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

Contents:

• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY – REAL OR HOAX?
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
• 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
• GAY THERAPY: HOW TO FD THE RIGHT GAY THERAPIST
• A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT OVER ATTEMPTS TO 'CURE' GAY PEOPLE
• LGBTQ+ AFFIRMG THERAPISTS ILLOIS
• CURE YOUR GAYS

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY – REAL OR HOAX?

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. Although a person’s sexual or romantic orientatn or genr inty may not be a source of distrs, people who intify as lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, queer, qutng, asexual, or any other orientatn or genr inty may fd that the social stigma of livg as a mory is a source of strs or anxiety.

Acrdg to a 2007 survey, stunts who intified as lbian, gay, bisexual, or transgenr were almost ten tim as likely to have experienced bullyg and victimizatn at school and more than twice as likely to have nsired suici as their heterosexual, non-transgenr classmat wh the prev year. Early edns of the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual (DSM) intified homosexualy as a mental disorr, until clil rearch monstrated sexual or romantic attractn to someone of the same genr is a normal, healthy, posive form of human sexualy. Profsnal anizatns such as the Natnal Associatn of Social Workers and the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn have e out sayg that gay reparative therapy is uhil and s practners risk censure or loss of license.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS

Through his anizatn, Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy, he ed psychoanalysis, which volved a number of c psychologil methods, to try to replace homosexual sir wh heterosexual on. 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.

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.

5 SURPRISG FACTS ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY

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.

“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. But mastream psychologists say the therapy is effective, uhil and often harmful, exacerbatg anxiety and self-hatred among those treated for what is not a mental 2013, two s volvg the therapy to nvert gay people to heterosexuals h the urts, wh one seekg to sue unselors who offer the therapy and the other seekg to fend are five thgs you need to know about the therapy and the current psychologists say nversn therapy don't workA diagnosis of major prsn do not evoke much rponse, eher a stigmatizg or supportive, om a person's social work, a study dited. Instead, societal ignorance, prejudice and prsure to nform to heterosexual sir are the real dangers to gay people's mental health, acrdg to a 1997 statement on "nversn" or "reparative" therapy by the APA.

[7 Absolutely Evil Medil Experiments]More recently, people who have been through nversn therapy report talk therapy that emphasiz psdoscientific theori, such as the ia that an overbearg mother and a distant father make a child gay. His therapist blamed his parents for Arana's homosexualy, and urged him to distance himself om his female bt Lev, one of the men sug Jonah for ceptive practic, says that he qu nversn therapy after his therapist had him strip down and touch himself to "rennect wh his masculy, " acrdg to the New York 's happeng the urts? It didn’t of the most proment advot of nversn therapy the 1940s and 50s was Edmund Bergler, who saw homosexualy as a perversn and believed he uld "cure" gay people wh a punishment-based, nontatnal therapy the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn stopped classifyg homosexualy as a mental disorr 1973, nversn therapi lost support.

GAY THERAPY, GAY THERAPISTS, GAY TREATMENT

In 2003, famed psychiatrist Robert Spzer, who spearhead the removal of homosexualy om the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn's mental disorr list 1973, reported the journal Archiv of Sexual Behavr that terviews wh nversn therapy patients suggted that some people uld change their sexual paper was cendiary and highly cricized, given that relied on terviews wh patients stead of measurable benchmarks of same-sex sir. 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.

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

" 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. 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 .

While there are some groups that try to "treat" homosexualy orr change , the gay therapy discsed this article refers to therapy signed to help someone al wh issu around their sexualy and not any way change . “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. 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. 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.

GAY THERAPY: HOW TO FD THE RIGHT GAY THERAPIST

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’. The Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs, or DSM, which the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn pil as a gui to diagnosis and treatment of illns, listed homosexualy as a "socpathic personaly disturbance” the DSM-I, published 1952, and as a “sexual viatn” the DSM-II, published 1968 (see Further Readg).

Heath scribed his homosexualy experiment two papers published 1972: “Septal Stimulatn for the Iniatn of Heterosexual Behavr a Homosexual Male, ” -wrten wh Charl Moan, Journal of Behavr Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry; and "Pleasure and Bra Activy Man, " Journal of Nervo and Mental Disease. For the prev three years, Heath wrote, B-19 had “led the life of a vagrant, experimentg wh dgs, engagg numero homosexual relatnships and beg supported fancially by his homosexual partners.

