Let's talk about mental health.
One aspect of being an ally involves paying attention to issues which affect the lives of LGBTQIA people.
Over the weekend, I saw several news articles related to conversion therapy.
The main story centered on the recent conviction of several people from a Christian ministry for gay youth and troubled teens. Some people in Alabama were convicted in January 2017 because of the various vile and abusive crimes they perpetrated against minors. You can read and watch the heart-breaking and infuriating pieces I am referring to here or here or here, all from March 2017.
These stories, and others like them, uncover all sorts of human rights violations, but for the purposes of this post, I want to zero in specifically on the idea of conversion therapy.
Conversion therapy refers to any effort to change an LGBTQIA person into a cis-gender, heterosexual person.
Before I go any further, I'll point out this 140 page report by the American Psychological Association, detailing their extensive study of conversion therapy, because I later summarize some of their findings. Also note, some portions of this post previously appeared as a note on my Facebook page in November 2016.
The majority
of conversion therapy is associated with religious conservatives. Current Vice President Mike Pence has expressed support of “those institutions
which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.” And
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, whose language was used to frame
the language of the Republican platform in 2016, has said that banning conversion therapy on
children reduces “the right of parents to determine the proper treatment or
therapy, for their minor children.”
That's right. Children.
Unwilling Participants
Many subjects of conversion
therapy are unwilling participants. Many of these people, including underage
minors, are forced or pressured into conversion therapy. In the news stories linked above, parents enrolled their children in camps or group homes without their consent. Other times, people are pressured by their families or faith community to attend therapy sessions to be changed. (Even when people attend by their own free will, there is little evidence of success. See APA study).
Lack of Regulations
No psychiatric, psychological, or medical entity accepts
conversion therapy as a reputable practice. As such, there is no set of
standards or practices. Therefore, every conversion therapy practitioner can take
a different approach. Many conversion therapy operations are administered by
churches or ministries, with no oversight.
Any person who thinks they can turn
a person “un-gay” can take a stab at it. And they do. There are pastors and
ministers who try to do this to people in church basements, without an
understanding of the complex psychological principles involved when interacting
with issues of identity and sexuality.
Claims of Causality
Sexual conversion therapy does all kinds of vile
things to a person’s psyche by making causal claims related to homosexuality.
Causal is the word... meaning what "caused" their homosexuality. In
other words, some conversion therapy practitioners try to zero in on “why” a person
is gay, thinking they are diagnosing the root of the "problem." These
people attach reasons for a person’s gayness, with no regard for the damage
they are doing.
For example, a gay conversion practitioner may convince a
person they are gay because of something their parents did or didn’t do.
"You are attracted to the same sex because your mom and
dad did something wrong."
Or, "If your parents had disciplined you differently,
you wouldn't have turned out gay."
Misinformation and Misconceptions
A “gay conversion” doctor named Ovesey, back in the 1970’s,
told people they were gay because they had a phobia about inhabiting their
gender the “right way.” He said that if gay people would just sleep with a
woman, they would be cured of their phobia of being a man.
Conversion therapy is dangerous because it opens the door
for unqualified and unconcerned practitioners to convince gay people that their
gayness comes from a specific person, experience, or “disorder.”
Aversion
Conversion therapy is dangerous because they do
awful, awful things to people in the name of changing them. Beginning in the
60’s and 70’s, behavior therapists tried a variety of aversion treatments to
"cure" gayness, such as inducing nausea, vomiting, or paralysis;
electric shock; or having the individual snap an elastic band around the wrist
when the individual became aroused to same-sex erotic images or thoughts.
One definitive finding of the study: approaches which start
with self-stigma and shame are extremely unlikely to end in a healthy place. If we are going to be allies to our LGBTQIA friends and neighbors, we must reject those practices which do harm and embrace those practices which are life-giving and healthy.
Info-graphics, Summarizing the Findings of the APA Report on Conversion Therapy
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