by Kate, a transgender woman from the north of England, who bravely shares her horrific experience of being prayed for in three different evangelical churches.
Category: Conversion Therapy
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Jaime’s Story – “They had absolutely no idea what to do with me”
by Jaime Sommers, a bisexual 50 year old woman whose story of abuse by the Church of England will shock many
My name is Jaime and I am 50 years old. I have been dual-attracted to both men and women since about the age of seven. However, my mother told me in no uncertain terms when I was a teenager that she would throw my brother or myself out, if we were gay. So I learnt to be quiet about the large part of me that was same-sex attracted.
At the age of 17, I became friends with an evangelical Christian girl at my local sixth form college. She took me to various church events. I started reading the New Testament around this time and I just knew Jesus was real. New to the faith, I became submerged in the evangelical movement, and at University, became involved in a burgeoning Vineyard Fellowship. They made it abundantly clear to me that homosexuality in any form was a sin, and on numerous occasions both at church and at New Wine festivals, I was subjected to prayer ministry to ‘heal me’ of my homosexual feelings. I was encouraged by my young pastors to marry, though I was struggling with my feelings for women. I knew neither my family nor church would support ‘the real me’ – this was the early 90s – so it felt playing it straight was the only option.
My husband was my best friend and I still love him dearly. I was attracted to him, but not with the same intensity I experienced for women. Nevertheless, we had three lovely children together and shared many happy memories. But I was suppressing a major part of myself, and this gradually took a toll on my mental health. In 2006, I was prescribed anti-depressants by an incredulous GP who strongly recommended I faced up to my sexuality, for the sake of myself and my children. But I had a successful role as an unlicensed preacher by now in a large evangelical Anglican Church and it just felt that I had too much to lose. This decision was confirmed when I was approached by my vicar to explore ministry. I explained to him in confidence that I had some reservations as I was bisexual and that coping with this affected my mental health. He told me on no account to mention this to anyone at Diocese during the exploratory process. So I kept my mouth shut. Nobody ever asked about my sexuality anyway, so that was easy. It was assumed since I was married with children that I was heterosexual.
However, just after I turned 40 and I had begun Reader training in the Church of England, the same-sex attracted ‘demons’ started to emerge with a vengeance. My service leading and preaching gifts meant I was frequently up the front at church, which saw me enjoy a certain degree of adulation. One woman in particular made it very clear she had feelings for me and began to hang around after services to speak to me. Though I smelt danger, I was struggling with depression and repression of who I really was and eventually I succumbed. She was attractive and only a few years younger than me.
There was just one kiss, but it was enough to unleash what I can only describe as a tornado of evil from which it took me many years to recover. We both told our husbands straight away what had happened. Neither partner decided to make a big deal of it, and I naively thought that was the end of it. Unfortunately, the woman in question confided in a retired clergy couple at our Anglican Church, who were known for their hard-line fundamentalist views. “The kiss” was escalated upwards to the Suffragan Bishop, who deemed it a homosexual act. My vicar was then placed in the awful position of having to pay a home visit, accompanied by two fellow church members. Clearly upset on my behalf, he read out a cold statement from the Bishop. I was to be withdrawn from church leadership and Sunday’s preaching duties with immediate effect, on the charge of ‘unwanted sexual advances’ against a congregant.
The scene in my living room was pure carnage. I was shrieking in absolute shock at the injustice and skewing of what had happened, while my husband was furious. I later learned the other party had received a friendly visit from the Diocesan Safeguarding Officer, herself a repressed queer Christian.
My husband and I were then summoned to Diocesan House, where we sat opposite two stony faced senior clergy from the Diocese. They had absolutely no idea what to do with me. They clearly knew nothing about bisexuality and were confused that I was married with children yet had same sex attraction. I admitted I had made a disastrous error of judgement in kissing this woman, but I was not going to apologise for making unsolicited sexual advances to her, which was what they seemed to expect. They didn’t even see us to the door.
They then spent over a month deciding on a course of action. In the course of these weeks, I became very ill and could not be left alone. I remember looking up how many paracetamol it would take to end my life. I lost over a stone and a half in weight and was force fed sandwiches by my husband and church friends. Diocese literally left us to fend for ourselves as a family, while the woman in question carried on singing in the church worship band and co-leading youth group.
The Suffragan Bishop then shared with me that I would be indefinitely removed from training. Church was my whole life at that time, and this felt catastrophic. The sense of shame and injustice was crippling, but through the loving support of family and church friends, I managed to hold it together – until one terrible evening when I received a phone call from the vicar.
