Conversion Therapy And Its Effects On The Lgbtq Community

About 30 years ago, homosexuality was declassified as a mental disorder. It would be assumed that treatments for to change homosexuality would end. However, conversion therapy is still being used today, even our future Vice President, Mike Pence, believes in such treatment. That alone is a huge threat to people of the LGBTQ+ community. Conversion therapy is affecting the LGBTQ+ community greatly. Conversion therapy can be defined as â€Å"psychological interventions, from behavioral methods to psychoanalytic approaches† to change a person’s sexuality or gender identity (Hadelman, pg. 202, 2002). This treatment has been proven to not work as well as having harmful implications to LGBTQ+ people. In 1960, the conversion therapy movement began†¦show more content†¦NARTH heavily relies on the support of Southern Baptist, Mormon, Roman Catholic, and other religious organizations to promote conversion of homosexuality (Baxter, pg. 1, 2015). Love in Action, which was one of the first religious based organizations to participate in conversion therapy, was founded in 1973. By 1976, Exodus, a national coalition of ex-gay ministries was founded. There were hundreds of participates over the years and most went back to homosexual life. Interestingly enough, ex-gay ministries do not keep statistics on the success of their work. However, outside observers founded that â€Å"at least two-thirds of those in such groups give up within two years, and that over seventy-five percent of ex-gay organizations fail within five years† (Baxter, pg. 2, 2015). There are also no peer-reviewed articles that display any kind of success with conversion therapy. Even the cases that ex-gay ministries consider a person â€Å"cure† is when that person is asexual and refrains from any sexual encounters. This in turn is only a change in behavior, not sexual orientation. Giving ex-gay ministries any type of push forward is Most practitioners reject the idea of conversion therapy. However, there are still medical and health organization that continue to conduct conversion therapy. Some examples of what one can go through during this treatment can include â€Å"application of electric shock to the hands and/or genitals, or nausea-inducing drugs, which would beShow MoreRelatedOut Of All The States In America, Everyone Knows That Texas1554 Words   |  7 Pagesknows that Texas is the most LGBTQ friendly state. The first sentence is of course a joke and Texas is one of the worst states to live in if you are LGBTQ or different at all. If you do not live in Austin, then most likely there are largely homophobic or transphobic laws that target the LGBTQ community. As a very gay person, I have seen firsthand how homophobia in Texas is not only present, but how it affects people. 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