Aversion therapy for homosexuality
COVE
Homosexual aversion therapy notaby began in the early s. Homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality were viewed as sexual deviances caused by psychological maladaption. Lgbtq+ patients were often taken to mental asylums involuntarily by family to be "cured", and aversion therapy was one of the many methods scientists attempted to undertake this. It was believed that conditioning patients to associate the sex they found attractive with unpleasant stimulus would cause them to lose their attraction and turn heterosexual. Doctors would take patients to viewing rooms and project images of people each patient would be attracted to. If they showed any signs of attraction or interest in the picture, the doctors would administer the unpleasant stimulus. The most notable of these stimuli was electroshock waves. Injecting drugs into the patient to cause nausea and vomiting was also common. Eventually, patients would associate these images with the shocks or drugs, and would be averse to looking at the screen. Continued exposure showed that, after time, this dislike would also be applied
Gay Conversion Therapy’s Disturbing 19th-Century Origins
For the people who underwent conversion therapy, shame and pain were an undeniable part of the process. “I read books and listened to audiotapes about how to contain a ‘corrective and healing relationship with Jesus Christ,’” writes James Guay, a homosexual man who attended weekly therapy and conversion seminars as a teen. “These materials talked about how the “gay lifestyle” would create disease, depravity and misery. I was convinced that doing what I was told would modify my attractions—and confused about why these methods supposedly worked for others but not for me.”
In some cases, people were psychologically and even sexually abused. Others committed suicide after “treatment.” Meanwhile, evidence that any of the techniques were effective remained nonexistent.
Though the concept of gay conversion still exists today, a growing tide has turned against the practice. Today, 13 states and the District of Columbia have laws that ban gay conversion therapy practices. Victims of facilities like JONAH, or Jews Offering New Alternati
The Lies and Dangers of Tries to Change Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity
Organizational Positions on Reparative Therapy
Declaration on the Impropriety and Dangers of Sexual Orientation and Gender Persona Change Efforts
We, as national organizations acting for millions of licensed medical and mental health care professionals, educators, and advocates, come together to express our professional and scientific consensus on the impropriety, inefficacy, and detriments of practices that seek to adjust a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, commonly referred to as “conversion therapy.”
We withstand firmly together in support of legislative and policy actions to curtail the unscientific and perilous practice of sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts.
American Academy of Youth Adolescent Psychiatry
"The American Academy of Youth and Adolescent Psychiatry finds no evidence to support the application of any “therapeutic intervention” operating under the premise that a specific sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression is patho
Conversion Therapy and LGBT Youth
Polling also indicates that many people do not consider conversion therapy is effective; only 8% of respondents to a national poll said they thought conversion therapy could change a person’s sexual orientation from gay to straight.
Current Laws
Conversion Therapy by Licensed Health Care Professionals
As of June , 18 states and the District of Columbia had passed statutes limiting the use of conversion therapy: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The laws protect youth under age 18 from receiving conversion therapy from licensed mental health care providers. California was the first articulate to pass a conversion therapy ban in Four states—Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, and New York—passed bans in In addition, a number of cities and counties in states without statewide bans have passed bans at the local level.
All of the state statutory bans allow licensing entities to discipline he