Dear Friend,

The California State Assembly recently made history by passing a landmark bill that will ban psychological abuse inflicted on LGBT young people by deceitful mental health professionals who falsely claim to be able to change their sexual orientation or gender expression.

Senate Bill 1172—authored by California State Senator Ted Lieu—will stop mental health professionals from harming young people with this dangerous practice, but only if Governor Brown signs the bill into law.

And this is where we need your help - Ask Governor Brown to Protect LGBT Young People from Dangerous Psychological Abuse now.

We can end this practice—which causes long-lasting depression and has far too often resulted in young people taking their lives—if together we can convince the governor that we want him to protect young people by signing the bill into law.

No more young people should ever be shamed by a mental health professional into thinking that who they are is bad, and you can help protect them by emailing the governor now.

Opponents of equality have already launched a well-funded attack on the bill, spreading deceptive fictions that all stem from the idea that being LGBT is a disease in need of a cure. We've all seen how their fringe attacks have hurt us in the past, and we can't let that happen again.

Tell the governor that LGBT youth do not need to be "cured," and that SB 1172 will stop deceitful practitioners of this psychological abuse.

Family Equality Council is a supporter of SB 1172, in alignment with the nation’s leading mental health associations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Counseling Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists all of whom have issued position statements warning that there is no evidence  that these treatments work and that they may cause serious harm.

We can’t turn our backs on young people, especially when all we need to do is send an email to ask the governor to sign SB 1172 into law.

Can you help?

Emily Hecht-McGowan
Director of Public Policy