An attempt to formally criminalize conversion therapy for minors in Akron is on pause after Mayor Shammas Malik withdrew legislation that was in front of City Council.
The move, made just ahead of Monday evening’s scheduled vote, comes after several LGBTQ+ rights organizations contacted the mayor’s office and Akron City Council on Monday expressing concerns about the legislation scheduled for a vote later in the day.
“President [Margo] Sommerville, you and I received an email midday this morning from some community groups expressing a desire to have further conversation about this legislation,” Malik’s Chief of Strategy Nanette Pitt said during Monday’s City Council meeting.
Conversion therapy is a discredited practice of attempting to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, usually targeting LGBTQ+ minors. Akron was lauded by LGBTQ+ advocates in October 2022 when City Council passed an ordinance banning the “dangerous and universally discredited practice of conversion therapy for local youth.”
The 2022 legislation didn’t codify criminal penalties but outlined that the Akron Civil Rights Commission can “investigate and consider complaints” of youth conversion therapy and then “hold hearings, and issue orders and penalties on complaints alleging violations” of the legislation.
Last week, Malik attempted to formally criminalize youth conversion therapy, adapting the 2022 legislation by proposing first-degree misdemeanor charges for practitioners that could lead to six months in prison.
The Akron Civil Rights Commission hasn’t “received a complaint of this nature to date,” the board’s chairperson, Ellen Lander Nischt, told City Council’s Rules Committee last Monday when the updated legislation was introduced.
Chief City Prosecutor Craig Morgan told the committee last Monday that he already spoke about the proposed law with the captain who oversees the Akron Police Department’s detective bureau and the lieutenant who oversees the juvenile division of the detective bureau.
“That is where any type of investigation of this nature would land,” Morgan said. “They’re familiar with it, they’re aware of it, and I look forward to working with them if there’s instances of said behavior. I think it gives us, from the city’s perspective, a valuable enforcement mechanism here to be able to address this with criminal penalties.”
While the administration is eager to get formal criminal penalties for the practice on the books, pro-LGBTQ+ groups want them to hold off, for now.
“We’ve moved the legislation back into committee to allow additional time for the administration to connect with several invested LGBTQ+ organizations and hear their feedback on the proposed change in enforcement,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.
