Waterloo Bans Conversion Therapy On LGBTQ Youth

The Waterloo City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting a “medical or mental health professional” from attempting to change a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity on Monday night.

The ordinance passed all three readings 6-1, with only At-Large Council Member Dave Boesen opposed, and goes into effect immediately. Mayor Quentin Hart also expressed his support for it. At Monday’s meeting, 33 people spoke for and against the ordinance.

Waterloo Ward 2 Council Member Jonathan Grieder, who brought forth the ordinance, said he was “proud to have led this fight.” He added that he was “incredibly thankful for my colleagues and the community who voiced their support for the protection of fundamental human rights” in a statement after the vote.

“Conversion therapy, also known as sexual orientation change efforts or reparative therapy, is a widely discredited practice,” Grieder wrote. “Tonight, the Waterloo City Council firmly declared that hate has no home here.”

Those who violate the ordinance will receive an advisory letter notifying them they are in violation, and complaints may be forwarded to the state licensing board, Grieder said.

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Blazing a trail

Waterloo is only the second city in Iowa to ban the practice after Davenport did so in 2020. Linn County added its own ordinance in June 2022, but it only applies to unincorporated areas, not cities within it such as Cedar Rapids.

The State of Iowa Youth Advisory Council has come out against conversion therapy for minors, but Iowa is one of 20 states with no statewide law banning the practice. Bills have occasionally been introduced in the state legislature, but have not advanced.

An Iowa Capital Dispatch article in 2020 noted conversion therapy is practiced in the state, though it is largely “underground” and not publicly advertised as such.

Johnson County Supervisor Jon Green said his county was “working on something similar here,” he noted in a quote tweet about the Waterloo ban. “Stay tuned.”

Good work, Waterloo.

(We're working on something similar here. Stay tuned.) https://t.co/oSQg5kEE4r

— Jon Green (@modestholdings) May 16, 2023

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Opponents argue ‘viewpoint discrimination’

Thirteen people argued against the ban. Some said they disagreed on religious grounds, some said they didn’t believe it was within the city’s purview to regulate medical professionals, and others contended it would be “viewpoint discrimination” for therapists and families who prefer their children be heterosexual.

Boesen said his “no” vote was because he does “not believe that this ordinance is legal.” He is also worried the city could face lawsuits.

State Sen. Sandy Salmon, a Republican from Janesville who represents areas north of Waterloo but not the city itself, also spoke in opposition to the ban.

“Families ought to be able to choose the counseling that best fits the goal they have for their minor child,” Salmon said. “Many families do not agree with the beliefs and viewpoints that have become popular in society today regarding sexuality.”

Salmon also took issue with a city resolution, passed unanimously directly before the ordinance, that called out the Iowa Legislature for passing “a series of anti-LGBTQ+” laws this session.

“I totally reject that notion and that characterization of the legislation we have passed,” Salmon said, eliciting laughter from the audience.

She added she thought laws banning youth from getting gender-affirming surgery, reading LGBTQ books and using school restrooms they feel most comfortable in were “passed for the safety and protection of youth.”

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‘Hurting children is abuse’

But the 20 speakers who said the city needed to pass a ban said that the ban would, unlike those state laws, actually protect youth.

Dr. Brent Buhr, an internal medicine physician and assistant medical director at Peoples Clinic in Waterloo, listed the dozens of professional medical and health organizations that denounce conversion therapy.

“There are kids dying because they do not feel they have someone they can trust to talk to that will affirm them,” Buhr said. “And that means listening—it doesn’t mean telling them what to do or intimidating them.”

Finch Madlock-Blanchard of Waterloo said they knew they were transgender as a kindergartener, and said conversion therapy was “torture.”

“Showing children pornography is sexual abuse. Zapping children is sexual abuse. Hurting children is abuse—that’s it,” they said. “If they tell you that the sky is pink, that doesn’t mean that you get to hit them.”

by Amie Rivers
5/16/23

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