Conversion therapy

Conversion therapy (sometimes called reparative therapy, or pejoratively pray away the gay) refers to a wide range of pseudoscientific, homophobic, and/or transphobic practices. Those who practice it believe that people who are not heterosexual and/or are transgender can and should be "cured" of their status, and thus they believe that by practicing conversion therapy, they can change their sexual orientation or gender identity. These notions run contrary to the official positions of most of the world's governing bodies in the fields of psychiatry and psychology. archived from the original Compare exorcism.
Someone who once identified as LGBT and no longer does may be called an ex-gay, and may be part of the ex-gay movement, a mostly Christian social movement which advocates for ex-gays and for the effectiveness of reparative therapy, and encourages LGBT people to become ex-gay through reparative therapy. There is also a further, rather puzzlingly-named subcategory of ; people who once considered themselves ex-gay, but no longer do so. Hilariously, some of the Christians who support the ex-gay movement claim being gay is a choice, implying that they think gay people can just switch off their sexuality, and thus would make their therapy useless. The fact that this conversion "therapy" exists proves that they know sexuality isn't a choice, but they don't want to admit it.
Professional, ethical psychotherapists base actual psychotherapy on the condition of an engaged and willingly participating client, invested in therapy, seeking a positive and chosen goal, in what they perceive to be their own interests. In reparative "therapy", most or all of these conditions are absent.
==Background==
A multitude of reparative therapy programs exist, which claim different origins for gender-variant behavior and employ different methods. Often children are sent by their parents to be "cured", though adults also participate voluntarily. Many of these "re-education" facilities amount to little more than non-fatal (at least not intentionally fatal) concentration camps.From personal information, this user knows a young man sent to Casa by the Sea, a camp in Mexico. The man — then a boy — didn't see his reflection for a year, his education became nonexistent, and in other pertinent matters, was psychologically tortured and lost a year of his life. For a (comparatively) mild case, read this. Transgender-specific reparative therapy is occasionally practiced on children who display cross-gender behaviors, often by misguided professional psychiatrists who seek to, for example, get young boys to "drop the chalupa Barbie."Brief expose by Lynn Conway Such efforts to force young children into rigid gender roles are eerily similar to the practices of gay "conversion therapy". Many reparative therapy programs are deliberately located outside United States territory in order to avoid US jurisdiction and circumvent US laws prohibiting the practice of medicine without a license.
===Against love===
It sucks to be LGBT sometimes. Being LGBT is difficult, for a lot of reasons, and it is certainly understandable that some LGBT people internalize this difficulty and are thus deeply unhappy with their sexual/gender identity. At least in theory, the principle of freedom of choice dictates that such individuals should have the right to seek whatever treatment or therapy they desire to arrive at a happier place. However, so-called "reparative therapy", in its current form, is manifestly unethical and deceptive because the people who promote and practice it profit from offering false hope to very vulnerable people, using outdated or incorrect data/pseudo-data to justify "treatments" that have not been demonstrated to be effective. Furthermore, when these "treatments" inevitably don't work, they risk reinforcing feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy in the "patient", putting them at risk of depression or even suicide. Finally, many reparative therapy programs exist not to improve the lives of the people they serve, but to prove a political point that, since non-heterosexual or non-cisgender behavior can ostensibly be changed, LGBT people should not be afforded civil rights, protection from discrimination, or recognition of their relationships.
===Medical timeline===
In the 1970s, the American Psychiatric Association reviewed its chief diagnostic tool, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). During this revision, the committee tasked with writing the manual eliminated homosexuality as a "mental disorder", primarily because they believed that it did not meet the standard of impaired functioning and in most cases did not hurt the self or others.Facts About Homosexuality and Mental Health, UC Davis Opponents of this decision seemed to think that it was based on pressure from the gay agenda that corrupted the APA. Thus, if the APA wasn't going to treat homosexuals as mentally ill, the Religious Right would.
