Conversion therapy or reparative therapy is a practice that uses any attempt to
alter a person's sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression.
In 1899 a German psychiatrist claimed that he had turned a gay man straight
with just 45 hypnosis sessions and a couple of trips to a brothel.
In a continued attempt to correct what was believed to be unwanted
or sinful behavior, some people faced electroconvulsive therapy
while others were subjected to even more extreme techniques
such as lobotomy of the brain.
Today some 700,000 adults in the US alone have received conversion therapy
half of which were subjected to these practices from religious
or spiritual advisors and even licensed healthcare professionals
before reaching the age of 18.
A recent study found that LGBTQ who experience conversion therapy are
nearly twice as likely to attempt suicide than those otherwise.
My name is Anthony Padilla
and today I'm going to be sitting down with conversion therapy survivors
to learn what it's really like to experience a practice
that's been discredited and proven ultimately harmful and outright cruel.
Were these conversion therapy survivors able to come out of this experience with
a newfound appreciation for their most authentic self or they live every day
deeply tormented by the overwhelming shame they were forced to experience
at the hand of those they believed had their best interests at heart?
[music]
Hello Mathew.
Hey Anthony.
[music]
Darren.
Hey there.
[music]
Peter.
Hi Anthony. How are you?
[music]
Thank you so much for coming on here and teaching me about the world
of surviving conversion therapy.
Absolutely a pleasure to be here.
What do you consider yourself a conversion therapy survivor.
Someone who's been shamed for their authentic identity?
It's pretty hard to find the right words for it.
Conversion therapy survivor is the word that fits best.
Conversion therapy survivor and I like to include that I'm an advocate
to fight conversion therapy now.
As a survivor of conversion therapy and as somebody who didn't experience it
in many of the traditional forms.
Can you explain what conversion therapy is in general.
Anyone it could be a therapist, a pastor, a life coach, or a friend who
tries to change your sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.
I didn't call it conversion therapy.
There's a lot of terms out there.
A lot of these therapists don't say, "Hey come over here, we're
doing conversion therapy."
The name is misleading in and of itself.
It's not therapy.
You can say it's torture.
You can say it's abuse.
You're really destroying people's lives.
Historically, you hear about electric shock therapy and other
really aggressive forms of aversion therapy, there's less of that today.
Most of it is talk therapy and no one should think that's any less damaging.
[music]
Can you recall the events that led up to your experience with conversion therapy?
When I was in high school I was definitely realizing
that I was different from other kids.
I felt myself attracted to guys when everyone else was attracted to girls.
I met another guy on campus who was also identifying as a Christian
and he challenged me with this question of what does God really want for your life?
That moment led me to being a part of his church where I pretty
much gave up everything in pursuit of trying to remain heterosexual
or become heterosexual under the threat of not making it to heaven.
That began the process of it.
First, it was we'll stay living in the church in the basement.
It was dark and there was a open sewer.
Oh shit.
It is like how I imagine it?
The space that I was in was very cult-like or maybe it
could be considered a cult under the guise of we care about you
and we're worried about you.
You feel good in the moment and there're all these people
who seem so invested in you.
You're like, "Oh but I'm so bad," and they're like, "Oh but we're going to help you."
Cut off more and more parts of my life to the point that I told my friends
and family just to forget about me because I was convinced that I was
going to send all of them to hell.
Early on I knew that I was different but I didn't know what that meant.
I didn't know what my attraction to men was but I knew it was something I needed to hide.
When I was 15 my parents found a men's workout magazine that I had bought
and they didn't tell me about it but my dad told me that
we were going to go on a trip together and he didn't tell me where we were going.
I remember very vividly when we got to a layover in St. Louis
that he told me that they had found this magazine and that
he was taking me to a therapy center to fix whatever weird
sexual shit I had going on.
You thought you were going on some fun vacation with your dad,
a bonding experience and it turns out it was to fix something he felt
was inherently broken within you.
He also made it really clear that not only did he think something
was broken with me but that if I didn't get fixed, as he called it,
that he would get rid of me.
Everything that was important to me in my life my family, my faith,
my home was about to be gone, but we went to a counseling center in Iowa.
For two weeks.
I worked with therapists and doctors and counselors at this counseling center.
I got beat up really bad my junior year I was hospitalized.
How I identified as a guy compared to everyone else
really began to change for me.
I actually felt afraid for my life for the first time.
I was going to get exposed to my own.
I needed help.
What helped meant was my father, who I looked up to, if I could tell him,
come out to him, and know that he supports me, then maybe I'll know that I'm safe.
That's how I came out.
I came out to my dad, but literally the next day, my dad had his
own panic of what this meant.
His only son is now was going to live a gay life.
What does that mean to our family?
What does it mean to the conservative community I was growing up in
and he began immediately searching for a therapist, not knowing
what a conversion therapist was.
I was 16 years old.
It was 2004 and I began conversion therapy right there and then.
Can you explain what the conversion therapy process was like?
I sat with a series of therapists.
