Homosexuality is no longer considered a mental illness and has been taken out of the DSM. Logically then a therapy to change a person’s attraction to their own gender is not a disease and does not require treatment. Parents have no more right to try to change their child’s orientation than they do to change eye color, handed ness, or other traits. It is cruel and also useless. It destroys the bonds between child and parent and destroys families. Ban the use of conversion therapy in Virginia and support healthy respectful relationships between family members.

Deborah Minden