Some "doctors" have equated reparative therapy with gender reassignment."The Psychological Profession and Homosexuality: Lunatics Running the Asylum?" The difference is that one issue is sexuality and that one is a gender issue; moreover, reparative therapy goes against one's natural instinct to be homosexual, while gender reassignment goes with one's natural instinct to be the opposite sex. One can just as easily set aside all these issues, and point out that gender reassignment patients need to go through psychological therapy designed to keep them in their assigned gender unless medically necessary (how ethical that is is a separate question). If reparative therapy did not badger and force patients into treatment at all costs, then the APA never would have classified it as unethical treatment.
Gender identity and sexuality are separate issues. For example, despite being assigned female at birth, a transgender man isn't simply a "super-lesbian" who wants to be a man — said person may well be attracted exclusively to men.A Few Things Writers Need To Know About Sexuality & Gender Expression
In 1997, the APA passed a resolution declaring reparative therapy to be quackery.APA Council of Representatives Passes Resolution on So-Called Reparative Therapy, UC Davis
In 2012, an article was published which proposes an Can Epigenetics Explain Homosexuality? Can Epigenetics Explain Homosexuality? Scientists propose a new model for how homosexuality develops, but observers say it will be difficult to test by Sabrina Richards, The Scientist 1 January 2013.Homosexuality as a Consequence of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development by William R. Rice et al. The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 87, No. 4 (December 2012), pp. 343-368. DOI: 10.1086/668167. Therefore it may, after all, be possible to alter one's sexual orientation (at least in theory) — but with the use of biological and medical methods like instead of the highly questionable ones used by conversion therapists.
In 2015, Barack Obama came out against the practice, calling for its end in the United States.Obama calls for end to 'gay conversion therapies'
==Meet Richard Cohen==
By all accounts, (1952-) (no relation to the increasingly-cranky columnist) would seem like a typical straight man; he has a wife and kids, and seems like an average everyday fellow. However, he is probably the most prolific "ex-gay" out there, and is a (self-proclaimed) "Certified Sexual Reorientation Coach". Although every major counseling organization has banned him (including other "ex-gay" groups), Cohen is probably the most prolific of them, and the most crazy. His basic theory is that gay people did not feel proper attachment to their parent of the opposite gender (or the same gender; actually, it seems that Cohen hasn't really thought this whole thing out), and are thus reaching out to people of their own gender in order to find that missing parental love. Despite not doing any real research into this matter, he manages to get on TV claiming to have found the "cure" for something which is not classified as a disease (except by certain sorts of people).
==Techniques==
The techniques that reparative therapists use are quite varied, but have one thing in common: they do not work.
===Aversion therapy===
Remember the time you threw up after eating your favorite food and then never ever wanted to have that food again, even if that food didn't cause your vomiting? That's aversion therapy (see also vomit therapy). The way reparative therapists do it is to show you some hot gay porn, then make you drink This might work, but it doesn't really "change" things; it just prevents behaviors, and in the end, all it may do is make you not want to watch gay porn. This also happened in A Clockwork Orange, and we all know how that worked out. For a particularly disturbing demonstration of what this entails, watch the episode "I Am Anne Frank" of American Horror Story: Asylum.
===Hugging===
This one happens to be a Richard Cohen special. Remember, his theory is that gay men did not get the proper attachment from their dad; in order to treat this, Cohen himself will hug his patient, while the patient pretends to be a little boy and Cohen pretends to be his father. This is absolutely not an expression of repressed urges on Cohen's part, since he is not gay, and any gay feelings he might have are properly treated (see below).
===Gender reinforcement===
This is a slightly more "mainstream" form of reparative therapy, wherein gay men and women are forced to enact stereotypical gender roles. So lesbians will be discouraged from sports and similar activities, and instead be taught to sew, do makeup, hold babies (since all women want babies, after all, and sex is only for the creation of babies), and do other girly things. Gay men will be taught to act "macho" and do macho things (no, not like The Village People!), such as playing sports (since no gay men ever play sports) or building things (because only straight women-loving people work on construction sites)."They want you, they want you/They want you as a new recruit" "Who me?" "They want you, they want you/They want you as a new recruit…"
===Hit pillows===
This is another Richard Cohen special. Cohen does sometimes get gay feelings, and so he has to deal with them in a mature and adult manner. Thus, when he feels gay, he will take a baseball bat or tennis racket and smash it against a pillow, while screaming things like "Mom, why did you do that to me?!"The Chaser's War on Everything's "Nut Job of the Week" segment. (Originally aired on ABC1 on June 20, 2007.)
