According to the Human Rights Campaign (2011), Conversion Therapy is a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation as well as their gender identity or expression. As opposed to this definition, Stonewall says Conversion Therapy aims to suppress a person’s gender identity (2018), rather than changing it.
Conversion therapy is also sometimes referred to as ‘reparative therapy” or “cure” therapy. Several methods have been used to accomplish it including aversion therapy, chemical castration, lobotomy, psychoanalysis, and sterilization (Born Again Heterosexual, 2019). Born Again Heterosexual (2019) explains each of these methods as follows: aversion therapy is a behavioral therapy technique that pairs a noxious stimulus that a patient is attracted to (in this case homosexuality) to a harmful one to create a negative response. Chemical castration involved the administration of medroxyprogesterone, a female sex hormone, to male gay people in an attempt to reduce their sex drive and aggression. This castration is meant to minimize the unwanted character in such kind of people.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Lobotomy is the surgical cutting open of the skull and slicing through neural fibers in the frontal lobe to treat mental illness. Psychoanalytic therapy involves long, intensive therapy sessions attempting to explore a gay person's unconscious mind and their motivations/ conflicts, in an attempt to find the root of their sexual orientation. Finally, sterilization either involved salpingectomy or vasectomy.
Conversion therapy based on the assumption that being a lesbian, gay, or transgender is a mental illness that can get cured (Stonewall, 2018), and thus it aims to reverse the ‘patients’ to their normal state of mind.
Denouncement of Conversion Therapy
The first and probably most important reason why Conversion Therapy gets denounced is that the methods used are dangerous to the patient, both physically as well as psychologically. According to The Trevor Project, the American Psychiatrist has clarified that reparative therapy has significant risks, including depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior (2019). This is because of the possibility of reinforcing self-hatred experienced by the patient. The Pan American Health Organization also concluded that conversion therapy lacks medical justification and represents a severe threat to the health of affected people (The Trevor Project, 2019). The treatment leaves the victims in a worse mental and physical state that it found them which at times can lead to suicide or suicidal thoughts in the victims.
Moreover, conversion therapy increases the shame and stigma already experienced by gays. Children sent for this therapy by their families have feelings of family rejection and risk severe fracturing of the relationship between them and their families. Families that expose their children to this treatment may end up losing total emotional and physical connection to their children. A study by San Francisco State University showed that gay youths who were rejected by their families were almost six times more likely to report high levels of depression and more than eight times more likely to attempt suicide when compared to youths accepted by their families (The Trevor Project, 2019).
Another reason why Conversion Therapy gets denounced widely is that it has no scientifically proven evidence of effectivity. NCLR (2018) explains that the American Psychological Association (APA) carried out a comprehensive review of the published literature on the practice of Conversion therapy and it concluded that there was no reliable evidence to show that Conversion therapy is effective. APA found that the opposite was exact- scientifically valid research indicate that it is unlikely that an individual will be able to reduce same-sex sexual attractions or increase other-sex attractions through Conversion Therapy (NCLR, 2018). Comparably, in 2000, the American Psychiatric Association published a statement that concluded that ‘reparative’ over the last four decades had not produced any rigorous scientific research that could substantiate their claims of cure (NCLR, 2018).
Can Someone Change?
It may be possible for one to change their sexual behavior. However, one’s sexual orientation cannot change or get changed. According to Stock, gay orientation, which gets understood as same-sex orientation, starts sufficiently early on in childhood and it would, therefore, be meaningless as well as inappropriate to try and convert it to heterosexuality later on (2018). Dr. Louise Theodosiou of the Royal College of Psychiatrists argues that one’s sexuality and gender are inherent and there is no evidence base, as well as no treatment to change what is only part of someone’s nature (Stock, 2018). Therefore claiming that the treatment could change the way and individual gets attracted to other individuals is virtually impossible.
In conclusion, Conversion Therapy is a regressive technique that tries to change the sexual orientation of gays to be heterosexuality. However, it has no scientific evidence of success and ironically causes harm to the patients including depression, anxiety, and self-destruction behavior. Consequently, Conversion Therapy has been banned and generally denounced by all relevant authorities. It got proven that one’s sexual orientation is established in early childhood and therefore it is useless to try and change or alter it. The therapy therefore cannot be used to achieve what it claims to achieve, the only true thing about the therapy is that indeed it exposes the victim to depression and can lead to suicide among other mental illnesses.
References
Born Again Heterosexual. (2019). Conversion Therapy Methods. Retrieved from http://www.bornagainheterosexual.com/conversion-therapy-methods/
The Trevor Project. (2019). About Conversion Therapy – The Trevor Project. Retrieved from https://www.thetrevorproject.org/get-involved/trevor-advocacy/50-bills-50-states/about-conversion-therapy/#sm.00000xwf6hwd3ffmuxnqo11ojyilf
Human Rights Campaign. (2011, September 6). The Lies and Dangers of "Conversion Therapy." Retrieved from https://www.hrc.org/resources/the-lies-and-dangers-of-reparative-therapy
NCLR. (2018, November 8). Born Perfect: The Facts about Conversion Therapy. Retrieved from http://www.nclrights.org/bornperfect-the-facts-about-conversion-therapy/
Stock, K. (2018, November 15). Stonewall's new definition of 'conversion therapy raises a few questions . Retrieved from https://www.thearticle.com/stonewalls-new-definition-of-conversion-therapy-raises-a-few-questions/
Stonewall. (2018, December 3). Conversion Therapy. Retrieved from https://www.stonewall.org.uk/campaign-groups/conversion-therapy
