U.S. Report Urges End to 'Conversion' Therapy for LGBT Youth

The damaging effects and lack of effectiveness of "conversion therapy" have long been demonstrated. It is banned in 21 states and DC, but this new report suggests it should eliminated nationwide, which I strongly agree with. Parents shouldn't have the option of sending their LGBT children to camps that set out to do psychological damage to them.

As long as our society sees homosexuality and gender identity as an "illness", these practices will be allowed to continue. It's one thing to raise your child as you see fit, but when you reach the point of abuse (which "conversion therapy is), someone has to come in and stop it, for the sake of the kid's health and well-being.

Parents who are uncomfortable with their child's orientation should handle it the same way they handle their child's likes and dislikes. They like dance? Send them to dance class! They hate sports? Don't force them to try out for football. If the parents wanted a boy, but got a girl, DON'T send her to camp to try to change her gender!!! Sexuality is an inherent part of who a person is, and parents don't have the right to shame their children and try to change them into something they are not.

U.S. Report Urges End to 'Conversion' Therapy for LGBT Youth

"No evidence supports the efficacy of such interventions to change sexual orientation or gender identity, and such interventions are potentially harmful," said the authors of the report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

"Efforts should be taken to end the practice of conversion therapy," the report added.

Conversion therapy has already been banned in four states and the District of Columbia, while another 21 states and the U.S. Congress are considering bans. The SAMHSA report authors said that "federal regulatory action" may be used in the future to restrict use of conversion therapy for minors.

Sexuality is NOT a choice and it's not a mental disorder. There are no guidelines or rules about how these conversion clinics work, so they can do or use any tools they think may help. In the 60s and 70s, clients were shocked and given nausea-inducing drugs while watching gay sex scenes. Men were given estrogen. And some were tortured. Depression and suicide are common among people who have completed reparative therapy.

How the hell is this legal.


Isn't it defined as brainwashing?

Masses of people?


Add an idol of worship and it's a cult.



2015 and when I look at the world all I feel is shame really.

I don't see my ATS mood changing for a long time.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Good, this is just another form of child abuse and needs to be ended immediately. It's disgusting that parents are allowed to just send their kids away to a place that effectively tortures them into hating the way they were born.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Gender identity crisis is a mental disorder and sexuality is a choice. These are truths that cannot be disputed and arguments against such facts are served only to force through political agendas by various groups wishing to social engineer for selfish gain.

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic

In the 60s and 70s, clients were shocked and given nausea-inducing drugs while watching gay sex scenes.

Sounds like the Ludovico Technique from A Clockwork Orange.

The Ludovico technique is a fictional aversion therapy from the novel A Clockwork Orange administered by a "Dr. Brodsky" at the Ludovico medical facility, with the approval of the UK Minister of the Interior. It involved forcing a patient to watch, through the use of specula to hold the eyes open, violent images for long periods, while under the effect of a nausea-, paralysis-, and fear-inducing drug.

originally posted by: Tindalos2013
a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Gender identity crisis is a mental disorder and sexuality is a choice. These are truths that cannot be disputed and arguments against such facts are served only to force through political agendas by various groups wishing to social engineer for selfish gain.

And why can't they be disputed? Because you are afraid that you may have to admit you were wrong if proven so?

PS: When did you choose to be straight?

a reply to: Tindalos2013

k everyone time to stop pretending to not have choices because Tindalos2013 apparently has all the answers in the world, his word is infallible...

originally posted by: Tindalos2013
a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Gender identity crisis is a mental disorder and sexuality is a choice. These are truths that cannot be disputed and arguments against such facts are served only to force through political agendas by various groups wishing to social engineer for selfish gain.

So ... just to apply your logic to yourself. Your sense of being male or female is a mental disorder?

You can choose to be attracted to any sex at will?

What planet/alternate dimension/fantasy-land are you from?

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

It SOUNDS LIKE fantasy, doesn't it? Unfortunately it's not.