===Hang around with horses===
Raymond Bell from the oh-so-legitimate sounding Cowboy Church of Virginia believes "Equine Assisted Psychotherapy" can help turn gay people straight. Yeah.Pastor 'cures' gay teens by getting them to stroke horses While the aim is harmful, the treatment here is relatively harmless compared to the other therapies here, and can even provide benefits, such as emotional support from an animal that doesn't pass judgement on your orientation.
===Electric shocks to the genitals and sniffing feces===
In Texas, reparative therapy can consist of electric shocks to the genitals and sniffing from a bottle of actual human shit,The Advocate: Jon Stewart Smacks Down Reparative Therapy Proponents with the apparent aim of getting gay people to associate their gay feelings with pain and disgust. It so obviously works, right?
===Mutual masturbation===
Vatican adviser and anti-gay therapist Tony Anatrella has been accused of doing mutual masturbation with gay priests and semenarians seminarians in an effort to get sexual satisfaction cure them of gay tendencies.Anti-Gay Therapist Monsignor Tony Anatrella, a Vatican Adviser, Suspected Of Sex With Male Clients Anatrella also had access to novice monks.Prominent French priest and Vatican adviser accused in sex scandal
===For transgender people===
Reparative therapy techniques have also been tried on people with variant gender identity, not just sexual orientation (in fact, anti-trans and anti-gay conversion therapy are quite related practices(February 2021). "APA Resolution on Gender Identity Change Efforts". American Psychological Association. Quote: "In addition to explicit attempts to change individuals’ gender according to cisnormative pressures, GICE has also been a component of sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE). As intense focus on cisnormative conformity is a frequent characteristic of SOCE it is possible that authors in the literature describing sexual orientation change efforts misgendered their participants (Hipp et al., 2019). Moreover, “ex-gay” literature and discourse conceptualize gender diversity as a sin, a mental illness, and harmful, perpetuating cisgenderism and transmisogyny (Robinson & Spivey, 2019)." For a brief article summarizing this, see here. For a freely readable PDF of the journal article that was uploaded by its author, see here.). Anti-transgender therapists generally use the following techniques:
*Explicitly saying "You're a man!" or "You're a woman!" until the cows come home
*Subtly trying to talk people out of transitioning by scaring them (i.e., "You'll look like an ugly man in a dress!" for trans women, "You'll be bald and no one will date you!" for trans men)
*Forcing or pressuring people to conform to the gender roles of their assigned sex at birth,Jack Turban (October 23, 2020). "The Disturbing History of Research into Transgender Identity". Scientific American. Quote: "In another study, researchers noted that parents of children with 'gender identity disorder' did not place strong limits on stereotypically gender atypical behaviors such as birth-assigned boys playing with dolls or birth-assigned girls playing with blocks or transportation toys. Perhaps this was the cause of the 'problem'? If these parents had simply cracked down on this behavior early on—ripped the Barbie out of their toddler’s hands, say—they may have prevented it, the authors posited."Hanna Rosin (November 2008). "A Boy's Life". The Atlantic. Quote: "Zucker calls his approach “developmental,” which means that the most important factor is the age of the child. Younger children are more malleable, he believes, and can learn to “be comfortable in their own skin.” … They [a family working with Zucker] turned their house into a 1950s kitchen-sink drama, intended to , in the crudest and simplest terms: “Boys don’t wear pink, they wear blue,” they would tell him, or “Daddy is smarter than Mommy—ask him.” If John called for Mommy in the middle of the night, Daddy went, every time." a routine for which some credit goes to John Money and Richard Green,TransEssays (April 7, 2022). "Conversion Therapy on Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children". Medium. (Also used in some forms of anti-gay conversion therapy; see: )
*Promising hormones at first, but never giving them even after years (referred to as "Gatekeeping")
*Making a person "accept their biological sex" while ignoring the biology of transgender identityhttps://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/causes
*Attempting to use religion as a cure
*Requiring that other conditions, such as depression, be treated first, without realizing that gender dysphoria can cause those conditions, not the other way around.
