FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TWO Applauds President Obama for Endorsing a Ban on Conversion Therapy
Conversion Therapy is Consumer Fraud that Can Destroy LGBT Youth
CHICAGO – Truth Wins Out, one of the nation’s leading organizations combating conversion therapy, praised President Barack Obama 
today for announcing he is staunchly opposed to this barbaric practice. “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this Administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors,” said President Obama.
Conversion therapy is currently banned in California, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia.
“We are ecstatic that President Barack Obama spoke out against this harmful practice that psychologically terrorizes too many perfectly healthy LGBT youth and stigmatizes them as mentally ill,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “The President’s wise words gave momentum to efforts to prohibit fringe practitioners from traumatizing vulnerable LGBT adolescents and calling it therapy.”
The president’s comments were in response to a White House petition that gained more than 100,000 signatures. Obama went onto say: “Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let’s say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he’s held as long as he can remember. Soon, perhaps, he will decide it’s time to let that secret out. What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us – on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build.”
“President Obama’s expression of support shows that he really ‘gets it’ at a fundamental level,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “We are very fortunate to have a president who is dedicated to equality and ending the destructive practice of conversion therapy.”
Truth Wins Out (TWO) is a non-profit organization that works to demolish the very foundation of anti-gay prejudice. Our philosophy is simple: We attack the underpinnings of homophobia by debunking harmful lies, discrediting hateful myths, and countering anti-gay organizations. By chipping away at the underlying ignorance that fuels anti-LGBT attitudes, we can ultimately win our fight for fairness and achieve full equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people worldwide.
