A Petition To Ban Conversion Therapy Has Been Presented To New Zealand Parliament

It might be surprising to think about, but in 2018, conversion therapy is still an ever present topic. In fact, five of the 14 U.S. states that have outright banned conversion therapy for minors did so in 2018. On the other hand, at the Texas GOP Convention, they officially supported conversion therapy in addition to plenty of other anti LGBTQ-platforms.

Unfortunately, this issue isn’t unique to the United States. On Monday, August 8, two petitions were presented to New Zealand parliament that called for the ban of gay conversion therapy. Between the two petitions, one for the Labour Party and one for the Green Party, 20,000 signatures have been collected, as Radio New Zealand reports.

The signatures were gathered by the youth divisions of both Labour and the Green Party as well as InsideOUT, an LGBTQ charity,

Max Tweedie, co-convenor of Young Greens, said that it would be easier for vulnerable people to avoid conversion therapy if it was illegal. Tweedie also added that support for the petitions was massive.

“There has been a spotlight shone on it,” Tweedie said, “hopefully we can send a message to our young people that says if someone is trying to do this to you — it’s wrong and it’s actually illegal.”

New Zealand, in general, has pretty supportive LGBT laws. They’ve had anti-discrimination laws for LGBT people in place since 1993, the ability to change your legal gender since 1993 and both same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption have been legal since 2013.