Israel Warns Against Gay ‘Conversion’ Therapy
Israel’s health ministry issued a warning declaring that therapies aimed at changing patients from gay to straight are not supported by medical evidence and could be harmful.
Signed by Health Minister Yael German, Sunday’s decision adopts the position of the Council of Psychologists and the Israel Psychological Association. The health ministry statement warns that gay conversion therapies are neither professionally nor ethically acceptable, citing numerous medical studies which show that such therapies do not work, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
“Sexual inclination is part of a person’s identity and requires no treatment or conversion,” German said, according to Ynet.
Israeli gay rights groups hailed the health ministry’s position.
“The Health Ministry warning comes after numerous studies and testimonies regarding the serious emotional harm suffered by LGBTs who underwent conversion attempts, including attempted suicides,” said Shai Deutsch, chairman of the National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transsexual Task Force, according to Haaretz.
However, those who advocate for gay conversion therapies remain undaunted.
“I know many, many people who have been treated,” Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, founder of Atzat Nefesh, an Orthodox organization that encourages gay conversion therapy, told Haaretz. “What, they don’t exist?”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO