It’s no secret that America has its steeped prejudices, and that’s never been more clear than right now. This stems from a brazen history of religious extremists and puritans. Being the first Europeans to establish residency in North America, they brought those ideas with them. The Plymouth settlers came from a puritan religious state and left England for refusing to merge their religion with that of the state.
So, they left. And with them, they brought ideas about gender, sexuality, and morality that stem from the conservative church groups from Europe. These ideas were normal at the time, and so was the persecution of homosexuals.
This led to a society built around ideas that restricted certain lifestyles, and these harmful ideas permeated into the modern age. In this article, we’ll talk about a particularly horrendous practice known as conversion therapy. If the information here makes you want to learn more about this practice, check out a conversion therapy movie for harrowing first-hand accounts of what goes into conversion therapy.
What is it?
First and foremost, we need to define what this practice actually is. Conversion therapy is converting an individual who identifies as gay or lesbian to a straight individual. Or, in the context of gender, converting a transgender, non-binary, or gender fluid person into a cis-gendered person (or someone who identifies with the gender they were born as).
This is done in a variety of ways, which we will get into a little bit later, and it’s easy to imagine that this practice is both harmful and abusive, especially to young people who are manipulated into thinking that they must change to be in good moral standing with their peers, family, and church.
Young people in conservative, rural communities are most at risk of this type of therapy, and churches use the threat of hell as a manipulative tool to convince teens that what they’re feeling is wrong or unnatural in some way. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Where Did It Come From?
Conversion therapy has its roots dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Scientists were beginning to do a lot of research on the brain, psyche, and behavioral health. Keep in mind that during this time, science was largely dominated by men. Specifically, Christian men.
It was largely thought among scientists that being homosexual or transgender was a sign of mental illness. So they started experimenting with different methods of attempting to convert gay men and women into straight men and women. Hypnosis was one of the first methods used, but we’ll get into some of the more sinister techniques in the next section.
Remember, these accounts are certainly not for the faint of heart. As science and our understanding of mental health evolved, it was largely debunked by the late 20th and early 21st century. It is now understood by major health organizations to be harmful, ineffective, and based on a poor understanding of mental health.
Common Types of CT
The techniques used to practice conversion therapy vary but are all equally manipulative and abusive in nature. Some of the first attempts used hypnosis, but many organizations have used a method called aversion therapy.
Aversion therapy essentially uses some kind of negatively stimulating agent such as nauseating medications or electric shocks used while the patient observes erotic same-sex media. The idea here is to retrain the brain and avert it away from homosexual behavior. This extreme kind of treatment is effective in averting a person away from certain behaviors, but not towards heterosexuality, which is ultimately the goal.
Other forms of conversion therapy include ex-gay and ex-trans ministries that target themselves toward vulnerable individuals who may ‘want to change’ themselves. This is more of a forward manipulation and is extra sneaky because it requires the individual’s consent to join a ministry or organization. This is typically quite common with this form of manipulation. Victims usually feel they’ve made a positive decision for themselves.
Ultimately, conversion therapy is an extreme practice attempting to convert homosexual individuals into heterosexual ones. All major mental organizations reject this practice as a legitimate form of therapy, but many fundamental church groups still practice it in states where it isn’t banned.
Currently, there are about 20 states that have bans against conversion therapy. But that still leaves a great handful more that do not. It is becoming less and less common to see large-scale conversion groups gaining traction. However, there is still a great deal of language and attitude towards homosexuality in religious circles that is just as harmful. The more we know, the more we can educate others about this harmful practice.
