It Is Now 50 Years Sce Gay People Were “Cured" | Psychology Today

Contents:

• I WAS 19, GAY AND READY TO BE ‘CURED’ BY NVERSN THERAPY
• CAN PEOPLE STOP BEG GAY?
• IT IS NOW 50 YEARS SCE GAY PEOPLE WERE “CURED"
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
• AMIC CLAIMS TO HAVG DISVERED A CURE FOR HOMOSEXUALYBRIAN LOO SOON HUA·FOLLOWPUBLISHED ILLUMINATION·4 M READ·SEP 2, 2021--1SHAREAND WA TILL YOU HEAR HER MD-BENDG THEORY REGARDG WHAT PEOPLE TO BE GAY.PHOTO BY DEON BLACK ON UNSPLASHA UPLE OF YEARS AGO WHEN I FIRST STARTED LEARNG ARABIC SOMEONE SENT ME ONE OF THE STRANGT VIO CLIPS I HAD EVER SEEN. THE SETTG: A POPULAR KUWAI TALK SHOW. THE GUT DU JOUR: AN “AMIC” WHO CLAIMS TO HAVE A “DISVERED” A “CURE” FOR HOMOSEXUALY (I KNOW, I KNOW, TOO MANY QUOTATN MARKS, BUT TST ME, THE WHOLE THG MAK A TURN FOR THE BIZARRE THE MUTE THE GUT OPENS HER MOUTH).WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY – REAL OR HOAX?
• I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
• ISLAMIC EXORCISMS ED AS A 'CURE' FOR HOMOSEXUALY INDONIA: 'IF I AM MLIM, I N’T BE GAY'
• 5 SURPRISG FACTS ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY
• GAY THERAPY, GAY THERAPISTS, GAY TREATMENT

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

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.

CAN PEOPLE STOP BEG GAY?

" 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. 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.

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 . “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.

IT IS NOW 50 YEARS SCE GAY PEOPLE WERE “CURED"

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. 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’.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS

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.

AMIC CLAIMS TO HAVG DISVERED A CURE FOR HOMOSEXUALYBRIAN LOO SOON HUA·FOLLOWPUBLISHED ILLUMINATION·4 M READ·SEP 2, 2021--1SHAREAND WA TILL YOU HEAR HER MD-BENDG THEORY REGARDG WHAT PEOPLE TO BE GAY.PHOTO BY DEON BLACK ON UNSPLASHA UPLE OF YEARS AGO WHEN I FIRST STARTED LEARNG ARABIC SOMEONE SENT ME ONE OF THE STRANGT VIO CLIPS I HAD EVER SEEN. THE SETTG: A POPULAR KUWAI TALK SHOW. THE GUT DU JOUR: AN “AMIC” WHO CLAIMS TO HAVE A “DISVERED” A “CURE” FOR HOMOSEXUALY (I KNOW, I KNOW, TOO MANY QUOTATN MARKS, BUT TST ME, THE WHOLE THG MAK A TURN FOR THE BIZARRE THE MUTE THE GUT OPENS HER MOUTH).WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS

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.

The oppose mp argu that gays are "born that way, " and th that sexual reorientatn therapy is effective, as well as cel and the latter perspective hs closer to the mark, the science of sexualy supports a more measured stance. There are no verified s of formerly gay people pletely riddg themselv of same-sex attractn, but do appear possible for some people who are predisposed to same-sex attractn to expand their sexual repertoire — velop attractns for oppose-sex partners as well, and even opt for the oppose sex exclively. As Diamond noted January the Archiv of Sexual Behavr, femal' sexual fluidy may emerge om the fdg that, across the board, they are sexually aroed by imag of both men and women (whereas men are typilly aroed only by members of their preferred sex) erotic plasticy may expla why women wh same-sex predisposns report better succs adjtg to heterosexual liftyl than gay men do.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY – REAL OR HOAX?

Sexual orientatn cements around puberty, and acrdg to Gelf Rieger, a sexual orientatn rearcher at Cornell Universy, " is que possible that there are several fluenc on formg a homosexual orientatn.

Psychiatric diagnosg of homosexualy as a mental disorr began the 19th century, most promently the work of Richard von Krafft-Ebg, who thought was due to “generatn” of the nervo system—generacy beg a now-disproven medil theory of that era. They found homosexualy to be more mon the general populatn than was generally believed—a fdg at odds wh psychiatric claims of the time that homosexualy was extremely rare the general populatn.