*Gender exploratory therapy that somehow "explores" underlying issues.Gender Exploratory Therapy' Association's webshite/r/asktransgender thread about "gender exploratory" therapyhttps://archive.is/WvUSQ
*Making a person believe that their transness is a result of internalized misogyny, homophobia, trauma, and autism
*In case they already transitioned, force them to detransition to try out alternative treatments for gender dysphoria. This is extremely popular among TERFs.
Trans teenager Leelah Alcorn was forced into reparative therapy for being transgender. Her parents also pulled her out of school and cut her off from social media in an attempt to "cure" her. On December 28, 2014, Alcorn committed suicide.http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/31/us/ohio-transgender-teen-suicide/index.html A proposed ban on conversion therapy in the US was nicknamed "Leelah's Law."https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/04/10/obama-comes-out-against-conversion-therapy-to-support-leelahs-law/?utm_term=.3c371e2f4be4
Although detransitioners and "ex-gays" are somewhat different, it's curious to observe some parallels between the "ex-gay" movement and the detransitioners whose personal experiences are exploited for anti-trans purposes. Some high-profile detransitioners who were tokenized by anti-trans movements proceeded to re-transition, thus becoming, if we may, "ex-detransitioners" or "de-detransitioners". Two examples of that were Jude Ellison S. Doyle (March 15, 2023). "The making of a detransitioner". Xtra. and Kiara Alfonseca (November 23, 2022). "Former 'detransitioner' fights anti-transgender movement she once backed". ABC News.Evan Urquhart (February 1, 2021). "An 'Ex-Detransitioner' Disavows the Anti-Trans Movement She Helped Spark". Slate. Some other high-profile detransitioners have made clear that they were simply repressing their gender identity. Daisy Stronglin, the main star of PragerU's "#DETRANS" ad campaign, stated: "Transition still plague me today . I still fantasize about being a guy at least a few times a week. I'm often a guy in my dreams. But now I know that I can't indulge those fantasies. I have to be the best mother/wife I can be. Jesus Christ is my only hope." She adds that her detransition was done "ultimately for God".Erin Reed (November 3, 2023). "$1 Million PragerU 'DETRANS' Ad on X Echoes So-Called 'Ex-Gay' Movement of 1990s". Truthout.Evan Urquhart (November 3, 2023). "PragerU's Million Dollar Detransitioner Wants You to Convert to Catholicism". Assigned Media. Another prominent case, Chloe Cole, stated that she was probably not in fact "misdiagnosed" with gender dysphoria, stating: "I still struggle with distress relating to my birth sex to this day, but I think the problem was the course of treatment that they took."Evan Urquhart (March 16, 2023). "Chloe Cole Struggles With Gender Dysphoria to This Day". Assigned Media. Care should be taken to respect people's personal choices and consider things case-by-case, but it does appear that some people repress their gender identity for similar reasons to the self-repression of sexual orientation by people in the "ex-gay movement".
==The impact of "treatment"==
"TC" was first subjected to conversion therapy in 2012 (at age 15), as a result of his parents discovering that he was gay.
To make matters worse, the "therapy" sessions (consisting of two "components") took place at the creepiest venue imaginable — the basement of a local church, always after school hours:
The above summarized sessions would take place every weekday, with shock therapy treatments lasting for approximately an hour (!) and aversion therapy lasting for three hours. Per day, every day!
In other words, these poor kids were facing the equivalent of daily interrogations by the Viet Cong. At age 15. By people they trusted. For the crime of being gay.
