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
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you'll be directly supporting this series. 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.