The latter quot Edmund Bergler, a proment psychoanalyst, sayg his 1956 book Homosexualy: Disease or Way of Life: “I have no bias agast homosexuals; for me they are sick people requirg medil help... Addnally, bee many people who intify as lbian or gay n be part of a send (and sometim third or more) margalized muny, may be helpful to search for a psychologist who shar another aspect of your inty.

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

Your therapist should have experience workg wh other gay men, women, and genr diverse people, and they should be faiar wh issu surroundg sexualy, genr exprsn, g out, mental illns, self-teem, and other issu that affect the LGBTQ muny. Homosexualy is not a mental illns—and nversn therapy is a harmful practice that n take a signifint toll on self-teem, leadg to self-stctive behavrs like substance abe, self-harm, and even suici. Throughout the 1960s, psychiatrists Irvg Bieber and Charl Soris were regularly quoted newspapers and magaz, argug that homosexual sire was a form of psychosocial maladjtment, rultg om childhood.

Frd himself had explicly stated by 1935 that homosexualy was not an illns and strongly disuraged attempts to treat ; neverthels, by the 1950s, his theori were wily misappropriated by nservative Amerin and émigré psychiatrists vted reaffirmg the heterosexual, breadwner-homemaker hoehold the wake of World War II. Already by the 1960s, such cur had provoked ristance: April 1965, jt months after that TIME article ran, the Philalphia-based gay rights anizatn Jan ved Hadn to give a lecture on his rearch, only to surprise him wh fierce ristance om the dience. Gay activists would also claim a major victory December 1973, when the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn voted to remove “homosexualy” om the send edn of the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM-II), which meant that homosexualy was officially no longer nsired a disorr self.

The diagnosis of homosexualy was immediately replaced by “sexual orientatn disturbance, ” renamed “ego-dystonic homosexualy” DSM-III, which was released 1980 unr the learship of Spzer and social worker Ja Williams.

LGBTQ+ AFFIRMG THERAPISTS ILLOIS

Mixg pastoral unselg, Bible study, dividual and group psychotherapy, and aversn treatments, ex-gay mistri have promised a cure om—or at least avoidance of—homosexualy to thoands of men and women. The urt refed to hear claims that homosexualy uld be cured om JONAH’s experts, who clu a social worker and clil stctor at Oh State Universy; a psychiatrist and preceptor at Massachetts College of Pharmacy and Health Scienc; and a former Universy of Toronto profsor of psychiatry.

Can be Tth Televisn if the trope is merely allud to, such as a homophobic character ''mentng'' as a possible rponse to a gay or lbian character's sexualy, or to a transgenr or non-bary character, or if an LGBT person tri but fails. Once que mon, this trope is creasgly beg a discreded one due to homosexuals, general, beg moved to the realm of formerly acceptable targets as well as some thartic backlash agast the once mon ia of "curg" homosexualy. There is also the growg body of rearch showg that homosexualy is likely to have a blogil e, and attempts to "cure" wh psychotherapy or other non-medil techniqu are not only ually effective but n often be dangero, and the rejectn of this trope by all major medil and psychologil anizatns such as the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn.

The "Godhead" arc of Robbie Morrison's n of The Authory had John Clay, lear of the relig movement lled the Church of Transcennce, attempt to cure Apollo and Midnighter of their homosexualy. This started Krgarten - before Max'd even e out, before he'd even realized , bee his dad still go by the 'le' that a boy that starts bakg, even if your Grandmom helps, mak you 'turn' gay. Ronance Days verts this; as a nsequence of girls the afterlife beg ma to hormone-ls Energy Begs, they n swch orientatns if they want to, and sce they are surround by other girls, they very often bee gay.

CURE YOUR GAYS

While the Reverend do succeed makg Queer Duck attracted to women jt before Queer Duck's weddg to Lola Buzzard, wears off after Lola's manservant Pecry and Barbara Streisand help Queer Duck bee gay aga. Sma's character, tend to reprent the voice of reason, lectur them that gays are not evil and praved, they are merely mentally ill, and they need treatment to cure them stead of punishg them. A 'cure' for homosexualy would not rult a functnally asexual person, but a heterosexual person, bee the kd of people who thk that homosexualy is a disease that needs to be cured are generally not gog to accept asexual inti, eher.

I Have No Mouth, and I Mt Scream has one of the human characters had once been a homosexual, but after so many years of torture om AM, he now has sex wh Ellen, the only female of the group. This is a se where this clearly isn't supposed to be seen as a good thg and may, fact, unt as some form of dark social satire sce was published 1967 when attempts at 'curg' gay men of their homosexualy were pretty much the norm.