http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/cuomo-announce-ban-conversion-therapy-lgbt-youths-article-1.2522458?cid=bitlyby Kenneth Lovett and Denis Slattery
February 6, 2016
Gov. Cuomo will announce regulations Saturday that will ban public and private health care insurers from covering so-called gay conversion therapy, the Daily News has learned. New York will become the first state in the U.S. to ban the practice — intended to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity — with the use of such regulations.
“Conversion therapy is a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice that is counter to everything this state stands for. New York has been at the forefront of acceptance and equality for the LGBT community for decades – and today we are continuing that legacy and leading by example. We will not allow the misguided and the intolerant to punish LGBT young people for simply being who they are.”
It will be unlawful for any mental health facility licensed, funded or operated by the State Office of Mental Health to provide the “therapy.” The regulations, barring psychiatric therapy treatments aimed at changing the sexual orientation or gender identity of gay, lesbian and transgender youth, also prohibit Medicaid coverage for the controversial procedure.
Rev. Jason McGuire, the executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, noted
the order is the latest by Cuomo to bypass the Legislature, including a recent one to cover the transgendered under the state’s anti-discrimination laws. A bill banning the therapy passed the State Assembly last year and in 2014, but failed to make it through the Senate.
(abridged)
