Conversion therapy shown to damage not only mental health, but also physical health

Conversion therapy has been in the news quite a bit lately, for both positive and negative reasons. On the positive side, South Australia and New South Wales last month became the latest two Australian states to ban conversion therapy, leaving Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory as the only jurisdictions where conversion therapy remains legal.

On the negative side, we have the US Health & Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ignoring decades worth of research and evidence from leading medical organisations about best practice medical care for transgender and non-binary people, instead wanting to replace it with “gender exploratory therapy”, which is just a fancy name for conversion therapy.

The lifelong mental health effects on victims of conversion therapy are well known, with those subjected to these practices at higher risk of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, attempting suicide, using illegal drugs and engaging in risky behaviour that increases their risk of contracting HIV and STDs.

Now, a new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association has found that LGBTQIA+ youth who were assigned male at birth and who were exposed to conversion therapy practices to change their sexual orientation or gender identity were more likely than their peers to experience poor cardiovascular health, including elevated blood pressure and increased systemic inflammation.

The study notes that LGBTQIA+ individuals experience chronic stress due to social stigma, prejudice, and discrimination, which in turn contributes to adverse health outcomes. Conversion therapy practices reinforces both internalised and experienced stigma, thereby causing additional chronic stress which, in turn, can lead to elevated blood pressure and systemic inflammation, both of which are principal contributors to cardiovascular disease risk.

Currently in the US, there are more than 1320 conversion therapy practitioners operating across the country, including in states where conversion therapy is banned. Forty six percent of these practitioners hold active professional licences, while fifty four per cent operate within religious institutions.

The researchers concluded that their findings “support and extend the evidence illustrating a deleterious effect of [conversion therapy] on psychosocial health [and, furthermore, also supports bans on conversion therapy] and enforcement of existing bans to eventually eliminate the adverse health consequences associated with these practices.”