Bill to ban conversion therapy will help countless young people across Kentucky

During my junior year at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, Kentucky, I publicly came out of the closet for the first time.

I remember being nervous.

I remember being aware of a few other queer people, but they were all in the closet.

I remember knowing our mayor, Jim Gray, was queer, but I had also heard students in my class making fun of him and calling him names.

I remember my parents making sure that I knew that there was nothing wrong with being gay, but that very claim made me suspicious. “If there is nothing wrong, why are you bringing it up?” I thought.

And most of all I remember the boy. We met at a conference, he lived in another city and I was deeply, deeply in love with him.

I had no one to talk to about these feelings, so I bottled them up until one day I got tired of doing so.

I figured, I’m already the bald skinny black kid who regularly faces accusations of “acting white”, wears cardigans to school, and obsesses over politics — why not add gay to the list? So I embraced my inner Gen Z and sent a tweet telling everyone I was gay.

My family still loved me, my friends embraced me, and my coaches and teachers never treated me differently.

So I was not expecting what happened next.

Almost immediately I began receiving messages on every social media platform from young people all around Kentucky. These messages were from young folks who knew they were also different, who saw me standing in the light, and were looking for hope.

I remember a 16-year-old girl from Lexington who told me she was queer but that her parents would make her move out if she told anyone or acted on it.

I remember the senior from Western Kentucky who messaged me from an anonymous Snapchat account. He asked if I could give him advice on how to deal with a parent who kept sending him to “talk” with a faith leader in the community because she was concerned about his sexuality.

And I remember the young woman from Eastern Kentucky who was so strong in the face of an abusive parent but also devastated that she no longer felt welcomed by her family and community.

I was not prepared to receive these messages.

I could not provide a place for the young girl from Lexington to stay, I could not offer the trauma-informed care the high school senior needed, I could not make up for the family the young lady from Eastern Kentucky was having to leave behind.

All I could do was listen to them and, perhaps more importantly, see them.

In Kentucky, some experts estimate that nearly 50 percent of homeless youth are LGBTQ+.

In Kentucky, you can still be fired, refused housing, refused a loan, and refused health insurance all because of who and how you choose to love.

And, in Kentucky children under the age of 18 can still be subjected to the scientifically discredited practice of conversion therapy.

Conversion therapy, sometimes referred to as “reparative therapy,” refers to any of several dangerous practices aimed at changing an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity that is not backed by scientific evidence and is opposed by the Kentucky Medical Association.

According to Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky, “conversion therapists use a variety of shaming, emotionally traumatic or physically painful stimuli to make their victims associate those stimuli with their LGTBQ identities.” The American Psychiatric Association warns that “the potential risks of [conversion therapy] are great, including depression, anxiety, and self- destructive behavior.”

So when I read that Senators Kerr, Adams, Willner and McGarvey introduced legislation to ban conversion therapy in Kentucky, I was ecstatic. This bipartisan group of legislators looked at the science and decided to stand with us rather than with hate and homophobia. They decided to *see* us for who we are, fellow Kentuckians who just want to be supported and protected.

While the bills are not perfect and will not end discrimination in Kentucky, they send a powerful message to every queer young person in the state — It is okay to be different. It is okay to exist outside of the mainstream.

Now it is up to the rest of the state House and Senate to follow their lead, give H.B. 199 and S.B. 85 a hearing, pass them, and send them to Governor Andy Beshear’s desk for his signature.

Please join me in urging them to do so. Call your legislator: 1-800-372-7181.

Andrew Brennen is a 2014 graduate of Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.