Sam Brinton, a survivor of conversion therapy and the head of advocacy and government affairs for the Trevor Project, an L.G.B.T.Q. youth suicide prevention group, sees Virginia’s decision to ban the practice as a start for the South.

“The South is ready to end conversion therapy,” said Brinton, who uses the pronoun they.

“We know and every major medical association has said that conversion therapy is potentially extremely harmful,” they added. “When a state like Virginia bans conversion therapy, we know that we can save lives from this dangerous practice. The state is affirming who they are and not trying to erase them.”

Conversion therapy can include bringing up past traumas that the therapist believes may have caused homosexuality, or aversion therapy, during which patients are made to feel disgusted when looking at L.G.B.T.Q. people, they said. It can also have religious elements, with patients being told that their god doesn’t want them to be L.G.B.T.Q.

According to the Trevor Project’s National Survey on L.G.B.T.Q. Youth Mental Health, two in three L.G.B.T.Q. youth reported that someone tried to tell them that they should change their sexual orientation or gender identity, and those that had undergone conversion therapy were twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who had not.

The conversion therapy bill is one of many that have been carried by Democrats in Virginia for years, but previously stalled in a Republican-controlled House or the Senate, said Scott Surovell, a Democratic state senator and vice chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus.