There is nothing wrong with not being heterosexual

The argument

This argument challenges the premise on which conversion therapy rests: that being something other than heterosexual is a defect to be cured. Conversion therapy exists only because it treats non-heterosexual orientations as disorders, illnesses or moral failings in need of correction. But that premise, proponents argue, is false. Mainstream medical and psychological authorities — including the World Health Organization and major national psychiatric and psychological associations — long ago removed homosexuality from their lists of disorders, recognising that being gay, lesbian or bisexual is a normal and healthy variation of human sexuality, not a pathology. There is nothing wrong to fix. If there is nothing wrong with not being heterosexual, then the entire project of conversion therapy is misconceived from the start. A 'therapy' aimed at curing a condition that is not a condition has no legitimate target; it attempts to alter something that was never broken. The harm, proponents argue, runs the other way: the message that one's orientation is shameful and must be changed is itself damaging, and the major health bodies that have studied conversion practices report they are associated with serious psychological harm, including depression, anxiety and suicidality, while producing no genuine change in orientation. The distress conversion therapy claims to address is often created by the stigma it reinforces. From this standpoint, the failure of conversion therapy is rooted in its false foundational assumption. It cannot work to alter orientation because there is no defect there to be altered, only a healthy human variation being wrongly treated as a sickness. Because there is nothing wrong with not being heterosexual, this argument holds, conversion therapy does not work to alter sexual orientation.

Premises

Counter-arguments

A counter notes that this argument mixes a normative claim with an empirical one: whether conversion therapy succeeds in altering orientation is a factual question about outcomes, while 'there is nothing wrong with not being heterosexual' is a value judgement, and the first does not follow from the second. The strongest case that conversion therapy fails rests on the evidence that it does not produce lasting change and causes harm — which the body itself cites — rather than on the moral premise, which a proponent of the practice would simply reject. Resting the conclusion on the value premise therefore leaves the argument talking past those it aims to refute, even though its empirical points stand on their own.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] That conversion therapy 'rests on' a premise of pathology describes its rationale, not proof it cannot alter orientation; the failure of the practice is established empirically, not by this framing. [Rejecting C] 'There is nothing wrong with not being heterosexual' is a normative claim, while whether the therapy works is empirical; the efficacy conclusion does not follow from the value premise, though the body's evidence of harm and non-change does support it.