He told me that around a dozen church members had received an anonymous letter accusing me of being a sexual predator of women and that my husband and I were into threesomes. We lived in a small community and this was absolutely terrifying – what if my school age children found this out? The PCC held an emergency meeting. My husband and I wanted to go to the police, but the vicar dissuaded us. There was panic in his voice.
I tried to go back on several occasions, but I just couldn’t shake off that awful feeling that somebody in the congregation had written that letter, which was distinctly possible owing to the choice of recipients – all current and previous PCC members. In the end, we left the church – which I suspect was the result the Diocese had hoped for. My husband and I did eventually receive an apology in all but name from the Suffragan Bishop.
Our marriage lasted another four years. We are both now happily engaged to strong Christian women. We never talk about what happened but I still have awful flashbacks. I remain on anti-depressants, though the dose is smaller.
Jaime Sommers is author of 119: My Life as a Bisexual Christian which can be accessed through the Kindle Store.
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Rachel’s Story – I Don’t Want to Be Part of An Institution that Allows Abuse
by Rachel, a 30 something Christian, hockey player and lesbian whose experience in an HTB plant has seriously damaged her faith.
My name is Rachel and I am a 30 something hockey player, Christian, theatre-goer and lesbian. I came out in my early 30s and at the time was going to a conservative, evangelical church that was a HTB church plant. While exploring the intersectionality of my faith and sexuality, I started blogging and wrote this very early on:
‘My experience of conservative, evangelical churches is that they are welcoming but there are limits for the LGBTQ+ community. Hidden limits. Glass ceilings, that no one speaks of. The challenge for me, is that I joined an un-affirming church before coming out and am now trying to work out what their glass ceilings are and if I can stay to be the change that I want to see without getting hurt or worn down too much in the process.’
This excerpt from my blogging reminds me of the hope I had in my church and vicar. The hope that I would never be defined by my sexuality and that we could agree to disagree well. It makes me incredibly sad to read this now and I wish I could run back to that younger me and tell her to get out of there.
I was at that church for 4 years. I was part of an awesome community, adored being able to serve through leading in Bible study groups and saw my faith grow while I was there. About 3 years in I came out to myself as a lesbian. In May 2019 I came out to my vicar and I asked him specifically whether, if I was in a same sex relationship, I could still lead a Bible study group. He said yes. At this point, I thought this was clear.
Time passed and in January 2020, the vicar asked me and other leaders to meet to discuss our Bible study groups. We were told it was to share how we had been getting on and talk about the future. During the meeting, he explained that all leaders would be expected to attend workshops that would discuss lifestyle choices and how, as leaders, we needed to be ‘beyond reproach’. My stomach turned and I was very scared that what I thought the vicar and I had agreed had somehow changed and I was about to be seriously hurt. When I pushed him on what that meant for me, he went on to say that:
- My social media posts about equal marriage and having an affirming theology were a problem.
I was being silenced.
- He had to follow the Church of England’s and the bishop’s teachings on traditional marriage.
Many, church leaders within the Church of England follow the Church of England’s teachings on sexuality and marriage and have congregations that are inclusive.
- For me to continue as a leader, I needed to discuss my stance on this issue with him but have refused.
I told him that I didn’t feel safe to discuss my ‘stance’ with him because I felt that we had an unequal relationship (him being theologically trained) and that he didn’t want to just listen to my views but to change my mind. He admitted in the meeting that he did hope to change my mind!
- Finally, I asked several times whether I would have to stop leading a Bible study group if there is a new expectation for LGBTQ+ people at the church. He was silent. He didn’t ask me to stay, he didn’t ask me to reconsider and stay, he was silent.
By the end of this meeting, I was distraught. I was sobbing, my co-leader was sobbing and clearly both of us were devastated. I was left with a clear message that because of my sexuality, I could not lead a Bible study group and was not welcome at the church.
For two weeks, no one contacted me.
After this I sent the church wardens and the local bishop an email, copying in the vicar. The emails spoke about how appalled I was at being kicked out of my church because of my sexuality and the lack of pastoral care.
At this point, I received a letter from the vicar that thanked me for my service. He didn’t acknowledge my hurt nor did he state that I had been wrong and that I could lead a Bible study group or stay.
I did have contact with the church wardens. We had a lovely meeting where they listened really well. At the end, I gave them a list of recommendations that I wanted to see implemented to ensure that this never happened again. Nothing on that list was acted upon.