It was very heavily religious, but they believed in what
they called generational sin.
That would be that my grandfather or my father or my uncle or
my mother had some sin that then passed on to me and tainted me
and made me could have made me gay.
That could be one of the reasons.
Is your battle to fight, to make up for your ancestors' sins?
I was supposed to do homework and write down any sin that
I knew my father had committed or that my mother had committed.
There would be some physical things too.
I remember them making me walk and try to walk more masculinely.
Throughout the therapy, I crossed my legs.
They would tell me to sit differently.
There was a lot of talk about sexuality as well.
In detail, I remember them talking about how much masturbated if I watched pornography,
even my penis size.
How is that relevant to anything?
I never told my dad that they asked that because I thought he has--
I assumed he knew, and this was just part of what was supposed to happen.
The next five years were me keeping that idea, that thought process,
that conversion therapy going myself, trying to be fixed for something that
I didn't want and I couldn't control.
Even though it's not connected to the more formal forms of conversion therapy,
the methods are still the same, the outcomes are still the same.
As I stayed longer, it got progressively worse.
I had taken to sleeping on the altar of our church at night because I was so
insistent on God doing something that I was willing to do a very old-school
Bible-type move where it's just, you just show up and wait for God.
They actually ask you how sexually experienced you are
because, in the world of conversion therapy, that matters.
They want to make sure that you've only dabbled.
Because I was less experienced with men, they're like, "Oh, you should probably
start to see your heterosexuality come back within six weeks."
[laughter]
They gave an actual timeline to this.
This was all seriousness.
Did you hear that six-week number and you're like,
"Okay, I'll just be on my way in six weeks."?
Yes.
Mine do I mention-- I think I mentioned earlier, I was in there for five years.
Obviously, the numbers didn't add up.
Before we continue learning about the world of surviving conversion therapy.
Every woman I had a relationship with was affirmation that I am straight.
I'm doing it.
I have all these guy friends, I'm dating these women.
These girls like me.
I'd like to bring awareness to born perfect an organization
that was actually founded by Mathew, who is in this video.
That's dedicated to spreading awareness and empowering conversion therapy survivors
with the mission to draft, introduce and pass
legislation to end conversion therapy practices once and for all.
For more information, or if you want to make a donation of your own,
which I would highly encourage, I'll go ahead and include a link to born perfect
down in the description below.
I'd also like to thank honey for sponsoring this episode.
As you know, sponsors allow us to continue the series and support
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Now back to the world of conversion therapy.
Were there any big moments during your stay there that made you
second guess, "Is this right?
Should I be doing this?"
They saw that-- Like, "Your dynamics in your family is a big part of
why your gay, and how to correct that is--"
They wanted me to spend as much time as possible
with the males, peers in my life, whether the boys at school,
father figure, my uncles or maybe other male cousins.
Meanwhile, I was not allowed to talk to females at all.
The reason they said that was, "We don't want you to
pick up a feminine behavior."
Doesn't that seem like you would perpetuate those feelings of having
you only be surrounded by those in which you are attracted to?
Yes.
That's how I meant my first boyfriend.
[laughter]
Because they included all women, I wasn't allowed to talk to my mom and
my two sisters for the first three years of my conversion therapy.
I'd wake up in the morning, mom would make me breakfast, I'd walk downstairs,
eat breakfast, and I would walk right out the door and not say a word to her.
Would you even look at her or acknowledge her existence?
I'd try not to because, at that point, I was following my father's
lead, I believed in the therapist.
I was so passionate that, "I'll succeed.
I will actually get through this, I will actually get attracted to women,
I will live a straight life, it's going to work."
When things didn't seem to be changing, my pastor assumed I wasn't
doing all the spiritual things.
He said, "Oh, well, you still need to be more spiritual, so paint the church."
What he was asking me was less and less about me, or spirituality,
or change, it was just control.
Did you follow through with your entire conversion process?
For me, it was like every woman I had a relationship with was
affirmation that I am straight.
I'm doing it.
I have all these guy friends, I'm dating these women, these girls like me.
I really thought it was working.
That was also around the same time where my depression really grew.
I was having panic attacks.
By the age of 20, I had probably submitted myself to an emergency room
at a hospital maybe seven or eight times.
How did you feel after you were convinced that you
completed conversion therapy?
I was mostly scared that my parents wouldn't believe
me when I said it worked.
Very quickly after that, I continued to have sexual thoughts and I realized
that something was still broken with me.
It was a really really dark time in my life.
Mostly I felt really isolated from God.
If God wanted me so badly to be straight and to not have these
thoughts, and I wanted it, why wouldn't He do something about it?
With that said are you still heavily faith-based or have
you disconnected from that?
I'm an atheist.
That was enough to set you on your way.
That was a journey on its own too.
[laughs]
When I was 16 I attempted suicide.
I wrote a note in my pocket that just said, "God, please forgive me."
I didn't feel like there was any hope for me.
I'm glad that I'm here.
