I was 19, gay and ready to be ‘cured’ by nversn therapy | Fay | The Guardian

Contents:

• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
• I WAS 19, GAY AND READY TO BE ‘CURED’ BY NVERSN THERAPY
• GAY MEN GIVEN ELECTRIC SHOCKS 'TO CURE HOMOSEXUALY' AT QUB
• MEET THE MAN WHO USED TO TRY TO "CURE" GAY PEOPLE
• 5 THGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY
• TRêS TRATAMENTOS PARA “CURA GAY” UTILIZADOS NO PASSADO
• A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT OVER ATTEMPTS TO 'CURE' GAY PEOPLE
• THE CURE: ONE GAY MAN'S REVERY FROM CONVERSN THERAPY

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS

Disregardg all evince that the ex-gay movement is credibly damagg to more than 90% of those who unrgo "treatment" (bee they clearly jt didn't believe God enough), Settg Captiv Free wants you to know that you were not "born this way. " Homosexualy is a s that you need to purge om your system, and the only way to do is to follow their three-parts-a-day the app is only downloadable om Google Play (iTun and the 69, 822+ people who petned them don't believe nversn therapy for some reason), there is an abridged versn available on the mistry’s webse.

I WAS 19, GAY AND READY TO BE ‘CURED’ BY NVERSN THERAPY

Stop Callg Your Homosexualy an "Alternative Liftyle": It's "Wicked, " "Evil, " and a "S": The are the only thgs you should ever ll om now on, preferably hhed ton.

GAY MEN GIVEN ELECTRIC SHOCKS 'TO CURE HOMOSEXUALY' AT QUB

Change For the Right Reasons (the Glory Of God): After all, homosexualy is nothg but "lt, porn, and sexual immoraly, " ss that are applible only to gay people and never to straight on.

Remove Yourself From Anythg Even Remotely Gay: Don't watch porn (aga, 's only a gay thg), don't go on gay webs, and most of all, certaly don't associate wh gay people. Realize That Beg Homosexual Mak You Feel Alone Fet that we told you to shut yourself away om most of the world, and ignore the ia that maybe gay people feel so alone bee of the discrimatory and hateful attus that they face, helped by people like . But provirs, ually unlicensed, n often disguise the terms they e to avoid beg terms clu:Sexual attractn fluidy exploratn therapy (SAFE-T)Elimatg, rcg, or creasg equency or tensy of unwanted same-sex attractn (SSA)Reparative therapySexual reorientatn effortsEx-gay mistryPromotg healthy sexualyAddrsg sexual addictns and disorrsSexualy unselgEnuragg relatnal and sexual wholensHealg sexual brokennsConversn therapy techniqu n lead to feelg “ls than” or “damaged, ” impactg self-teem.

A number of medil and mental health anizatns have issued public statements rejectg the e of nversn therapy bee of many provirs who claim to be qualified to provi nversn therapy are often not licensed mental health practners or medil study found that LGBTQ (lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, or qutng) people who are rejected or discrimated agast are:8 tim more likely to report havg attempted suiciAlmost 6 tim more likely to report high levels of prsnMore than 3 tim as likely to e illegal dgs3 tim more likely to be at high risk of HIV and other STDsAcrdg to rearch, nearly 700, 000 LGBTQ adults the U. Robert Galbrah Heath, a psychiatrist New Orleans who pneered the technique, ed this form of bra stimulatn, along wh hired prostut and heterosexual pornography, to “change” the sexual orientatn of gay men. An offshoot of the techniqu was “aversn therapy, ” which was found on the premise that if LGBTQ people beme disgted by homosexualy, they would no longer experience same-sex sire.

MEET THE MAN WHO USED TO TRY TO "CURE" GAY PEOPLE

” LGBTQ people had long protted the cel and scientifilly dub forms of “treatment, ” but the ncept that homosexualy was a disease was accepted by the majory of the medil tablishment. This clud the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, which nsired homosexualy to be a psychiatric the 1960s and 1970s, as a vol gay rights movement took to the streets to mand equaly, the profsn began to turn s back on the ncept that people uld be “nverted” to heterosexualy.

