Wisconsin Legislative Committee Votes to Block Licensing Rules Banning Conversion Therapy

Monday, January 16th, 2023 -- 1:01 PM

(By Sarah Lehr, Wisconsin Public Radio) A Wisconsin legislative committee voted Thursday to once again block licensing rules banning so-called conversion therapy, which seeks to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people.

According to Sarah Lehr with Wisconsin Public Radio, the practice is widely discredited by medical and psychological professionals. A state licensing board, called the Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Counseling, and Social Work Examining Board, adopted rules to ban it in 2020.

But in 2021, Republican lawmakers on the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules voted to let licensed therapists carry out conversion therapy by suspending the rule that bans it. Their action briefly lapsed in December, but Thursday’s 6-4 vote once again lifts the ban on a temporary basis.

The now-suspended licensing rules prohibited "Employing or promoting any intervention or method that has the purpose of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including attempting to change behaviors or expressions of self or to reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender."

All four Democrats on the committee voted to keep the conversion therapy ban in place. Among them was state Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, who accused Republicans of trying to "short-circuit the process" by handling it through committee.

"I don't think that this is the role of this committee, nor the Legislature, to micromanage what we think is professional conduct for people who want to engage in something so vile and so detestable as to try, under the guise of professionalism, to bully our youth and bully other people by just saying that you need to you need to pray the gay away," Larson said.

But the committee’s Republican Vice Chair Rep. Adam Neylon of Pewaukee asserted Thursday’s hearing wasn’t actually a debate about the "merits" of conversion therapy. Instead, he said the issue was whether the state's examining board had overstepped its authority.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.