I'm glad I survived, but it took me a really long time
to be glad that I survived.
Did anyone treat you differently after you were so-called converted?
When I left conversion therapy I had to rebuild my relationship with
my mom and my sisters because I didn't talk to them for three years.
I stopped talking to my father because I blamed him for the whole thing.
I had to go through two years of, "Do I go to therapy, who do I talk to?"
You were just taught that therapy is something to manipulate you, so
where were you supposed to go now?
I went to therapy for the therapy I was in, basically.
When did you ultimately decide that you were actually happy in being
your most true authentic self.
When I was 18, I went to my first Pride Festival in Atlanta.
I remember seeing these parents carrying signs that said, "I love my gay son."
or "I love my lesbian daughter."
It really hit me that I wanted that love.
That maybe I deserved that love, not just from my family, but from myself.
For the first time in years, feeling a little spark of hope
that maybe I could be loved.
Why do you think the suicide rates for LGBTQ, who have undergone
conversion therapy, is so much higher than those who haven't?
If you are gay or LGBTQ and you come out, you might lose everyone.
It's not like someone is telling you, "Hey, you're perfect the way you are.
Everything's okay."
It's like, "No, you're not perfect the way you are.
You have to change."
When you're at a dead-end, suicide becomes appealing to so many people.
We do know now that all it takes is one guardian or one person in
your life that supports you, helps that individual out of suicide.
If you could sit down with your therapist/instructors, who inflicted
conversion therapy upon you, is there anything that you'd want to say to them?
I have done that with one.
When I realized how much he was harming me, it was really hard for
me to wrap my head around because I'm like, "But we were so close.
I shared everything with him.
He knows the ins and outs of my whole life."
That was what I told him.
"Did you realize how harmful it was what you were doing?"
He cried, when he cried I didn't even know-- I didn't cry.
I didn't know what to do with it.
He was 31 or 32 and he just became a therapist.
He discovered conversion therapy because when he was a student he interned
at a practice that was doing it.
He said he was probably treating 12 or 13 boys at the time I
was his patient and he said today all 13 of them are gay.
Right.
It didn't work at all.
Yes.
He says that he realized how harmful it was.
I forgave him in that moment because I wanted to be free of it.
I'm not saying he deserves a pass, but yes I think all conversion therapists
including my own and the others that I saw should be held accountable.
I don't think I would sit down with them.
Have any of them reached out to you to apologize or had a
change of heart or anything?
No.
None of that.
I've thought frequently like how the conversion therapy experience
has stuck with me all these years and I bet none of them remember me.
They had such a detrimental impact on you and yet it was just business.
How has this whole experience affected your current mental health?
When the therapist told me that I sounded too feminine or that I
list, I still hear recordings of my voice and I hate my own voice.
The things that were drilled into me aren't gone completely, but I
fight them, and I fight through that.
If there is anyone watching who has experienced conversion therapy
themselves, is there anything that you'd want to say to them?
Trust yourself.
You know who you are.
Do not question it whether your parents are questioning it, the
therapist is questioning it.
I knew exactly who I was at 16 years old.
I'm the same person.
I could have been proud and confident then and not go through
a 15-year journey to get back to exactly where I started.
Do you feel like you gained anything positive from your
experience with conversion therapy?
Empathy.
I was also the person who was standing on the bullhorn telling
people they were going to hell if they didn't repent of their sins.
I led other people to that church that was cultivation and toxic for me.
I know what it is to do things fully well-intentioned and to realize that
what you did was really harmful.
All right.
You got five seconds to shout out or promote anything you
want directly into camera, go.
If you want to learn more go to BornPerect.org or follow us
@bornperfect and support the movement.
Goodfruitproject.com.
Also, get in touch with me at darrencalhoun.com or
@heydarren on any social media.
I just want to tell anybody who's LGBTQ who needs help to call 866-488-7386
to speak with The Trevor Project.
If you enjoyed this content subscribe now and follow Anthony Padilla.
[laughter]
That was perfect.
Thank you so much, Peter.
I feel like I understand the world of surviving conversion
therapy just a little bit more.
I appreciate you having this conversation.
After spending the day with these incredibly resilient conversion
therapy survivors, I've come to understand just how much religious
and societal pressures can really have such a massive detrimental
effect on one's entire sense of self.
These survivors deserve the utmost respect as they advocate against these
practices in order to protect others who may fall victim to similar situations.
See you later.
Bye guys.
Press a like.
[music]
Towards the end, the therapist I was with at the time invited
me to go to a conversion therapy camp and it's like 80 gay men.
[laughter]
I can imagine where this is going.
They do this exercise like, "Hey everyone, we're going to go over
about attraction so raise your hand," and we're like in a big circle.
"Raise your hand if anyone is attracted to someone in this room right now.
[laughter]
My God.
Literally all 80 men raised their hands.
[laughter]
I feel like that would just become a game at that point
like, "Ooh, I want to figure out if someone is attracted to me."
Yes.
It sounds like a dating camp.
It does sound like a dating camp.