As a result of the lack of engagement from the vicar and how fearful I was that this could happen to someone else, the bishop suggested I take this to an informal investigation to ensure that lessons were learnt and this didn’t happen again. The investigation produced almost identical recommendations to the ones that I had originally given the church wardens.
It is over 18 months since those recommendations were given a second time to the church and vicar. Half of those recommendations have still not been carried out and one of the most central– a risk assessment to keep those in the LGBTQ+ community safe for the future has not been started, let alone completed.
After the informal investigation, several meetings with my local bishop and a meeting with the Bishop of London, the list of recommendations still hadn’t been completed and there was no sign that they were about to be. Out of desperation, I went to the newspapers with my story. This was incredibly tough but I hoped would raise the profile of my story and make change where we hadn’t so far. After fair and detailed pieces in the local newspaper and the Church Times, I am still waiting for those recommendations to be fully implemented.
This experience has seriously damaged my faith.
Often, when trauma happens to someone in a church context, it affects their view of God and it certainly did for me. The PTSD I am experiencing has and will last years. Currently, attending church, in any format, causes me to have a panic attack. Regardless of how affirming the community or service may be, my body does not trust it to be safe and goes into fight or flight mode. I fear that the church and vicar that I once belonged to will never fulfil the recommendations that it agreed to, allowing others, like me, to be repeatedly traumatised.
I do not want to be part of an institution that allows this abuse.
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Revd Adams’ Story – Is It Wrong for Me to Tell the Truth?
by the Reverend Adams, a gay Methodist Minister
My first experience of ‘deliverance’ ministry occurred on a Birmingham high street. I had thought I was just meeting someone for prayer, and first realised I might be wrong and in danger when three men greeted me instead of one. They took me to some rented rooms above a shop on the high street. Immediately I knew I was in a bad place.
My relationship with faith had started when I was 18. I had come from a non-church background and felt sad and lonely. I had known I was only attracted to men when I was at Junior school but didn’t know how to tell anyone. Homophobia was very common and – like many others – I was scared.
When I came to faith I told my new Methodist Minister that I was gay, that I had no male friends and was scared to make any. I hoped he would help me. I was hugely mistaken.
He told me I couldn’t be gay because that was ‘not of God’. It was evil, a perversion – I must be possessed. He also told me I was a potential child abuser. I couldn’t have been more shocked.
Naively, I trusted him. I just wanted to be accepted, welcomed in Church, and to have some friends. I was desperate not to lose my new faith.
He suggested I go to a Pentecostal Church he was associated with in Birmingham, which had ‘experience of dealing with Gay people.’ Desperate for help and acceptance, I consented, eagerly. And just like that, I found myself alone in a room with three men, cut off from all outside help.
They spoke kindly while we walked up the stairs, but as soon as the door shut, this very quickly changed. They became aggressive and spoke over each other louder and louder, pushing me and shouting that gay men only existed because of abuse and therefore I had been raped by my dad or grandfather. I was an abused and broken person who had been preyed on and would prey on others, they said.
I remember trying to stand up and say that this was rubbish; they shoved and shouted more. The next thing I knew I was on the ground where they continued to attack me.
They commanded demons of homosexuality to leave me, and hit me again and again.
I was absolutely terrified.
I pretended that it was working and that they had made me different. I left as quickly as I could and remember running to my car. I collapsed inside, locked the doors and cried.
I drove back home and promised I would hide this and never speak of it again, but the Methodist Minister told me that was not the end of it. I was clearly a serious potential child abuser and I couldn’t volunteer as a Boys Brigade Officer anymore, unless I told the BB Captain so that I could be monitored at all times. If I didn’t tell him, then the Church would have to be informed and I would be in essence outed to all the congregation.
I felt so dirty. I wanted to die.
He went on to say that I needed to find a nice girl, marry and have children, and that the gay would go away. I told a girl all this – we were friends and it was so hard to do. I loved her – and still do – so we married. We thought we could complete the cure. We had children and were together for almost 25 years.
God has such an amazing sense of humour as I was training as a Methodist Minister myself within about 5 years of the gay conversion experience. I hid my true self deep within myself, so that no-one could see how much I hated myself.
From the outside, we looked like a perfect family, but underneath it was hell for me and (I think) my ex-wife. I was lonely and suicidal. I felt like I was always pretending and was never good enough for God or my ex-wife.
When we split and I came out it felt like a huge weight had been removed – I could breathe freely for the first time.
