The order addresses “LGBTQI+ Equality.”
QUICK FACTS:
- Joe Biden announced an executive order that is designed to “advance LGBTQI+ during pride month.”
- According to the White House Executive Order Fact Sheet, the administration plans to take “bold actions” to “fight for full equity” for people in the LGBTQ community.
- The order includes funding for the Department of Education to create a new advocacy group that “issues guidance” on LGBTQI+ policies to “states, school districts, and other educational institutions.”
- Biden’s new order also gives resources to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to focus on gender identity affirmation services for students in the US.
- The order also addresses support the administration plans to offer to mentally disturbed members of the LGBTQI+ community and “charges HHS to help prevent LGBTQI+ suicide by expanding youth access to suicide prevention resources.”
THE ORDER’S CHANGE REGARDING “CONVERSION THERAPY”:
- The Executive Order’s Fact Sheet discussed “Conversion Therapy,” saying that children “who are exposed to so-called ‘conversion therapy’ face higher rates of attempted suicide and trauma. Numerous states across the country have already passed bipartisan laws to prevent exposure to so-called ‘conversion therapy,’ with Republican and Democratic governors signing state bans on conversion therapy into law.”
- “President Biden is charging HHS with leading an initiative to reduce the risk of youth exposure to this dangerous practice. HHS will explore guidance to clarify that federally-funded programs cannot offer so-called ‘conversion therapy.’ HHS will also increase public awareness about its harms, provide training and technical assistance to health care providers, and expand support for services to help survivors,” the fact sheet goes on to say.
- Some have asserted that this order lowers the bar for conversion therapy, as Libby Emmons of The Post Millenial pointed out: “Filled with rhetoric and emotional flourishes, this new order states that so-called conversion therapy must be banned across the country, but it warps the language of conversion therapy to say that for youth who identify as transgender, it would be a therapeutic conversion to suggest to them that they not alter their healthy bodies to match their gender dysphoria.”
BACKGROUND:
- A recent study by the Heritage Foundation found that while policymakers are looking to offer easier access to puberty blockers in the united states, access to “gender-affirming” treatments often increases suicide rates.
- The group found that those who are administered “gender-affirming care” in the form of hormones often experience “significant and irreversible harms from such medical interventions.”
