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Emilee Wideman

ENC 2135
Brandi Bradley
The LGBT Community
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, more commonly known as
LGBT, has been around for centuries. It was a small community long ago when it was unheard of
for someone to have feelings for another person of the same gender. Over the centuries the
LGBT community has grown tremendously and has made a ton of progress to be seen as equals
to everyone in all aspects. It wasnt until the end of 1983 that the LGBT Community Center was
founded. The LGBT community is a very large but tight knit community throughout the world.
Throughout the decades, the LGBT community has faced numerous issues including marriage
equality, quality of life laws, homelessness, and huge safety and violence issues. Out of the
many issues within the LGBT community, sexual orientation conversion therapy, also known as
reparative therapy, is one of the most important.
Within the community, conversion therapy is seen as the worst thing someone who is
LGBT can endure. They see it as something that has life long damaging effects on their friends
and family with in the community. Multiple LGBT organizations, such as the National Center for
Lesbian Rights and the LGBT Community Center, are working to put laws in place to prevent
the practice of sexual orientation change efforts. Their main focus for now is getting it ban for
minors. Minors are the primary clientele in these practices normally because they are forced into
these therapies by their parents of legal guardians. Having conversion therapy ban laws in place
would be a huge step forward in the LGBT community. It would greatly improve the mental
health and wellness in the future generations of the LGBT community. On the same side, some

think that making conversion therapy illegal will just create an underground ring of the practice.
Those in the community on this side fear that if the practice does go underground, it will become
worse and more harmful to those who are made to endure it and have even worse long term
effects. They believe it should be heavily regulated instead of banned in order to keep the
practice under control.
Those who are not a part of the community have mixed views on this subject. If a
religious, conservative was to be asked their stance on conversion therapy, they are more likely
to think the practice is helpful and needed than someone who is liberal and non-religious. Those
who are not in the community use the web to communicate their feelings on the subject. They
create websites that describe their stance on the issue. The websites usually contain the
informative and persuasive genres. They want to inform their reader either of the pros or the
cons, depending on what stand point they have, of conversion therapy. Persuading the reader is a
huge part of the website. They want to convince the reader that what they are saying is right so
that they will either vote for or against the bill in their state. Both sides use ethos in their
websites. They show they have authority by using research done by doctors and experts on the
subject so that the reader will trust what they are reading.
In the late 1800s, a book titled Psychopathia Sexualis was written by Richard van KrafftEbing. The book listed many reasons on how homosexuality could be to blame for most of the
criminals who committed sex crimes at that time. This book was the backbone of hatred for the
LGBT community and is the reason homosexuality was classified as a criminal behavior. It gave
the world a real reason to hate those who were anything but heterosexual. On the opposite end of
the spectrum, Havelock Ellis wrote a book ten years later titled Sexual Inversion. This books
argument against Krafft-Ebing was that homosexuality was a trait that was inborn and couldnt

be changed. Ellis also believed that it was wrong to look down on those who were attracted to
the same sex. He pointed out how many artists and well-known people who had made large
contributions to the world were homosexual. A big name supporter of the LGBT community was
Sigmund Freud. In a well-known and highly quoted letter Freud wrote to a worried parent of a
gay son, he wrote, It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime and cruelty too.
If you do not believe me, read the books of Havelock Ellis. In Krafft-Ebings last years, his
stance on the LGBT issue changed. He agreed with Havelock and thought homosexuality should
be declassified as a criminal behavior. Though these huge names in history believed
homosexuality should be perceived as a social norm, it wasnt and so began the journey to cure
homosexuality.
In todays world, every leader in the medical and mental health professions, including but
not limited to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association for Marriage and
Family Therapy, the American Medical Association and the National Association of Social
Workers, have agreed that homosexuality is not a disease someone gets and it can not and should
not be cured. These associations, and more, have all made statements condemning the practice of
sexual orientation change efforts (SOCEs) saying there is no data showing that conversion
therapies are effective to those who go through it and that the practice lacks medical justification.
Christopher Doyle is a writer for the Christian Post. He is a happily married man of over
six years. Doyle struggled with same-sex attraction growing up. He fought these feelings as a
teen because they didnt fit his picture of the perfect life he wanted but he was unsuccessful in
ridding himself of them. After a while he decided to try sexual orientation conversion therapy.
Doyle is a success story of conversion therapy. Today, he is an activist for conversion therapy
and strongly recommends it to anyone with similar struggles. He writes stories about how

