Welcome to the new America! With our newly elected president, Donald Trump, and his running mate, Mike Pence, rumors have been spreading like a wildfire.

  Welcome to this week’s edition of, Untold Injustices, this piece will solely reflect on the rumors spreading around the LGBTQ community and the Trump/ Pence party.

  If you have been on an social media sites such as Instagram, you will have noticed the mass scare in the LGBTQ  support pages on the issue of conversion therapy.

  For those of you who may not know what conversion therapy is, it is the psychological treatment or spiritual counseling designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to being heterosexual. The treatment is considered controversial and is a form of pseudoscience which may be potentially harmful, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

  For American Horror Story fans, an example of conversion therapy was shown throughout the season of Asylum. That was where, main character Lana Winters, had to undergo electroshock therapy and much more tactics to be cured from her “gayness”. Of course the major plot twist in the story was that the infamous serial killer, Bloody Face, was the one to administer her “treatment.”

   Now with the given background on conversion therapy, you may be wondering what the big fuss is all about. Pence has made it clear that he supports this idea and wants to make this a go…

  “Congress should support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus. Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking change to their sexual behavior,” Pence (Elect- Vice President).

  Quotes like this have the LGBTQ community frightened. I have come to hopefully shine some light on this situation.

  The president and the vice president DO NOT have as much power as they think they have or as much power as you may think they have. Remember that everything must go through congress to get approved. Congress in fact were the ones who passed LGBT rights in 2015. The chances of congress putting the community back into a dangerous situation is very slim. In America we work to progress forward, conversion therapy would only be like going one step forward and ten steps back.

  Yes, the thought of having someone in office who is against the idea of having love for any gender that you may want, may be scary but is not the end of the world. We are all hoping that this mass hysteria will soon die down. No one should have to live in fear…

Luckily for us, we live in a country that has checks and balances so no single person has too much power. No one needs to worry, no matter how many anti- LGBT comments Trump made at the debates, or Pence, for that matter, it must go through congress.

  Until further notice, breathe and relax. The chances of conversion therapy are still pretty slim. Rumors spread like wildfire and so does hysteria, let’s try to keep it to a minimum. If you have more to say on this topic, please send in a letter to room 5107, it will be delivered to the edit