Imagine that you’ve got a middle school daughter who is confused — is she really a boy? She wants help blocking out the noise, help affirming what she used to know for certain. Not quite knowing what to do, you find a therapist.

It turns out, however, that you live in one of the many places — from Virginia to Illinois, from Kansas City, Missouri, to Columbus, Ohio — that prohibit therapists from telling your daughter the truth: She is a girl. A wave of cities and states have banned what they call “conversion therapy” for LGBT people over the past several years. My city, Cleveland, passed a ban just last week. The newspaper headlines bring to mind an end to lobotomies, electric shock therapy, or aversion training impossibly geared to change the sexual preferences of gay men in the 20th century.