Unsurprisingly, as an out gay Minister I encountered homophobia. One retired minister said that gays in church were a disgrace and if she was still a minister she would resign.
One church where I was meant to be observing a local preacher I was training rang twice to inform me that if I entered they would all walk out in protest at my ‘sin’. The abuse they gave me and the language they shouted down the phone left me shocked and shaken. The Circuit told me not to go but said nothing to the people at the Church. I was told to just accept that this was normal, acceptable behaviour.
As I was coming to the end of my 5 years there I was initially offered an extension. However, I was then told by a church full-time lay worker that I was ‘hated and detested’ and that I ‘should go where people like you are tolerated.’ Shocked, I reported the incident to the Circuit / District. I was then told that I should leave, because the other church worker had to stay. They withdrew my own extension to stay, and just like that, I had been forced out.
Now, we live in fear. Where will we end up? Is there anywhere we will be accepted?
There aren’t enough words to describe all the other incidents I’ve encountered since then. I’ve been told to stop complaining, that people are allowed to express homophobic views. I’ve been told by people in senior ordained national roles that that ‘we shouldn’t rock the boat’. They said that black people had to accept racism within the Methodist Church, that women had to accept sexism and that I had to accept this.
I’m left with a multitude of questions. How much is too much? Is it wrong for me to tell the truth? Could even writing this post be accused of rocking the boat?
I feel powerless and live in fear.
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Jas’ Story – Please. Be. Kind.
by Jas, a former drug addict, Bible College Student and now married lesbian
I was in prison when I first encountered Jesus.
I had been a drug addict but when I met him, everything changed. It felt like I fell in love, spending all my time reading about Jesus and getting to know him. When I left prison, I started to attend a church. I loved it. I became a serial volunteer – if there was something needing doing, I was the first person with my hand up. I got involved with loads in the church: stewarding events, running teams and serving however I could.
I wanted everybody to know about Jesus (I may have been a bit annoying with my over-excitement!), so I took my girlfriend to church. The quiet whispers all around when we walked in of “Are they together….?” was the first time I realised that being gay might be a problem. The vicar sat me down the next day and explained that being gay goes against scripture and that I shouldn’t “do” it. I promptly split up with my girlfriend – I wanted to be God’s girl and if that meant being single, I was ok with that.
I moved to another area to attend Bible School to learn more about God. I went on missions, I learned scripture and served the church. I became chief steward at a national event, spent my summers trekking around the country volunteering for Christian festivals and felt genuinely happy. The only problem was that I was still gay, and I felt so bad about it.
I had the odd slip up where I would meet a girl and would then repent, full of guilt and shame and feeling terrible about myself. I would spend night after night on the floor of my room, crying and begging God to make me acceptable. It never changed. I spent years poring over scripture, trying to understand why being gay was so bad, trying to understand the original context and what the clobber passages really meant. I never really understood how this God who loved me so much would begin to hate me just for loving someone with the same genitals. It made no sense.
Eventually I was honest with my church about my feelings. It did not go down well.
Initially I was asked to meet with the elders of the church – all 12 of them – while I tried to justify my theological position. It was frightening, being completely alone and on the spot, trying to explain why I felt being gay was not a sin.
Then followed the deliverance ministry. I was given three exorcisms by different groups. I don’t know which was worse – the dramatic one, the quiet one, or the shouting one. All of them scared me. I started to question if I really did have Satan living in my heart and if I was, as they told me, an abhorrent stench unto the nostrils of the Lord. They offered me therapy to overcome my desires, which I took. I was so desperate to be acceptable to God I would have done anything. I begged God, I tried so hard to be straight, I did the therapy and the group prayers, I tried to believe that the exorcisms would heal me. Nothing changed. I felt awful, I hated myself for being so immoral, I hated that I didn’t (as they told me) have the faith to be cured.
Then I met someone special.
We were both volunteers at a summer camp, serving coffee in the big tent. She had just come back from mission overseas and was so full of Jesus. She inspired me, pointed me towards Jesus and really excited me about what we could do for the kingdom together. The more time I spent with her, the more I fell in love with her and we decided to get married. When we announced our engagement, some church people were angry. They felt that I had betrayed God for lust and said I was a disgrace to Christianity. Then we met with the vicar of my church who told me that he could not condone what we were doing and so banned us from the church. I was told that my services were no longer required for many of my volunteering roles, not just within my own church but also for the bigger summer events. My chief stewarding role was taken from me as it would be ‘inappropriate’ for me to be in leadership while living in ‘such obvious sin.’
