World Psychiatric Association Condemns "Ex-Gay" Conversion Therapy

Even as fraudulent "Ex-gay" conversion "ministries" and the Roman Catholic Church continue to peddle the lie that gays can "change" - lying is, after all, their main hallmark - the World Psychiatric Association has come out and explicitly condemned such conversion "therapies."  Moreover, it has called on all nations to decriminalize homosexuality.  The main obstacle?  Ignorance embracing religions across the globe ranging from Christianity to Islam.   Sadly, many in these religious prefer to cling to myths of talking snakes written by ignorant goat herders in the case of the Bible or the writings of someone likely suffering from what would today be viewed as mental illness in the case of the Koran.  BuzzFeed looks at the development.  Here are highlights:

The largest international organisation for psychiatrists is to publish a statement condemning conversion therapy as unscientific, unethical, ineffective, and harmful, BuzzFeed News can reveal.

In a wide-ranging call to reduce the stigmatisation, discrimination, and resulting worsened mental health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) will formally announce on Tuesday its opposition to any attempts to turn LGBT people heterosexual – known as “conversion therapy” or “reparative therapy”.

“There is no sound scientific evidence that innate sexual orientation can be changed,” says the WPA’s position statement, which has been supplied to BuzzFeed News.

 

“Furthermore, so-called treatments of homosexuality can create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish, and they can be potentially harmful. The provision of any intervention purporting to ‘treat’ something that is not a disorder is wholly unethical.”

[T]he WPA represents over 200,000 psychiatrists in over 118 countries, many of which criminalise homosexuality and, in some cases, condone attempts to “cure” it.

The WPA’s statement, which will likely be seen as controversial by many of its members, says: “A same-sex sexual orientation per se does not imply objective psychological dysfunction or impairment in judgement, stability, or vocational capabilities.” It continues: “[The WPA] acknowledges the lack of scientific efficacy of treatments that attempt to change sexual orientation and highlights the harm and adverse effects of such ‘therapies’.”

 

The WPA also calls on governments around the world to scrap laws against homosexuality:

“WPA supports the need to de-criminalise same-sex sexual orientation and behaviour and transgender gender identity, and to recognise LGBT rights to include human, civil, and political rights.”

“[The WPA also] supports anti-bullying legislation; anti-discrimination student, employment, and housing laws; immigration equality; equal age of consent laws; and hate crime laws providing enhanced criminal penalties for prejudice-motivated violence against LGBT people.”

It also cites research demonstrating that countries that liberalise laws around homosexuality – and provide equal legal treatment – see a resulting improvement in the mental health of their LGBT citizens.

 

And in a radical move that goes much further than its British or American counterparts, the WPA says psychiatrists have a duty to fight discrimination against LGBT people.

“Psychiatrists have a social responsibility to advocate for a reduction in social inequalities for all individuals, including inequalities related to gender identity and sexual orientation,” it says.

When it comes to the issue of homosexuality, the only choice is whether or not one will embrace ignorance and bigotry over modern medical and mental health knowledge.  Here in America, far to many modern day Pharisee Christians and the Republican political whores have chosen ignorance.   Religion remains a pervasive evil that needs to be eradicated from the world.