Conversion therapy in the UK

What is it?

Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change a person sexual orientation or gender identity.

It often goes with the belief that a person's sexual orientation or gender identity is something that can and should be changed. The so called ''aim'' for this type of practice is to change people to become heterosexual and cisgender.

The ''therapy'' itself can be done in several different ways. The three most common ways are: psychotherapy, medical, and faith-based.

Psychotherapy

The psychotherapeutical aspect of conversion therapy argues that someone's sexuality or gender identity is product of an abnormal upbringing or experience. There are different variations on how the therapy itself would work. These include psychodynamic, behavioural, cognitive and interpersonal therapies. A common method used is aversion, where the ''patient'' is put through electrical shocks or nausea-inducing or paralysis-inducing drugs to make the person feel negative and distressing emotions when being exposed to their sexuality or gender identity.

Medical conversion therapy

The word 'medical' should not be confused with science in this version of conversion therapy. In this version, someone's sexuality or gender identity is viewed as biological disfunction that can be fixed with medication or even surgery. The surgery is said to try to ''neutralise'' someone's sexual orientation.

Faith-based conversion therapy

The most common type of conversion therapy is faith-based. These are usually interventions on the premise that there is something ''evil'' within someone which is what makes them have different sexualities and/or gender identities.

For Alex Cooper from Utah in the United States, this included standing up with a rucksack filled with rocks and staring at a wall for 18 hours per day. Her parents sign the parental rights and guardianship to a family who had said they could ''make her straight''.

Watch Alex Cooper tell her story about her experience conversion therapy in this video by Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

Former conversion therapy leader comes out

In an exclusive interview with the New York Post, former conversion therapy leader and founder of the biggest conversion therapy programme in the USA, McKrae Game expressed his apologies to everyone he ''tortured'' throughout the years.

Game was fired from the organisation, which is now called Hope for Wholeness, in 2017. Later in June 2019, he publicly came out as gay himself.

In his interview with the New York Post, Game said how, when he started the organisation, he thought that people were lying about there being different sexualities. Now, he thinks the opposite and believes that ex-gay ministries are a lie.

''Conversion therapy is not just a lie but it's harmful,'' Game said.

In a Facebook post, Game later expressed more of his feelings of his past.

''I told people they were going to Hell if they didn’t stop, and these were professing Christians! This was probably my worse wrongful act. At one time I was working with so many youth that I had a weekly youth group, where they’d share why they were there, and I would guide them in how to not be gay. What a sad commentary of my past verses today, or a bad joke as many may see it,'' Game wrote in his Facebook post.

''It's a lie and we have harmed generations of people. We've done wrong. We need to admit our wrongs and do what we can do to stop the wrong from continuing to happen,'' Game told the New York Post.

Video courtesy of Human Rights Campaign

Pictures courtesy of Jiroe and Greg Rosenke via Unsplash.

Conversion therapy through NHS

It was only in 2015 that the NHS in England was told to stop referring LGBTQ+ patients to conversion therapy.

Before 2015, doctors and GPs were allowed to refer patients to conversion therapy to ''treat'' their sexuality or gender dysphoria.

In October 2017, NHS England and NHS Scotland were two of several organisations to sign the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK. This is a document which purpose is to protect the public through a commitment to ending all different practices of conversion therapy in the UK.

Medical practitioners agree it's unethical

By signing the document, the NHS, along the other health organisation, agree that conversion therapy is unethical and harmful, and that neither sexual orientation nor someone's gender identity are indications of mental disorders.

The document also says that those unhappy with their sexual orientation or gender identity will be offered therapy or other therapeutic options to help them live more comfortably. Even if patients ask for conversion therapy, the organisations won't obey but help the patients in other ways.

Will make the LBGT+ community better understood

The document also makes it clear that the practitioner needs have adequate knowledge and understanding of gender and sexual favour and not to favour a specific sexuality or gender identity.

Not only does this mean that LGBT+ will get a more fair and ethical experience in healthcare as they have the right to, but it will also allow for a better understanding not only in healthcare but in society overall.

