This morning, Mayor Ed Murray signed into law a bill banning the application of ‘conversion therapy’ on LGBT children in Seattle. The widely discredited ‘therapy’ attempts to turn queer children straight and cis, with predictably traumatic results.

“Imagine yourself as a child, or teenager growing up, coming to realize who you are is it relates to your sexual orientation or gender identity,” said councilmember M. Lorena González when she introduced the bill for a full council vote on Monday. “Now imagine that a guardian sends you to a therapist who intends to ‘cure’ you because they think you should identify as someone you are not. They tell that you you’re not normal, that you have a disease or are mentally ill and that you need to change who you are.” This kind of abuse, González said, has no place in the city of Seattle.

The bill passed unanimously, making Seattle the third city in the United States, along with Cincinnati and Miami Beach, to prohibit conversion therapy on children. Washington, D.C., California, Illinois, Oregon, Vermont and New Jersey have already passed state/district-wide prohibitions on the practice.

Among the speakers at the council meeting was Sue Bonner, a survivor of Exodus International, a group which championed conversion therapy until closing in 2013 when its leader acknowledged the harm the therapy causes. “I attended very conservative churches that were very anti-gay” as a child, says Bronner. “I was taught that [being gay] is sinful. I was pretty panicked about the idea that I was attracted to women. I really didn’t know what to do.”

Bonner eventually turned to Exodus to try to rid herself of her attraction to women. She says her shame was only compounded by the therapy. “When I got done with it, it was more shameful, because I thought I should have been fixed,” she says. “I was so brainwashed, I didn’t even want to go to the downtown Seattle library to go on the internet, because I was afraid someone would look over my shoulder and see what I was researching. That’s how bad I was.”

Bonner eventually began attending a church service held at Mary’s Place, a homeless shelter for women and their children. There, she was welcomed despite—or rather, regardless of—her sexuality. “At best [conversion therapy] doesn’t work,” she says. “At worst it leads people to suicide.”

Danni Askini, Executive Director of Gender Justice League, called the law an important step in the right direction. “The biggest concerns are that depression and suicide—being told that who you are is wrong and that you’re mentally ill or that something fundamental about who you are needs to change—leads a lot of young people to contemplate suicide. We know among transgender young people, in particular, 41% have attempted suicide. [Conversion] therapy really does perpetuate a great deal of harm and increases the risk of suicide in young people.”