Gay Conversion Therapy Is a $9 Billion Burden on U.S. Tax Payers
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New research showing the direct costs of LGBTQ+ conversion therapy are around $650 million a year, but the indirect costs of covering treatment for anxiety, depression, and the drug abuse it causes total $8.58 billion. Media outlets cover more LGBTQ+ issues, abortion restrictions, and more.
In a first-of-its-kind look at the financial impact of LGBTQ conversion therapy in the U.S., new research shows the practice creates an economic burden of $9 billion annually. Researchers said the yearly direct cost of conversion therapy performed on LGBTQ young people — including payment of services, health insurance reimbursements or fees to religious organizations that perform the practice — totals $650 million, found the study, published by medical journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday. Indirectly, conversion therapy costs $8.58 billion annually due to the expense of treating effects like anxiety, depression, suicide attempts or substance abuse, the paper said.
In August 2019, six weeks after Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen joined the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) as deputy executive director, news broke that the Justice Department, under President Donald Trump, had asked the Supreme Court to legalize firing transgender workers on the basis of their gender identity. But at one of the moments it was needed most, the nation’s premier transgender policy nonprofit, which had worked shoulder-to-shoulder with presidential administrations, sat empty. Earlier that same day, the staff had walked out over the way the organization treated its employees of color. The incident would prelude the effective dissolution of the storied organization. (Sosin, 3/7)
It was only about a decade ago when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first medication that provided pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to lower people’s risk of catching HIV, Truvada. Scotty Elliot still remembers the stigma that followed people who chose to get on the medication. “Guys who took it were called ‘Truvada whores,’” said Elliot, an infectious disease social worker at Duke Academy for Health Professions Education and Academic Development. He said the disparagement was “just a horrible way to start a movement of getting care with people, so they are protected from HIV.” That stigma against people with HIV and members of the LGBTQ community, which was disproportionately impacted by HIV, still exists, Elliot said. (Thompson, 3/8)
When Javier Gomez testified in front of Florida’s lawmakers in Tallahassee last month, he said he was on the verge of a “panic attack.” But it was important lawmakers heard about the impact of SB 1834, a “Parental Rights in Education” bill in the Florida Senate that critics have labeled the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, from the perspective of students who could be affected most, he said. “I looked everyone in the eyes and I told them my story,” said Gomez, 17, president of the Gay-Straight Alliance chapter at Miami’s iPrep Academy. (Brugal, 3/7)
