page_title: Brigham Young University LGBT history
section_title: Conversion therapy at BYU
hierarchical_section_title: Brigham Young University LGBT history / Conversion therapy at BYU
caption_attribution_description: English: Overwhelming evidence points to sexual orientation being innate and immutable, and not subject to change through conversion therapy sexual orientation change efforts.
context_page_description: Students identifying as LGBTQIA+ have a long, documented history at Brigham Young University, and have experienced a range of treatment by other students and school administrators over the decades. BYU is the largest religious university in North America and is the flagship institution of the educational system of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Historically, experiences for BYU students identifying as LGBTQIA+ have included being banned from enrolling due to their romantic attractions in the 60s, being required by school administration to undergo electroshock and vomit aversion therapies in the 70s, having nearly 80% of BYU students refusing to live with an openly homosexual person in a poll in the 90s, and a ban on coming out into the 2000s.
context_section_description: In 2016, the church's official website declared that conversion therapy or sexual orientation change efforts are "unethical." Prior to this change in stance BYU ecclesiastical leaders and Honor Code office administrators have encouraged or required students with homosexual feelings to undergo conversion therapy (also known as sexual orientation change efforts), sometimes under threat of expulsion. This therapy focused on diminishing same-sex romantic attraction sometimes happened on campus by church-employed therapists.
  For example, National Geographic journalist Andrew Evans has discussed the compulsory year of conversion therapy and "traumatic moments" BYU made him undergo in the late 90s as a student after he was caught kissing a man by his roommate. BYU told him he could be expelled or visit weekly with his bishop, turn in fellow gay students, cut off contact with any gay friends, and have frequent visits with a BYU therapist until he was heterosexual and "safe" for other students to be around. Included in the therapy was weekly dates with women as an additional attempt to change his attractions.
  Similarly, LGBT activist Michael Ferguson also discussed the many years and different modalities of expensive conversion therapy he underwent (including with a BYU psychologist) starting with a 2004 recommendation from his BYU bishop. He was told by local church leaders that many had "overcome" and diminished their same-sex romantic feelings and their "addiction" to those of the same sex. Ferguson believed that through this he could follow church teachings and marry a woman and enter the highest degree of glory in the afterlife. Much of the therapy focused on repairing alleged emotional damage from things deemed to cause homosexuality like an overbearing mother, distant father, and rejection from same-sex peers.
caption: Church leaders taught for decades that members could and should try to "turn off" gay attractions through means including conversion therapy.[116] A 2011 Broadway play satirized these teachings with an LDS missionary character stating that he could "turn it off like a light switch" in reference to his gay feelings.[117][118]
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