Obama will call for an end to gay 'conversion' therapies for minors

President Barack Obama has responded to a petition that aims to stop so-called gay conversion therapies geared toward minors.

The petition, posted on the White House website, tells the story of Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teenager who identified as a girl.

According to the petition, "Enact Leelah's Law to Ban All LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapy," Leelah's parents allegedly "forced her to attend conversion therapy, pulled her out of school and isolated her in an attempt to change her gender identity."

The petition states Leelah later committed suicide. As of Wednesday night, the petition received more than 120,000 signatures. Obama's senior adviser Valerie Jarrett posted the President's official response:

"Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let's say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he's held as long as he can remember. Soon, perhaps, he will decide it's time to let that secret out. What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us -- on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build."

Jarrett added, "As part of our dedication to protecting America's youth, this Administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors."

The New York Times reports Obama will call for an end to such therapies this week.

Gay conversion therapy has been one of the more contentious elements of the gay rights movement, specifically because its premise treats same-sex attraction as an illness that needs to be 'corrected.' Gay rights advocates have called the ethics of such practices into question.