FROM MY EMAIL BOX

Last week, PressProgress broke a major news story that lit up social media and was shared by news outlets, MPs across the aisles, LGBTQ2 leaders and allies. Two of Erin O’Toole’s Conservative MPs are behind a video criticizing anti-conversion therapy legislation that features a youth evangelist who claims counselling helped him overcome his interest in gay “pornography” and “going to gay bars.” “Conversion therapy” is a discredited practice that falsely claims to be able to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. Such practices have been rejected by every mainstream medical and mental health organization for decades. Conversion therapy hurts, some even describe it as torture and can lead the person to depression, anxiety, drug use, and suicide. That’s why readers were shocked to learn Conservative MPs Garnett Genuis and Tamara Jansen produced a video that appears on a website called “Fix The Definition” promoting a petition calling to soften the anti-conversion therapy Bill C-6. Within hours, it became one of the most talked-about stories story on Twitter in Canada