CONVERSION THERAPY BAN

STATE SOCIAL WORK ASSOCIATION AWAITS WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT DECISION ON CONVERSION THERAPY BAN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 9, 2025

CONTACT: NASW WISCONSIN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MARC HERSTAND AT 608-257-6334 OR mherstand.naswwi@socialworkers.org

Madison, WI - The National Association of Social Workers Wisconsin Chapter (NASW-WI) looks forward to the Wisconsin State Supreme Court’s hearing of oral arguments in Tony Evers v. Howard Marklein on January 16^th, 2025. The Court’s final decision on this case could reaffirm the ability of Wisconsin professions to set their own Conduct Code as well as stop the extremely harmful practice of conversion therapy.

NASW-WI has been working for seven years to ban conversion therapy in the Conduct Code for social workers, marriage and family therapists and professional counselors. The proposed Conduct Code rule, which would protect clients from this harmful, discredited, unethical practice, has repeatedly been suspended by the Joint Committee on the Review of Administrative Rules.

The continuous suspensions of this rule represent a legislative overreach in the rule-making process and threaten the ability of professions in Wisconsin to create their standards. As outlined in state statutes Section 15.08 (intro.) and (b)) and a June 2020 Legislature Memo, professional boards can create ethical standards. Section 457.03 (2) (intro) and (b) Statutes provide that authority to the Examining Board of Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Counseling, and Social Work.

Conversion therapy is a discredited and extremely harmful practice that attempts to cause an individual identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or gender-nonconforming (“LGBT”) to abandon that identity and adopt and/or exhibit a heterosexual sexual orientation and gender identity consistent with the one assigned to them at birth.

Experts have described the practice as torture. Conversion therapy has included, both historically and today, enforcing rigid gender roles through talk therapy, repeating homophobic or transphobic slurs, isolation from friends and family, “corrective” rape, exorcism, and aversion “therapies” such as using electrical shock devices or nausea-inducing medication to induce a negative response to stimuli associated with being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.[1]

The practice is associated with increased depression, psychological distress, substance use, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts as well as lower educational attainment and lower weekly incomes.[2]

To learn more, visit the webpage dedicated to NASW-WI’s work on banning conversion therapy here.

A PDF version of this statement can be found here

About The National Association of Social Workers Wisconsin Chapter:

Founded in 1955, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is the largest membership organization of professional social workers in the world, with more than 120,000 members. NASW works to enhance the professional growth and development of its members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies.

NASW-WI’s mission is to foster community by advancing the profession through education, ethics, professional standards, and advocacy to serve diverse populations.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS FILES AMICUS BRIEF TO THE WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT TO REINSTATE THE PROFESSION’S BAN ON CONVERSION THERAPY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: APRIL 1, 2024

CONTACT: NASW WISCONSIN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MARC HERSTAND AT 608-257-6334 OR MHERSTAND.NASWWI@SOCIALWORKERS.ORG

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS FILES AMICUS BRIEF TO THE WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT TO REINSTATE THE PROFESSION’S BAN ON CONVERSION THERAPY

Madison, WI - The National Association of Social Workers, through its Wisconsin Chapter, has filed an Amicus Brief to the Wisconsin Supreme Court urging them to reinstate the profession’s ban in its State Conduct Code on Conversion Therapy.

In October 2023, Governor Tony Evers sued the Wisconsin Legislature, alleging that in four instances they had violated the state constitution’s provision of separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. One of the instances referred to the action on January 11, 2023, by the Wisconsin Legislative Joint Committee on the Review of Administrative Rules, which voted on a partisan basis to suspend the ban on Conversion Therapy that was part of MPSW 20, the Conduct Code for the professions of social work, marriage and family therapy and professional counseling.

In February 2024, the Wisconsin Supreme Court took up two of the four issues, but left the others in abeyance, including the suspension of the ban on Conversion Therapy. This Amicus Brief seeks to prompt the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take up, as soon as possible, the portion of the lawsuit related to the suspension of the ban on Conversion Therapy.

Conversion therapy is a discredited and extremely harmful practice that attempts to cause an individual identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or gender-nonconforming (“LGBT”) to abandon that identity and adopt and/or exhibit a heterosexual sexual orientation and gender identity consistent with the one assigned to them at birth.

Conversion therapy has been described by experts as torture[1] and is associated with increased depression, psychological distress, substance use, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts as well as lower educational attainment and lower weekly incomes[2].

Conversion therapy has been condemned by every major medical and mental health association including; the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy, American College of Physicians, American Counseling Association, American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychoanalytic Association, American Psychological Association, American School Counselor Association, Pan American Health Organization, Regional Office of the World Health Organization and the World Psychiatric Association[3].

NASW-WI has been working for over six years to ban Conversion Therapy in the Conduct Code for social workers, marriage and family therapists and professional counselors. Between December 1, 2022, and January 11, 2023, the Conduct Code ban was in effect until it was suspended as mentioned above on a partisan vote in the Wisconsin Legislative Joint Committee on the Review of Administrative Rules.