I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?

All this changed the wake of the 1969 Stonewall rts New York Cy, an event that energized gay and lbian activists who believed psychiatric diagnosis to be a major ntributor to anti-homosexual social stigma. A 1971 panel, entled “Gay is Good” featured Kameny, Barbara Gtgs, and Ron Gold, who explaed to psychiatrists, many of whom were hearg for the first time, the stigma ed by the “homosexualy” diagnosis. H Anonymo, a “homosexual psychiatrist" who, given the realistic fear of adverse profsnal nsequenc for g out at that time, disguised his te inty om the dience and spoke of the discrimatn gay psychiatrists faced their own profsn.

ISLAMIC EXORCISMS ED AS A 'CURE' FOR HOMOSEXUALY INDONIA: 'IF I AM MLIM, I N’T BE GAY'

Whout a medil or scientific ratnalizatn for discrimatn, bat about homosexualy gradually shifted away om medice and psychiatry and to the moral and polil realms of relign, ernment, the ary, the media, and tnal stutns.

The reasong behd acceptance went like this: If homosexualy is no longer nsired an illns, if one do not lerally accept biblil prohibns agast , and if gay people are able and prepared to functn as productive cizens, then what is wrong wh beg gay? The recent storm of ntroversy surroundg the hband of Michele Bachmann, Republin printial ntenr, and whether his Christian mistri try to "cure" homosexualy, has brought wele attentn to ex-gay mistri and the reparative therapy they claim n change a person's sexual orientatn. A powerful article The Natn last month, "Michele Bachmann's Hband's Clics Practiced Ex-Gay Therapy (While Pocketg $161, 000 of Your Tax Money), " drew on reports om Marc Bachmann's patients and footage of group unselg they were given to unrsre jt how close the Bachmanns' relatnship is to the wir ex-gay movement and the so-lled reparative therapy on which draws very heavily.

The article draws on one of Bachmann's former patients, Andrew Ramirez, as well as om John Becker, an vtigative journalist at Tth Ws Out, who says he was "repeatedly assured" by one of Bachmann's therapists "that homosexualy uld be overe. As Blake reports The Natn, "In 2005, Marc Bachmann gave a prentatn lled 'The Tth About the Homosexual Agenda' at the Mnota Pastors' Summ, a gatherg of nservative relig lears signed to build support for anti-gay marriage legislatn. Elsewhere the world, may surprise the same nservativ to learn, reparative therapy has far-stronger ti to the type of Stalist thkg, rangg om Mosw to Castro's Cuba, that led many untri to nounce homosexualy as a social evil or "lcuencia, " a social pathology/crime that reparative therapy supposedly uld cure.

5 SURPRISG FACTS ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY

Ined, passg very recently through Ecuador, South Ameri, I was astonished and appalled to learn that and around Quo, the natn's attractive pal, there are no ls than 300 clics "didos a ‘curar' la enfermedad la homosexualidad"—dited to "curg" the "illns" or "disorr" of homosexualy, their own lerature brags. In his excellent article "‘Curar' la homosexualidad, " appearg on the op-ed page of Ecuador's prtig El Universo, Rirdo Tello Carrión warns that his untry, the "tenncy to believe that homosexualy is a sickns seems to have creased, " not dimished, over the years: "la tenncia a creer que la homosexualidad una enfermedad parece haber crecido" (Augt 18, 2011). Shortly after the wner of a gay ntt was arrted as a "lcuente" or "crimal" 1997, the man, Pedro, was raped turn by each of the policemen volved arrtg him--"fue vlado una y otra vez.

That Ecuador n boast of havg 300 clics dited to "curg" homosexualy while s cisn to crimalize homosexualy is forever lked to a police sndal volvg btal male rape unrsr some of the crazy, twisted thkg volved at such moments, where the punishment meted out for beg gay is, one rpect, more homosexualy—of urse, not regnized as such by the law. But wh all the antigay tnts that have driven some recently to suici, seems necsary to end wh the words of Marc Bachmann's former patient, Andrew Ramirez, who said he'd e forward bee he was tired of the bigotry, the stale but recurrg assumptn that lbians and gay men need to change the first place.

GAY THERAPY, GAY THERAPISTS, GAY TREATMENT

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.

” 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. 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. 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.