During its regular session on Monday night, the Waterloo City Council gave final approval to an amendment repealing the ban on conversion therapy the council enacted in May. The public first became aware of the council’s reversal during a special council meeting held on Aug. 14, for the sole purpose of taking a first vote on the repeal.
Councilmembers did not explain why the repeal of the ordinance that was approved 6-1 in May was being voted on at the special meeting. City officials declined to provide any explanation to the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier. During the meeting on Monday, councilmembers did make passing references to the threat of a lawsuit being filed against the city over the ban, but did not provide any information beyond that.
Almost all the speakers during the public comment period before the vote opposed ending the ban.
“I’m a pretty boring queer person who works as a software engineer and cares for a child with my partner,” Aliya Rahman told the council before addressing the nature of conversion therapy.
“The goal of the conversion therapy movement is to prevent LGBTQ youth from becoming LGBTQ adults. Period,” Rahman said. “So it is a costly attempt to exterminate our culture.”
Rahman said it was irresponsible of the council to remove the ban, given there was no other protection for young people who could be harmed by the discredited practices of conversion therapy.
“This ban did not divide us. Discrimination is what has always divided us, and the ban simply shed light on it for those not in the know and offered a way to reduce its cost. It really saddens me that we want to do something as expensive as allowing conversion therapy.”
“Young queer and trans people who are watching, you deserve to grow up without being told that you’re defective.”
Summer Elliot, a licensed family and marriage therapist in Waterloo, pointed out that the curriculum therapist must complete in Iowa in order to become licensed rejects conversation therapy and specifies that it “is not ethical.”
Archer Trip of Cedar Falls shared his firsthand experience with conversion therapy. As a high school student, he was placed in a program by his parents, Trip told the council.
“I am a survivor, and conversion therapy did not work on me,” he said.
Trip said no other young person should have to be subjected to attempts to erase their identity. 
Damian Thompson, director of Public Policy and Communication at Iowa Safe Schools, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ and allied students, pointed out to the council that bans on conversion therapy are becoming more common in the United States.
“Over 100 ordinances, very similar, some identical, have been passed in municipalities across the nation – including two since Waterloo just passed theirs in May,” he said. “Why the city would work to repeal this dumbfounds me.”
Waterloo was the second city in Iowa to ban conversion therapy. Davenport passed a similar ordinance in 2020, and the Linn County Board of Supervisors instituted a ban on conversion therapy in unincorporated parts of the county last year.
Councilmember Jonathan Greider, the original sponsor of the ban, asked his fellow councilmembers to reconsider their positions, after they voted 4-3 at the special session in favor of repeal.
“We all do better, when we all do better,” Greider said. “So I ask, I beg my colleagues to please not repeal this ordinance. To please protect a portion of our population that is under attack.”
The council voted 4-3 to give final approval to the repeal.
As some speakers noted, there was an uncomfortable irony in the council repealing the ban this week, because Cedar Valley Pridefest will be held in downtown Waterloo on Friday and Saturday. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the celebration.
“…We’re now almost certainly allowing moneyed interests from outside Iowa, people who parent no Iowa kids, to force us to retreat from our convictions and a democratic vote to protect our community,” Rahman said near the end of her comments.
“Thank you, and happy Pridefest this weekend.”
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