5 Thgs You Should Know About Gay Conversn Therapy | Live Science

Contents:

• GAY 'NVERSN THERAPY': MAN GIVEN ELECTRIC SHOCKS MANDS APOLOGY
• SHOCK THE GAY AWAY: SECRETS OF EARLY GAY AVERSN THERAPY REVEALED (PHOTOS)
• A SURVIVOR OF GAY CONVERSN THERAPY SHAR HIS CHILLG STORY
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
• THE MOST SHOCKG FACTS ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY
• 5 THGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY
• MORMON 'GAY CURE' STUDY USED ELECTRIC SHOCKS AGAST HOMOSEXUAL FEELGS
• GAY MEN GIVEN ELECTRIC SHOCKS 'TO CURE HOMOSEXUALY' AT QUB
• DID MIKE PENCE SUPPORT 'GAY CONVERSN' THERAPY?

GAY 'NVERSN THERAPY': MAN GIVEN ELECTRIC SHOCKS MANDS APOLOGY

A gay man who went through months of electric shock "therapy" a universy psychology partment 50 years ago has mand an - not his real name - went to his GP for advice the 1970s, when he beme aware of his sexualy his doctor said he knew someone who uld "cure" him. 'Hefty electric shock'Homosexualy had only been -crimalised 1967, and mastream society was still eply disapprovg of the, now 74, remembers beg told that "even havg a sex change" would be better for him than ntug to live as a gay man, and so he mted to the prcribed treatment which he had been guaranteed would work. Banng nversn therapy In 2018, the UK ernment announced that "gay nversn therapi" were to be banned, as part of a plan to improve the liv of gay and transgenr people.

Media ptn, Gareth went to gay nversn therapy for four years and says ma him 'feel broken' "You nnot cure beg LGBT, you nnot erase om society. 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.

Wh the recent announcement om Exod Internatnal that is closg s doors, and wh s lears offerg apologi for their actns, the LGBT muny is now left wonrg, "Can this really be the end of ex-gay reparative therapy? " While the dt settl on all of this, we have to remd ourselv that wasn't too long ago that reparative therapi had ls to do wh prayg the gay away and more to do wh physilly removg . Before the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn (APA) classified homosexualy as a mental disorr 1973, aversn therapy was ed routely hop that would prevent or elimate homosexual behavr.

SHOCK THE GAY AWAY: SECRETS OF EARLY GAY AVERSN THERAPY REVEALED (PHOTOS)

Devic like the one below were ed by therapists treatg homosexual patients, and some of them were even available for e the nvenience of your own home.

The patient is given a "sli change" hand button which enabl him to pe or avoid a shock by rejectg a shock cue the 1940s, homosexuals were also voluntarily mted to psychiatric facili by their fai, wh the hospals promisg that the patient would eventually leave the facily cured of their "sexual illns. She lived the rt of her life serly disabled a private psychiatric hospal, along wh most of Freeman's homosexual patients, who were perfect health before the surgery. This cisn occurred agast the backdrop of great cultural shifts brought on by the civil rights movements of the 1950s to the 1970s, begng wh the Ain-Amerin civil rights movement and then ntug on wh the women's and gay rights the late 1960s, Christiany Today began prtg articl and edorials ncerned wh the growg homosexual movement.

What we at ONE Natnal Gay & Lbian Archiv do know for sure is that the LGBT muny has persevered, regardls of what was hurled at physilly, psychologilly, or spirually, then and now. While certa therapi, like talk therapy, are also legimate forms of re for people who experience mental health problems, beg gay is, of urse, not a mental health, a 19-year-old gay man who spoke to The Huffgton Post anonymoly for this article orr to protect his safety, is a survivor of nversn therapy was subjected to nversn therapy 2012 when he was 15 years old after his parents disvered he was gay.

A SURVIVOR OF GAY CONVERSN THERAPY SHAR HIS CHILLG STORY

Their goal was to get to hate ourselv for beg LGBTQ (most of were gay, but the entire spectm was reprented), and they knew what they were dog....

Acrdg to the Brish Psychologil Society (BPS), nversn therapy - sometim lled "reparative therapy" or "gay cure therapy" - tri to change someone's sexual orientatn or genr inty. 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.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS

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. 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 MOST SHOCKG FACTS ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY

“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. The Indiana ernor do mata, however, that he never supported the e of gay nversn therapy (the act of tryg to change someone’s sexual orientatn). Every time an image of homosexual activy appeared onscreen, the viewer would be shocked until he or she swched to a sli showg heterosexual scen.

Turg received a royal pardon 2013, and 2016 the Alan Turg Law ma so the other 65, 000 gay and bisexual men nvicted unr the same law also receive posthumo pardons or, the 15, 000 s where the men are still livg, are eligible to apply for one.

“Exod is an stutn the nservative Christian world, but we’ve ceased to be a livg, breathg anism, ” said Alan Chambers, the group’s print who formerly intified as gay. For more stori like this one, check out the powerful imag om the early days of the gay rights movement, or read up on gay rights around the world.

5 THGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY

A therapy that claims to nvert gay people to heterosexuals is beg tted urt wh two new s, one of which seeks to sue unselors offerg the therapy and the other seekg to fend nversn therapy, as is known, supposedly helps gay people overe same-sex attractns.

[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. [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 Tim.

Why psychologists say nversn therapy don't workHomosexualy 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.

MORMON 'GAY CURE' STUDY USED ELECTRIC SHOCKS AGAST HOMOSEXUAL FEELGS

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.

But relig-right anizatns such as Exod Internatnal and Foc on the Fay's Love Won Out took up the charge, promotg their own "ex-gay" therapi.

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

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. 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.

DID MIKE PENCE SUPPORT 'GAY CONVERSN' THERAPY?

"I believe I owe the gay muny an apology for my study makg unproven claims of the efficy of reparative therapy, " Spzer Stephanie Pappas on Twter @sipappas or LiveScience @livcience. "I was never actively gay, never had any enunters wh men -- never had moments when I failed and actually had sex wh other men, " he his unrcurrent of feelgs put him direct nflict wh the Church of J Christ of the Latter-day Sats (LDS) and s prcipl.

"I thought he was my savr, " said Cameron, who enrolled wh 13 other willg subjects, all Mormons who thought they might be gay, for a three- to six-month urse of therapy. Psychologists nfirm those harsh experiments were ed a variety of medil settgs by scientists of all officials say they no longer support aversn therapy, but a generatn who grew up the 1970s say they have been srred for life bee of well-tentned attempts to change their sexual, the church still steadfastly oppos homosexualy, as wnsed by the lns of dollars support gave to pass California's Proposn 8, which would amend the state's nstutn to outlaw gay P.

"The BYU Counselg Center never practiced therapy that would volve chemil or duced vomg, " she, therapi are all "male theraptic approach, " acrdg to Jenks, and all faculty are expected to be licensed and programs universy, which is owned by the Mormon Church, said s policy on homosexualy is le wh Mormon doctre -- today's stunts are not discipled unls they engage sexual activy, and that clus heterosexual sex before marriage. "BYU will rpond to homosexual behavr rather than to feelgs or attractn, and wel as full members of the universy muny all whose behavr meets universy standards, " said Jenks. "Play About 1976 Shock Therapy OpensCameron, who is now openly gay, wrote a play about his shock therapy experience, "14, " which clus much of McBri's ntroversial dissertatn.