A California Congressman introduced the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act of 2017 to stop conversion therapy. WBFO's Eileen Buckley recently spoke with a local member of Buffalo's LGBTQ community who decries the method.
“I went through electric convulsive therapy. I went through the humiliation therapies, the redirection therapy, the realignment therapies,” stated Kitty Lambert, a long-time Buffalo activist.
Lambert of Buffalo was describing her experience with conversion therapy. Over many years, conversion therapy has been used to force change of a person's gender identity or sexual orientation. But those against the practice deem it ineffective and dangerous.
“The truth is there is still an enormous number of people out there that think that this is something I woke up one day and chose. Over 52-percent of LGBT children, between the ages of 10 and 21 try to commit suicide, LGBT,” remarked Lambert.
Lambert said no one should go through conversion therapy or feel there is something wrong with them.
“I will literally fight to my death – my last breathe drawn will be working on these issues, so that not another child grows up to feel as if there is something wrong with them and unfixable, because you can’t change this. I tried. I did everything and once I came to the realization that I couldn’t do this anymore, and I came out, I really assumed my good Mormon mother and father would leave me, they would abandon me, they would turn their backs on me and it was quite the opposite. My dad said we’re so relieved that you have come to an understanding of who you are,” Lambert recalled.
A national action organization called CREDO has launched a petition that asks citizens to tell Congress being gay is not an illness and they want them to pass the legislation to ban conversion therapy. Locally Lambert and other members of LGBTQ community have called on the Erie County Legislature to support a bill that calls for a ban on the practice.