Unsurprisingly, TC relates how several tragic suicides resulted from "treatment" among the minors involved in his program (as corroborated by statistics on gay teen suicidehttp://www.thetrevorproject.org/pages/facts-about-suicide):
Similarly, a 2020 study found a significant association between anti-trans conversion therapy and suicide attempts or other negative mental health outcomes.
==Famous "ex-gays"==
This is broken down into two categories, those whom have "relapsed" and those who have not. The relapsed are sometimes referred to as "ex-ex-gays".
===Relapsed===
*Michael Bussee (co-founder of Exodus International, one of the largest ex-gay groups; has since become a major critic of such groups and was in a relationship with the other co-founder, Gary Cooper, prior to Cooper's death)
*Michael Johnston (founded the now-defunct ex-gay movement called Kerusso Ministries, contacted gay men online and attended gay parties where he had un-safe sex and "forgot" to tell his partners that he had HIV.http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2003/yax-337.htmThe Newly Refurbished Michael Johnston, Ex-Gay Watch‘Moral Failing’: Michael Johnston, Kerusso Ministries Ex-Gay Watch)
*McKrae Game, conversion therapy promoter and founder of Hope for Wholeness, has repudiated the therapy, "Conversion therapy is not just a lie, but it’s very harmful. Because it’s false advertising."Conversion therapy leader for 2 decades, McKrae Game disavows movement he helped fuel by Michael Majchrowicz (Aug 30, 2019 Updated Aug 31, 2019) The Post and Courier.
*Mordechai Levovitz, an Orthodox Jew who works with other victims of reparative therapy.'Conversion Therapy' Viewed as 'Quackery' by Gay Man Who Lived It by Avianne Tan, ABC News Apr 10, 2015, 3:45 PM ET
* (1963-) (after being "cured" in 2000, went to a DC gay club to celebrate this fact with other gays. In 2013, he announced he had accepted himself, was divorcing his ex-lesbian wife, and apologised for promoting reparative therapy.John Paulk, former Christan ex-gay spokesman recants and apologizes, Washington Post)
===Not (publicly) relapsed (yet)===
* is a former LGBT rights activist who converted to Christianity.
* is the founder of Genesis Counseling in Tustin, California.Genesis Counseling
* is a former LGBT rights activist.According to this article, he is now bisexual and lives in San Francisco.
* is a singer-songwriter of contemporary Christian music.
* is an Italian rock singer-songwriter
( But then again, we are not excluding the possibility of a later relapse for any of them unless they die "straight".)
==Laws violated==
In theory, reparative therapy camps, even those outside of American jurisdiction, could be sued for torts committed against American citizens. First, it is a well-settled concept of jurisdiction that where a facility avails itself of the United States market, it can potentially (i.e., with a skilled lawyer) be sued in the United States. The basic touchstone of jurisdiction is foreseeability and fairness, and where a camp's population is 100% American citizens, surely it ought to be "on notice" of being covered by American laws. Venue would likely be proper in America following a forum non conveniens motion. From an American venue, a vast sum of torts — intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, battery, tortious negligence, and likely statutory crimes — could be levied against the camp, but, more importantly, an effective public relations campaign could be fought.
A cursory Lexis search shows that no litigation has yet erupted around the abuses occurring at reparative therapy camps, except the criminal prosecution in California of one member of Casa by the Sea (a camp in Ensenada, Mexico),Now closed (Victory!) See and a reporter investigating the same suing them for defamation and interference with contractual relationship with his publisher: apparently, Casa by the Sea does not like people knowing what's going on there.
