A therapist in Berkeley, California is being sued for telling a long-time client that being a lesbian was “unnatural” and attempting to convert her to heterosexuality.
Katherine McCobb started seeing Lloyd Willey when she was 25 and over the course of eight years he “shamed her during group therapy sessions”, urged her to dress in a more stereotypically feminine way and pressured her to date another male client of his— collecting more than USD$70,000 in the process.
“I trusted my therapist, and I was defrauded of tens of thousands of dollars as a result,” says McCobb in a statement.
She’s being represented by the National Centre for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the organisation has filed a consumer fraud lawsuit for conversion therapy.
“Therapists who exploit vulnerable people by taking their money based on false claims that being lesbian or gay is unnatural and that counselling can change a person’s sexual orientation are engaging in fraud,” said NCLR Legal Director Shannon Price Minter.
“Our complaint alleges that our client in this case paid tens of thousands of dollars based on false promises that therapy could change her attraction to women. Charging a person money based on such bald-faced misrepresentations violates California’s consumer protection laws.”
“Business professionals who are charging fees for services cannot make false and misleading statements about those services to their clients,” said Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP Partner Jeremy Kamras. “Our complaint alleges that the defendant did just that by persuading a vulnerable client to pay him for services based on blatant misrepresentations and fraudulent practices.”
The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Psychological Association have all denounced gay conversion therapy.
Malta became the first country in Europe to introduce legislation banning the practice in 2016.