In 1973, the APA removed homosexualy om the DSM, s fluential manual of psychiatric disorrs, and medil profsnals began to distance themselv om techniqu they had once embraced. Their methods varied, and clud everythg om talk therapy to “gay nversn” mps and nferenc, LGBTQ people were isolated om fay and iends, hypnotized, told to pray until their homosexualy subsid, stcted to beat effigi of their parents, mocked, ached on “proper” genr rol, and told their sexualy was unnatural and And Anne Plk, both “formerly gay” pose wh their son, Timothy, a mpaign for Gay Conversn to Heterosexualy. “I read books and listened to dtap about how to have a ‘rrective and healg relatnship wh J Christ, ’” wr Jam Guay, a gay man who attend weekly therapy and nversn semars as a teen.

5 THGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY

And Exod Internatnal, an umbrella group that nnected var nversn therapy groups and gay mistry anizatns, closed down 2013 after nearly 40 years of operatns after s print, Alan Chambers, cid ’s impossible to change someone’s sexual orientatn. “The practic have no basis science or medice and they will now be relegated to the dtb of quackery, ” said California ernor Jerry Brown as he signed a bill banng gay-to-straight therapy the state 2012.

An openly gay or bisexual pop star is still noteworthy and sctized; unlike Smh, Ocean do not have the luxury of his love songs beg nsired announcement of Ocean’s new project was also published on his Tumblr: a photograph of Ocean, perched on a stool, a amed poster of a bright-green og leang agast the wall bi him, and two issu of a magaze stacked at his feet. “And he said, a voice ee of emotn: ‘False Image’, ” rells Conley Boy Erased, his elegant memoir about the year which his southern Baptist upbrgg llid wh his sexual awakeng as a gay man. The methods are cel and equently vlent, om applyg electric shocks while beg forced to watch gay porn, to md ntrol gam aimed at persuadg LGBT “patients” their sir are rooted dysfunctnal or “disempowerg” relatnships wh their LIA the msage was unequivol: homosexualy meant unhapps, isolatn and ath.

TRêS TRATAMENTOS PARA “CURA GAY” UTILIZADOS NO PASSADO

Stori like the were not unmon at LIA, renamed Rtoratn Path 2012, and wily nsired to be the first morn “ex-gay” mistry predited on changg the sexual orientatn of gay men and women. Like other gay teens, Conley went through the motns of havg a girliend as a way to “cure” himself, but he was also a vorac rear who found novels a unterweight to the Bible that helped expand the horizons of his world. The knowledge of my homosexualy would seem more shockg than the knowledge of my rape; or, worse, would seem as though one act had evably followed the other, as though I’d had g to me.

There, she jok about an ia for a TV seri, Preachers’ Wiv Gone Wild, while he surreptly observ their handsome the ironi of nversn therapi such as LIA is the fact that they are n and managed largely by gay men who have been through the programme themselv, renounced their past and now seek to make others do the same. Conley characteris them by their “ex-gay s” which the rners of their lips “stretched beyond the lims of normalcy” such person was John Smid, former executive director of LIA and a gay man and Christian who would eventually adm that he’d “never met a man who experienced a change om homosexual to heterosexual”.

We were learng Step One of Love Actn’s 12-Step programme, a set of prcipl equatg the ss of fily, btialy, paedophilia and homosexualy to addictive behavr such as alholism or gamblg: a kd of Alholics Anonymo for what unsellors referred to as our ‘sexual viance’.

A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT OVER ATTEMPTS TO 'CURE' GAY PEOPLE

It may not be surprisg that Christian Coaln founr Pat Robertson and televangelist pastor Jerry Falwell, among many others, have supported programs signed to nvert homosexuals away om "s" and to the arms of God-fearg heterosexualy. Back 1979, on Meet The Prs and untls other TV appearanc, Masters and Johnson touted their book, Homosexualy Perspective—a 14-year study of more than 300 homosexual men and women—hopg to build on their groundbreakg sex studi of heterosexuals that had helped igne Ameri's sexual revolutn.

(The 12 s of attempted "nversn" were for men and women who had always believed they were homosexual and were troubled by , while the 55 "reversn" s were people who believed their homosexualy was more fleetg.

Marshall and Peggy Shearer, perhaps the clic's most experienced therapy team the early 1970s, says they never treated homosexuals and heard virtually nothg about nversn therapy.

THE CURE: ONE GAY MAN'S REVERY FROM CONVERSN THERAPY

At worst, she said, "Bill was beg creative those days" the pilg of the "gay nversn" se he died 2001 Masters felt nfint their book would be embraced eventually by the medil muny, not jt by purveyors of relig or polil agendas.