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

Contents:

• THE 1970S “GAY-CURE” EXPERIMENTS WRTEN OUT OF SCIENTIFIC HISTORY
• I WAS 19, GAY AND READY TO BE ‘CURED’ BY NVERSN THERAPY
• 5 SURPRISG FACTS ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
• THE “GAY CURE” EXPERIMENTS THAT WERE WRTEN OUT OF SCIENTIFIC HISTORY
• A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT OVER ATTEMPTS TO 'CURE' GAY PEOPLE
• PSYCHIATRY GIANT SORRY FOR BACKG GAY ‘CURE’
• PSYCHIATRIST WHO CHAMPNED 'GAY CURE' ADMS HE WAS WRONG

THE 1970S “GAY-CURE” EXPERIMENTS WRTEN OUT OF SCIENTIFIC HISTORY

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. 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.

5 SURPRISG FACTS ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY

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 if at the end of this 60-day therapy, you still have homosexual tennci, then you didn't really believe and you didn't really want to change. 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.

He had a five-year history of homosexualy, and a three-year history of dg abe: he had tried glu, pats, thners, sedativ, marijuana, LSD, amphetam, even nutmeg and vanilla extract. B-19 featur two 1972 papers: ‘Septal stimulatn for the iatn of heterosexual behavr a homosexual male, ' by Heath and his lleague Charl E Moan, and ‘Pleasure and bra activy man, ' by Heath alone, which set out—apparently for the first time—what happens to human brawav durg asm. “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.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS

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. 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.

THE “GAY CURE” EXPERIMENTS THAT WERE WRTEN OUT OF SCIENTIFIC HISTORY

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’.

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. (Image cred: Oleg Golovnev | shutterstock)Homosexualy is not nsired a mental disorr, so the Amerin Psychologil Associatn (APA) do not remend "curg" same-sex attractn any se.

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?

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

[5 Myths About Gay People Debunked]In a send se California, a feral judge is hearg arguments agast a new state law that bans nversn therapy for mors. In 1935, Frd went even further, wrg to a woman who wanted her homosexual son nverted that homosexualy "is nothg to be ashamed of, no vice, no gradatn; nnot be classified as an illns.

One of the stranger attempts was an effort by Vienne endocrologist Eugen Steach to transplant tticl om straight men to the scrotums of gay men an attempt to rid them of same-sex sir.

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. A small group of psychologists, spltg wh their peers, ntue to promote the therapi, foundg the nversn therapy anizatn NARTH, or the Natnal Associatn for Rearch & Therapy of Homosexualy.

PSYCHIATRY GIANT SORRY FOR BACKG GAY ‘CURE’

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.

Conservative groups were lighted to have support om Spzer, who wasn't tated wh relig bias or anti-gay iology; gay anizatns felt the end, however, Spzer me to agree wh his crics.

PSYCHIATRIST WHO CHAMPNED 'GAY CURE' ADMS HE WAS WRONG

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.

” 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. A patient unrgog electronvulsive therapy cir 1950sBut 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.