in any practices or treatments that attempt to change or repair the sexual orientation or gender identity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning individuals,” according to the new mandate.

LGBTQ organization GLAAD reports that over 700,000 adults have had conversion therapy applied to them.

The American Medical Association and American Psychological Association disavow conversion therapy, or any therapy that claims to cure same-sex attraction or transgender identities, as pseudoscience and improper.

Dissenting Republican legislators argued that the mandate takes away an option that faith-based organizations believe is necessary.

They also said that the rule change should have been brought to the entire legislature—and not made in a committee meeting.