Barack Obama (Photo : Reuters)
United States President Barrack Obama has condemned psychiatric therapies that are meant to help "repair" gay, lesbian, and transgender youth.
Obama's statement was a response to a petition made online asking to ban conversion therapies for these youths. The petition gained a lot of signatures in a few months' time. Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old transgender youth who committed suicide on December inspired the said petition, BBC News reported.
Alcorn wrote an online suicide note in December before she threw herself in front of a tractor-trailer after expressing herself in the note that religious therapists have been trying to convert her back to his original gender, a boy.
Through this incident, Obama called for an end to these therapies which objective is to repair gay, lesbian, and transgender youth. This only shows the president's continued support to the LGBT community rights.
According to the statement which was written by Senior adviser to the president, Valerie Jarrett, the president share the concern about the disturbing effects on the lives of the LGBT community. And to show the support of his administration, Obama bans the use of conversion therapy for minors, according to New York Times.
According to Jarrett, the president was moved once he learned of the suicide story of Alcorn. The problem however is far beyond Alcorn's story.
"It was tragic, but I will tell you, unfortunately, she has a lot of company," expalined Jarrett. "It's not the story of one young person. It is the story of countless young people who have been subjected to this."
