The American Counseling Association will hold a new event in Washington, D.C., focusing on providing counseling for the LGBTQ community—a decision coming only a few months after the association pulled its annual conference out of Tennessee in protest of a state law critics say discriminates against gay, lesbian and transgender people.

The ACA Illuminate symposium will be held in conjunction with the District's Annual Pride Festival to be held June 8-10. The event will feature speakers and training on how counselors can best serve the LGBTQ community, according to the association.

Illuminate will be held exactly one year after ACA yanked its 2017 annual conference from Nashville following state lawmakers' adoption of legislation allowing counselors with religious objections to deny services to LGBTQ people. The association opposed the law and moved the conference to San Francisco.

In retaliation, Tennessee lawmakers introduced a bill during this year's legislative session allowing the state to write its own code of ethics for counselors rather than following ACA's code. The association is urging lawmakers to drop the bill. http://bit.ly/2k16JfC

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