Image courtesy of Marcelo Leal via Unsplash.

Carolyn Mercer, 74, was just a teen when she underwent conversion therapy, which was provided by the NHS.

Growing up in Preston with her family, she could always sense that she didn't feel like herself in her body.

A vicar came to her house to see her mum who wasn't home at the time. Carolyn let him in and told him all about her dysphoria. It would take years until she got diagnosed with gender dysphoria, but her so called ''treatment'' started soon after the conversation with the vicar.

''I was crying my eyes out and let him in. And we talked, and he wanted to help. It wasn't on religious grounds. He just wanted to help and I was desperate. So he asked a colleague of his who was a psychiatrist, ironically at the mental hospital, if he would talk with me, and he said he would, and I went along, and he recommended treatment on the NHS,'' Mercer told South West Londoner.

Listen to Carolyn tell her conversion therapy story.

The ''treatment'' was to go into a dark, windowless room and get strapped to a wooden chair. Electrodes soaked in saltwater touched her arm and behind her head was a big projector which showed pictures of women on a wall in front of Mercer.

When they later ''flipped the switch'', Mercer experienced electrical shocks every time a new photo of a woman was shown.

''The idea was to make me associate pain with what I wanted to do, and make me not want to do for things compared to the pain. In reality, it doesn't stop you having feelings of dysphoria, which is how I eventually was diagnosed. But it did for the next almost 40 years. Whenever I thought about it, it made me physically shiver.''

''One of the other things [the conversion therapy] did, clearly, was to make you hate yourself.

''Because that key part of you, that key component of your being is so bad, that people have to treat you like that, then you must be bad. You must be evil, you must go through it. Religion says that that's the case. So it increased my hatred for myself. Which has benefited other people in that the only person I've ever hated in life is myself.

What happens after the ''treatment?

''My experience of conversion, or in my case, aversion therapy doesn't take place anymore. And it certainly doesn't take place on the NHS. But other types of conversion therapy do take place. And the damage that can be done is very similar to the damage that was done to me. And it doesn't work.''

Almost 40 years after having gone through conversion therapy, Mercer transitioned in 2002. But it hasn't been all good since then. Mercer was outed by a national newspaper in 1994 for being a trans head teacher. This happened again in 2002 and 2010, but has come through it stronger than ever.

''People are aware without any doubt of my background and who I am. And that was hard time. Very high time. But I've come through and I'm still smiling as well as still standing as the song goes: I'm still standing after all this time.''

The plans of a national ban

When asked about the government's plan of banning conversion therapy nationally, Mercer expressed her doubt about it become a reality and argued that there are too many loopholes in the plan.

''So for example, in my own case, two things would have allowed what happened to me to continue to happen. So within the current proposals, somebody aged over a 18 could give permission for conversion therapy to take place. Now that runs counter to Article Three of the human rights, European Convention of Human Rights which says that you can't agree to be abused.

''I don't think there's any suggestion that what happened to me wasn't a form of abuse. So that can still go on if over the age of 18. But at the age of 18, and later, I was desperate, I was totally screwed up about how I felt I as thought I was the only person in the world who felt like it. But all of that puts immense pressure on you; family pressure, religious pressure. And then the abuse takes place, whether in a religious setting, family setting, or anywhere else. So that is a loophole.''

Not the same for people who are trans

The second loophole, according to Mercer, is that some people want to ban transpeople receiving any help at all.

''Now, that is wrong, in my view, very, very clearly wrong. Because what I needed to hear, I didn't hear until literally, the year 2000. And that was a psychiatrist.

''For the first time, a psychiatrist said to me, your decision, I will help you whichever decision you take. Nobody had said that to me.''

''I know that there's concern about young people where you can't possibly know that you're trans or that you're gay, or that you're lesbian. You can though. That part of me said that clearly to me at that age. So I know firsthand that it's possible.''

Because to these loopholes, as Mercer described them, she does not believe the government when they promise to ban it. Especially not when they aren't planning to ban it completely.

Pictures courtesy of Carolyn Mercer.