Conversion therapy is a pseudoscientific practise that aims to convert someone’s gender identity or sexual orientation, specifically engineered to shift homosexual and bisexual orientations and render them heterosexual or ‘straight’. Treatments such as cognitive, psychological, or spiritual rituals are conducted by pseudo-medical professionals, ritual leaders, life coaches and counsellors. But what seems like a perverted Victorian-era practice is still practised legally in parts of the modern world today. In this article, I want to raise awareness of the practice and discuss why it is so morally incompatible with social progress as we move forward today. I also want to give some insight into the history of conversion therapy, arguing that it needs to become an obsolete and irreconcilable practice for the modern age. It is an issue that, using its very existence, threatens to consolidate harmful and toxic ideologies and needs to be rejected. The main aim of this article is thus to gain support to help implement the ban of conversion therapy outright.
In 1899, German psychiatrist Albert von Schrenck-Notzing believed he had turned a gay man straight through manipulating the individual’s sexual desire. Conversion Therapy was thereafter mainly practised in Western society in the 1920s. Medical and scientific understanding underwent significant development in a society where homosexuality was largely considered a medically defective illness that could be ‘treated’ through various outlandish (but at the time state-of-the-art methods). These ranged from sending electrical impulses to the brain, more grotesque surgeries such as castrations, and even replacing the testicles of homosexuals with heterosexual doners. Some progress was made when it became evident that homosexuality was not a congenital physical disability. Experts started to believe it was attributed to something more psychological, but the problem of needing to ‘cure’ it remained. One such psychologist that was revolutionizing how we thought about the workings of ‘inner space’ was Sigmund Freud. He originally acclaimed homosexuality as a mental disorder that ought to be treated through therapy and medication. Freud would later change his opinion this, and towards the end of his life, reconciled that homosexuality was not an illness and any conducted treatments in the foreseeable should be discouraged. Still, it demonstrates that even those in the most forward-thinking positions could see certain sexualities as being afflicted.
In the mid-1950s electroconvulsive therapy, known as electric shock therapy, was being experimented with as a potential cure. This psychiatric treatment is used to help minimize an individual’s mental disorder through seizure in the brain. During this time, they also used behaviour aversion treatments such as inducing vomiting, nausea, or paralysis whenever an individual became aroused by the same sex or viewing explicit images. Even thinking homosexual thoughts were treated with aversion tactics, the essence of sadomasochism.
We largely attribute the 1960’s and early 70’s generation as being the influential liberators of sexuality. By the end of this decade, it was obvious – backed up with scientifically credible research, there was no such thing as a ‘cure’ for sexuality because there was nothing defective to cure. It was encouraged for specialists not to pursue conversion therapy, which was deemed more harmful than helpful. There has also been evidence that performing these therapies on younger people increases the chances of certain mental health illnesses, such as depression and anxiety, which can contribute to suicide.
But despite this and the longstanding history of conversion therapy failure, not to mention the evidence of the damage it does, it is still practised (legally) worldwide. Malta was the first country to ban it outright in 2016, along with 12 U.S. States and 3 in Canada, where these practices are only prohibited for minors due to the uproar of mental health in younger individuals. But for much of the world, it is still legal for conversion to take place in some forms, such as at summer camps and counselling outlooks. Despite being less ruthless and dogmatic, these are by nature of their very existence still damaging and promote the homophobic assumption that one can be rehabilitated from being gay. Camps in South Africa are still firm believers of conversion and are thought to be still using all the methods, including the more tormenting ones.
The very notion of needing to convert someone’s sexuality is not only misogynistic in the darkest sense of the word and hateful towards the LGBTQ+ community but is a discrimination of human rights. We all have the right to our own sexual identity, and attempting to mould it to fit with a more culturally acceptable orientation is just as wrong as shunning and out casting someone because of the colour of their skin. Just because it is now more culturally acceptable to be gay does not detrain from the fact that the ethos of conversion, that is to say, the very idea of it, isn’t detrimental and threatening to society. If conversion remains a legal practice, the idea that being homosexual is somehow awkward, unfavourable, and ultimately wrong will persist.
In the U.K., these ‘counselling’ forms of Conversion Therapy are still legal, even though 1000 days before writing, the government stated they would be removing Conversion therapy as part of its 2018 LGBT Equality plan. Boris Johnson commented in 2019 that conversion therapy was “absolutely abhorrent” and “has no place in this country” But despite the statements, the ruling has still not come, and the practice continues in legal immunity. We need to act in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community and fight to push towards making the practice illegal once and for all.
As long as conversion therapy is allowed to continue in any form, the progress towards a more socially enlightened society (at least one that is free of homophobia) is stalled. That such practises are allowed merely exist to infect us in our most basic integrity; they say that we cannot be accepted for who we are in nature and that we are socially outcast for something that has no bearing on the lives of others. I say this is one of the evillest forms of stupidity, and it needs to be fought. Here is how you can contribute; by following this link, you will be able to help the ban of conversion therapy by emailing your local MP urging them to make the practice illegal now:
https://www.banconversiontherapy.com/
You can also help raise awareness of this by reposting and following @banconversiontherapy and tweeting the trend #BanConversionThearpy. I have also included resources for others affected by Conversion Therapy and would like support: email info@stonewall.org.uk or check out https://www.banconversiontherapy.com/support.