Many people I loved did not want to be near me as they said I could contaminate the community with the way I embraced sin. Through getting engaged I lost my church, my community and my vocation. It was awful and I was left feeling that I wasn’t good enough for God. I worried that every time He looked at me, He saw something dirty, sinful and worthless; someone who had given up for carnal desires, who had turned their back on Him and had grieved the Holy Spirit.
We found a church that would marry us and we were married a few years ago. Since then I’ve really struggled to go to church. We don’t live near an accepting church and so we are told that we may attend churches but can’t do anything other than be passive observers.
All we want is to belong to a community where we can know God more, where we can serve, where we can take Jesus into the world. Unfortunately, we are not allowed because we fell in love. I struggle to even look for God without being filled with guilt and shame and regularly question whether He would even want me back.
What I would say to the church is that gay people are still people. We hurt and we break and words and actions can do a lot of damage.
Please. Be kind.
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Lisa’s Story
by Lisa (a pseudonym), who is a trans woman from the North of England.
When I agreed to tell this story, I was reluctant because this happened 20 year ago and I was unsure how much relevance it would have now. It is very sad that it appears to still be so; if anything, the Government’s views on conversion therapy (along with trans rights in general) appears to have become even less supportive than it was.
I was a very active member of an Evangelical, Pentecostal church. I had been to Bible college, was on the leadership team, regularly preached in my own church and others, led worship and was in charge of outreach for the church. No one suspected that I was anything different than what I appeared to them to be. Not the church members, or my family; no one. I am now so sorry for the hurt that hiding truths about myself caused, especially to my wife and my daughter.
I had been struggling with my gender identity all of my life, and now knew, after much counselling (secular) that I was trans. I didn’t want to be, but I was. I cannot start to explain the difficulty I had accepting this, but somehow I had kept it totally secret.
This was until one particular night when something changed.
I sat in my car and considering driving it very fast into a wall. The question was clear in my mind: “Do I go through with this thing and live as the woman I knew I was meant to be, or do I die?” The one thing that was impossible for me to do was just carry on pretending.
I decided to tell my wife, and her world and mine fell apart.
Once she knew that I was going to go through with this she immediately said that I could not transition and stay with her. Nor could I transition and see my daughter who I idolised. My wife rang the Pastor of our church, who was fully in agreement with her. He then wrote me a letter. It was 20 years ago and I can’t remember the exact wording of it, but it offered me two options: either receive counselling in order that I may repent, or leave.
Of course I knew full well that all the “repenting” in the world was not going to change me. Neither would exorcism, which I knew they would then try. So many times in the preceding years I had rebuked the Devil, I had begged on bended knee to be different, I had prayed and prayed, and failed. I could not try any more. I felt that I had let God down, the church down, my wife and daughter down. I thought that if being a Christian meant not transitioning, then I couldn’t be a Christian.
I left the church, I left my wife, and, hardest of all, I left my daughter. I also thought I had left my faith. I had no one and nothing. All my friends were in the church; all my life had been there.
A position came up with the company I was working for in a different part of the UK. I took it and a few months later changed my name and legally transitioned.
My wife was true to her word and I had a battle to be allowed to even see my little girl. After 12 months I was allowed supervised visits (my daughter is now 26 and after many years we have a good relationship).
In time I met a wonderful man. We fell in love, got married, got a dog (she is gorgeous!) and it has taken me the best part of that twenty years to realise that God made me this way and accepts me as I am. To realise that if Jesus died for anyone, he died for everyone: gay, straight, cis, trans, black, white. My faith has changed; I’m certainly not as bigoted as I once was. I think I’m a better person, but that’s the thing – even if I’m not I am certain that God loves me.
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Timothy’s Story
A series of personal testimonies from LGBT Christians
Conversion therapy is horrifying.
Although I speak as a survivor, even then I am one of the lucky ones. I wasn’t given electric shocks, wasn’t forced to fast or strip, haven’t experienced aversion therapy or corrective rape.
Because I haven’t been subjected to any of the above, I find myself in a strange position when people talk about conversion therapy. Have I had it or not? I ask myself. What counts?
One of the buzz words around conversion therapy is consent. How can something be bad or banned if people willingly undergo it? However, one problem is that this so-called ‘consent’ is often – as in my case – gained by brainwashing and emotional blackmail. Another problem concerns basic human rights. The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims classes “conversion therapy” as a form of torture (April 2020). Torturous practices should be banned, whether people ‘consent’ to them or not.
