The White House posted a video Friday that features LGBT staffers opposing conversion therapy, a few days after President Obama asked states to prohibit that approach.
“We used to call things like this brainwashing or reprogramming,” Amanda Simpson, executive director of the Army Office of Energy Initiatives, says in the 3 minute, 45 second video.
“It’s about making people conform to the way things are,” she continues.
Obama issued a statement Wednesday urging states to ban therapies that attempt to change the sexual orientation of gay, lesbian and transgender youth. Despite a petition to Obama to support a federal ban, the president has said he’ll instead call for state action.
The White House is focusing on the issue after a 17-year-old transgender youth, Leelah Alcorn, committed suicide after attending conversion therapy.
The video released Friday also features Jay Davis, advisor for digital strategy and engagement at the Environmental Protection Agency; Douglas Brooks, director of the Office of National AIDS Policy; U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith and senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett.
Jarrett says in the video that LGBT youth should get help that’s based on science. Opponents of conversion therapy say it’s traumatic and doesn’t work.
“We want to make sure the help they get along their way is constructive and helpful and guided by love and nurturing and science,” she says.
