“The problem comes down to feeling that no one understands you. When you were in church, you were the outlier that needed to be fixed and now that you’re out, you’re the outlier that went through this weird thing that most of the queer community also doesn’t understand.”
“[People] make you feel like a total f*cking idiot for having spent more than two minutes in conversion therapy. Because obviously it doesn’t work… Who would go into it? You must be stupid!… Did somebody force you into doing that?”
Why People Engage in Conversion Practices
There are a variety of internal motivations and external factors that lead people to enter into conversion practices. They include feeling that being heterosexual is the only normal way to express sexuality, and that a person’s gender identity must match their assigned sex at birth. These assumptions are often so deeply embedded in people’s upbringings that they do not consider life as a queer, trans, or Two-Spirit person to be possible.
Evidence shows that queer, trans, and Two-Spirit people often experience intense pressure to participate in conversion practices. No one wants to be negatively judged or rejected by their family, friends, faith or ethnic community. We all want to be loved and accepted, and to feel good about our sexuality and our bodies.
Absorbing and being taught negative things about queer, trans, and Two-Spirit people can lead to feelings of shame, fear, and grief that make conversion practices feel like a necessity if people want to maintain their relationships with family, friends, faith or cultural communities, or keep their job or housing. While seeking gender affirming health care, many trans people have reported encountering practitioners engaged in conversion practices or were coerced by family to see a religious ‘healer.’
People who engage in conversion practices are typically not given any other options, they are not told what the risks are, the trauma that can result, or that these practices are widely considered to be unacceptable by professional associations. For these reasons, even a person who “voluntarily” engages in conversion practices cannot be said to have consented due to the fraudulent nature in which these practices are promoted.
Experiences of Survivors
“It is wild how the pain we carry becomes our medicine for others as we work to heal ourselves.”
Listening to and learning from survivors is critical for all who provide services to queer, trans, and Two-Spirit people.
Experiences with conversion practices are as diverse as the people who are subjected to them, and each experience is impacted by the multiple identities we hold: religion, ability, race/ethnicity, culture, socio-economic status, language, education, and more. There are no right or wrong stories. Every experience is real and needs to be validated.
Being able to access survivor stories can help survivors by normalizing their experiences and embracing their identities, and is key to overcoming internalized homophobia, biphobia, or transphobia, and dispelling the myths told by others about sexual and gender minorities.
Quotes & Stories from Survivors:
- C.T. Survivors Connect: Stories from Canadian survivors.
- The Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia includes a six-part podcast series featuring voices of survivors, and a portrait gallery that includes quotes from survivors.
- The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (Australia) shares Real Stories of Change or Suppression Practices.
- Born Perfect (USA) shares a video and a number of written survivor stories.
- The Thomas Reuters Foundation posts a number of survivor videos interspersed in an article: Conversion therapy thrives globally as bans gather pace, including Taha Metwally from Egypt, an anonymous woman in Tbilisi, Georgia, Lucas Wilson from Toronto, and Jazz Bustamante from Mexico.
- Stonewall (UK) shares quotes from seven survivors of conversion therapy.
- Conversion Therapy in Africa shares video stories from survivors of anti-LGBT ‘treatments’ in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
What & How
Learn more about conversion practices, the impacts and harms they cause, and how to identify them.
When & Where
Conversion practices continue to take place in Canada today. This section includes statistics on the prevalence of conversion practices, and where queer and trans people experience them.
Supports & Resources
Find downloadable resources and links to more information for practitioners and service providers, family and friends, survivors, and for people struggling or currently engaged in conversion practices, or believing they need to change.