For me, I consented because of desperation. Growing up, if I encountered ‘a homosexual’ I’d be very happy to slate them as an abomination (and very often did), but could hardly look in the mirror for fear that I myself might be the same. I could not in my wildest dreams have imagined the possibility that there could be ‘gay Christians,’ and had certainly never met one.
At university I subsequently met an openly gay pastor, and even though he preached celibacy and the renouncement of all ‘same-sex attraction’, it took me several weeks to overcome my prejudices, to believe he too was not an abomination.
Desperate and eager for answers and understanding, I met with the pastor, frequently, for long theological discussions. To my utmost disbelief, it turned out he was not the only one – there were some my own age, apparently several of them, in his church! I was speechless. I was desperate for community, to see and believe with my own eyes that there were others who were experiencing exactly what I was.
That was when the manipulation started. To be able to meet these individuals, I would need to agree to certain ‘conditions.’ There was a secret ‘same-sex attraction support group’ that met monthly, but to be introduced to them, I’d need to do two things. First, promise to agree to their principles and renounce all thoughts and actions of a homosexual nature; second, agree to their ‘mentoring scheme,’ to ensure my renouncement was practised as well as professed.
There was also a carrot as well as a stick: apparently, many people who had gone to this group were now in happy, heterosexual relationships. I couldn’t believe my ears, couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have this opportunity. But truthfully, I didn’t even need that extra encouragement; I was so lonely and so desperate for community that I would have pledged anything just to believe I was not alone.
Obviously, I quickly became disillusioned. The meetings only ever featured ‘success stories’ from ex-gay-but-now-straight visitors (back then, I never questioned whether their stories were genuine). As for the peers I was so excited to meet, we were all so full of self-condemnation and so closely monitored that conversations seemed competitive rounds of who was best at self-renunciation. We were all so defensive and frightened that even then it struck me we were victims of something. Tragically, we were made to believe that the perpetrators were ourselves and our own desires, not anything – or more accurately, anyone – else.
The so-called ‘mentoring’ was even worse. It was conducted by different people, some straight and married, and others who were gay and fiercely celibate. But it was always punitive and always humiliating. We were supposed to meet weekly and report not just our actions but also our thought processes. We were encouraged to keep a diary of every time we had a gay thought or ‘carnal desire’. Each one would then be examined, dwelt on and shamed. I had a lot of ‘thoughts,’ so each time, my humiliation was overwhelming. I would be vilified, rebuked, and prayed over. I felt hated, disgusting, and abominable. At the beginning, I even thought I deserved to feel those things. I was made to believe that my desire to feel loved was sickening, an aberration of divine proportions.
I would often be unable to sleep the night before these sessions in dread, and often cried on the way home. I’d always had bad dreams, but now they became truly horrifying, and always featured being pursued or tortured.
Was it conversion therapy? The perpetrators would say no, of course. Not only did I consent, but they weren’t explicitly trying to change my orientation. But their practice evidenced a different story. To them, if you were gay and wanted to love, you had a choice. You could continue being gay and settle with ‘close friendships,’ or you could try heterosexual relationships. The (supposed) success stories of the latter, and the brainwashing that suggested it was possible, were both insidious and omnipresent.
Of course, many did try these heterosexual relationships, including me. Some of these relationships, not including mine, even lasted more than a few months.
Regardless whether you term what I experienced as ‘conversion therapy’, what’s more important are the consequences. Should what I experienced be allowed? Is it harmful? Does it have any long-term effects?
Like I say, I’m one of the lucky ones. After two years of therapy, my mental health has fluctuated but at the present day is relatively stable.
But there’s even more to this than mental health. There’s also self-belief and personality. Spending such lengthy periods of time in self-loathing means my self-confidence remains non-existent.
There’s also the hurt. Even now as a married gay man, several nights a week I still have nightmares, and I wake up most days with the residual feeling that I have been wronged, abused. Ever since my ‘mentoring,’ I’ve felt very easily targeted, and am injured by the smallest things. I find trust hard and forgiveness even harder. People often do, who have been caused to have such prolonged feelings of self-hatred and humiliation. Some things remain difficult to recover from.
So – should conversion therapy be banned? Yes.
Should it include private prayer for those ‘willingly seeking support from faith leaders in their struggles’? Yes.
Is this problematic for the basic human right for freedom of belief? No. The whole point of human rights is that you’re free to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t harm others.
I desperately needed the protection of this ban. It’s too late for me – but it’s not too late for others.