A bill which seeks to ban therapies that attempt to alter a minor's sexual orientation from gay to straight is expected to be introduced in New York on Friday.

According to The Huffington Post, the measure is being backed by two Democrats from New York City, Senator Michael Gianaris and Assemblywoman Deborah Glick.

The proposed legislation would prohibit mental health professionals from engaging in “sexual orientation efforts” with a minor. It is modeled after California's first-in-the-nation law, which is currently on hold pending two lawsuits.

Glick, who is openly gay, decided to proceed despite the legal challenges.

“There are often challenges to any manner of legislation that is protecting of the LGBT community and you can't sit on your hands and wait until things get resolved somewhere else,” Glick said.

New York becomes the third state after New Jersey to introduce such a bill.

(Related: Bill to ban 'ex-gay' therapy in New Jersey advances.)

Glick said that she has heard first-hand accounts of the damage such therapies can cause minors through her work with LGBT homeless teens.

“You start to hear the same stories over and over again. 'They tried to make me straight and they took me to …,' or, 'I couldn't become – and so they threw me out.' The rate of suicide, the level of depression, the kind of bullying in school that is focused on homophobic epithets, even when students clearly are not gay. So there's clearly an issue about being more supportive toward gay youth.”

Mathew Staver, chairman of the Christian conservative Liberty Counsel, the group behind one of legal challenges to California's law, has called such therapy “beneficial” to the minors he's representing.

“We filed the lawsuit because the minors that we represent have been receiving this counsel and have been benefiting. Their anger, their self-hatred, their relationships with their friends, the relationships with their families have all improved since they've received this kind of counseling. And it would be irreparable and harm to them to ultimately stop this in midstream,” Staver told the AP.

California State Senator Ted Lieu, who sponsored the law, has called so-called reparative therapy “quackery.”

“The notion that you can change someone's sexual orientation and that homosexuality is a disease or mental illness is pure quackery,” Lieu said. “Patients were suffering tremendous psychological harm from gay conversion therapy, including guilt, self-hatred and some of them committed suicide.”