40 Years of Gay Conversion Therapy

In electric shock aversion therapy, electrodes were attached to the wrist or lower leg and shocks were administered while the patient watched photographs of men and women in various stages of undress.
...
Patients receiving apomorphine were often admitted to hospital due to side effects of nausea and dehydration and the need for repeated doses, while those receiving electric shock aversion therapy attended as outpatients for weeks or in some cases up to two years.
...
Other forms of treatment were electroconvulsive therapy [ECT], discussion of the evils of homosexuality, desensitisation of an assumed phobia of the opposite sex, hypnosis, psychodrama, and abreaction.

a reply to: Tindalos2013

Doesn't this argument ever get boring? Why do people care so much about same-sex couples? What drives someone to insist it's 'mental illness?' Why override someone's sense of identity and subjective experience by telling them they don't know what they're on about? It's their life to spend with whatever consenting partner of whatever gender they choose.

Leave them be and, yes, conversion therapy sounds like something to create guilt complexes and splintered personalities. Good to hear that it's on the way to being discontinued. Sounds like the posh Western equivalent of witch-doctors shaking rattles at imaginary demons.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic
That video made me furious!

Yet nothing! Nada! happens to the parents, or the people who tortured this young man. How is it we are living in the 21rst century, and still using methods resembling 19th century mental asylums? How is it we staunchly refuse to come out of the dark ages as a society? Could it be we have a government enabling this behavior through legislation?

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

I really hate the pray-the-gay away camps. Those are the worst. In those places, they lock you up and have full reign to do whatever they damn well want to try to get you not to be gay (none of which has any scientific backing whatsoever), and you can't escape or be rid of it for a minute. It's 24/7 since they make you live there.

Conversion therapy is pure evil, doesn't work and has a high rate of suicide for victims who have been through it.

originally posted by: Kali74
Conversion therapy is pure evil, doesn't work and has a high rate of suicide for victims who have been through it.

I'm convinced some of these so-called parents are secretly glad they did kill themselves. Wouldn't want the word to get out to the rest of the congregation your son/daughter is gay.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

It was a happy day when Exodus International shut down and also when Alan Chambers apologized to the gay community for all the years he spent trying to "pray the gay away".

Please know that I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents. I am sorry that there were times I didn’t stand up to people publicly “on my side” who called you names like sodomite—or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people that I know. I am sorry that when I celebrated a person coming to Christ and surrendering their sexuality to Him that I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your heart. I am sorry that I have communicated that you and your families are less than me and mine.

Source

I work with a charity in Atlanta called "Lost and Found Youth."

We help young people who have been thrown out of their homes by their parents for being gay or having a different gender identity.

We provide housing, cover living expenses, etc. We help and encourage them to finish high school, etc.

As heartbreaking as some of their stories are, in light of the medieval horrors I've heard about "conversion therapy" (which sounds like it's from "A Clockwork Orange" or "1984" or some Nazi nightmare movie) these kids that have been abandoned are the lucky ones.

Contemplate that for a moment.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

The problem is that as long as these camps aren't made outright illegal, you get rid of one and another replaces it. I like that Alan Chambers regrets what he did, but he isn't and never could be the end of it. They need to be illegal. It's child torture.

a reply to: Gryphon66

I guess that really depends on how you weigh the emotional toll of your parents outright hating and abandoning you versus the emotional toll of your parents' misguided love enacting tons of physical pain on you.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
I work with a charity in Atlanta called "Lost and Found Youth."

We help young people who have been thrown out of their homes by their parents for being gay or having a different gender identity.

We provide housing, cover living expenses, etc. We help and encourage them to finish high school, etc.

As heartbreaking as some of their stories are, in light of the medieval horrors I've heard about "conversion therapy" (which sounds like it's from "A Clockwork Orange" or "1984" or some Nazi nightmare movie) these kids that have been abandoned are the lucky ones.

Contemplate that for a moment.

You sir or madam and your colleagues are amazing people.

If only more people would help instead of judge.

originally posted by: Tindalos2013
a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Gender identity crisis is a mental disorder and sexuality is a choice. These are truths that cannot be disputed and arguments against such facts are served only to force through political agendas by various groups wishing to social engineer for selfish gain.

Speaking of agendas....

What's yours?