In late 2012, California passed a law (SB1172) banning "gay repair" therapy on minors,California governor OKs ban on gay conversion therapy, calling it 'quackery', CNN. followed by New Jersey in August 2013.Chris Christie signs reparative therapy ban, Huffington Post Sadly, the bills only apply to licensed therapists, so Good Christian Parents can still send their kids to whackjob "clerical counsellors" to try and pray the gay away; such a bill would probably face constitutional challenges on "religious freedom" grounds. On the other hand, also in New Jersey, a jury found that a "reparative therapy" camp had committed consumer fraud against adult LGBT Jews who tried to go through with their bullshit and then sued when it didn't work; it is likely that this theory will hold up legally (although whether a jury will buy it is another matter) in most states, as consumer protection laws are largely similar across the country.The End of Gay Conversion Therapy: A New Jersey jury found a Jewish counseling group designed to turn people straight is guilty of consumer fraud. Experts predict other states may soon do the same by Olga Khazan (Jun 26, 2015) The Atlantic. Debora Juarez, a Native American woman on Seattle's City Council, likened reparative therapy to the torture practiced in 19th- and 20th-century boarding schools to coerce Native children into renouncing their tribal heritage.The Stranger
Currently, conversion therapy on minors is banned in 22 US states,https://bornperfect.org/facts/conversion-therapy-bans-by-state/ including the state of Colorado,LGBT Nation Washington, and even Utah of all places.https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/798603313/utah-becomes-latest-state-to-ban-discredited-lgbtq-conversion-therapy Conversion therapy is also illegal in DC (which is notable since its conversion therapy ban also applies to adults)https://www.thetrevorproject.org/trvr_press/washington-d-c-s-act-22-573-becomes-first-u-s-law-to-include-vulnerable-lgbtq-adults-in-conversion-therapy-protections/ and Puerto Rico, as well as a number of local jurisdictions mostly scattered across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin. However, there has been pushback against these bans in other parts of the country, with Indiana preventing local jurisdicitions from banning conversion therapySenate passes bill inspired by conversion therapy dispute, Leslie Bonilla Muñiz, Indiana Capital Chronicle 1 March 2023 and a federal court decision applying to Florida, Georgia, and Alabama ruling that bans on conversion therapy are unconstitutional.Federal court strikes down conversion therapy bans in Florida, NBC News 20 November 2020 Conversion therapy was also banned nationwide in Canada in 2022, with a number of provinces and cities having banned it before then.Conversion therapy to be illegal in Canada in 30 days, Rachel Aiello, CTV News 8 December 2021 Additionally, a number of South American countries have banned the practice, including Ecuador,https://www.newsgallery.com/post/full/ecuador-became-the-newest-country-to-legalize-same-sex-marriage/32447/ Brazil,https://g1.globo.com/df/distrito-federal/noticia/juiz-federal-do-df-altera-decisao-que-liberou-cura-gay-e-restabelece-normas-do-conselho-de-psicologia.ghtml Argentina,https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/argentina-abortion-referendum-lgbtq-a8484726.html and Uruguay,http://www.newnownext.com/uruguay-lgbt-rights/10/2016/ as well as several European countries such as Maltahttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38230937 and Germany.https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52585162 Other countries that ban conversion therapy include Taiwanhttps://medium.com/shanghaiist/taiwan-finalizes-conversion-therapy-ban-adb417e5ff44 and New Zealand.New Zealand just became the latest country to outlaw conversion therapy, Rachel Treisman, NPR 16 February 2022
==See also==
==External links==
*What does the scholarly research say about whether conversion therapy can alter sexual orientation without causing harm?, Cornell University (2016)
*Gay Christian Movement Watch (Exposing the Unfruitful Works of Darkness) — A "Christian" website that promotes reparative therapy while opposing any Christian who unrepentantly comes out. (Archive link, original domain expired and turned into a parking page)
*Beyond Ex-gay — If you still think reparative therapy is for you, you may want to visit this website before going into "therapy."
*Current APA policy on sexual orientation
*Conversion Therapy Fails to Pray Away the Gay, Miller-McCune
*Report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation, Judith M. Glassgold, chair (2009).
*Mormon Lesbian Teen Was Forced to Carry Backpack of Stones to “Feel the Burden of Being Gay”
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Alternative medicine
 
Category:Gender
Category:Homophobia
 
Category:Pseudopsychology
Category:Pseudoscience
Category:Sexism
Category:Transphobia