conversion therapy helps people live the life they want keeps readers up to date on events
surrounding conversion therapy. He has not relapsed, or had same-sex attraction feelings, in eight
and a half years. He doesnt care who bashes him as long as he can get his story out there so
people can see the good aspects of conversion therapy that arent shown in the media.
The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), was
founded in 1992 by Joseph Nicolosi, Benjamin Kaufman, ad Charles Socarides. NARTH is a
non-profit institute that allows clients to claim a gay identity, or to diminish their homosexuality
and to develop their heterosexual potential, according to their mission statement. In an article
written on the NARTH website, it is explained how being LGBT is not the way people are born.
A few studies in America, Australia, and Scandinavia were focused on identical twins. The
studies show that identical twins have exactly the same DNA, so everything genetic about them
is virtually identical. So when one twin is gay and the other is not, it proves that genetics dont
play a factor in their sexual orientation, its what happens to each individually after they are born
that determines their sexuality. After determining gays are not actually born gay, Dr. Neil
Whitehead, the person behind the study, believes sexuality is not something you are stuck with.
These changes are not therapeutically induced, but happen naturally in life, some very
quickly, Whitehead is quoted saying in the article. Its even said that the number of people who
have successfully changed sexual orientation is higher than the number of bisexuals and
homosexuals combined.
Those who are pro conversion therapy have been written of as crazy or homophobes but
insist that the therapy is useful. If a person wants to be gay, and thinks he is gay, then thats
perfectly fine I want to be available for those who want to change, said Nicolosi in an article
on NBS News. One of Nicolosis former peers, David Pickup, struggled with same-sex attraction

feelings. He believed these feelings stemmed from being molested several times when he was
five. Because of this Pickup underwent conversion therapy that ended with success. I had
challenges with homosexual feelings but never identified being gay, said Pickup in the NBC
News article. For Pickup, therapy was helpful in diminishing his homosexual feelings. His
therapy was based on talking he said. Unlike other treatments where patients are hypnotized or
shocked, Pickup talked though his unwanted feelings and issues. Today, pickup works along side
Nicolosi as a therapist at NARTH and say this is the therapeutic technique NARTH uses with its
clients.
This is a side to conversion therapy that is often hidden from the media or is discredited.
Its discredited by people saying you can never change your true sexual orientation, you can only
suppress it, or by websites that are anti-conversion therapy. Within the past few years, very few
states, including California (2012), New Jersey (2013), and Washington, D.C. (2014) have put in
place laws banning conversion therapy practices for minors. In a position statement released by
the International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses (ISPN), the success rate for
conversion therapy is 11% for completely changed females and 37% for completely changes
males. Even though ISPN admits to conversion therapy being successful in changing some
patients sexual orientations from homosexual to completely heterosexual, it strongly opposes the
practice of it all together.
On the opposition, #BornPerfect is a campaign to raise awareness on the harmful effects
that sexual orientation conversion therapy can have on LGBT youth. Some of the older
techniques of conversion therapy were excessive bicycling, institutionalization, castration, being
prescribed drugs such as cocaine, transplants, and electroconvulsive shock therapy. These
techniques arent used as much today as they used to be. The most common techniques used

today are induced nausea, vomiting, or paralysis while being shown homoerotic images or films,
shaming, prayer, hypnosis, orgasmic reconditioning, or being made to snap a rubber band on the
wrist when being aroused by homoerotic images. These have all led to long lasting psychological
effects on the patients such depression, anxiety, continued drug use or withdrawals,
homelessness, and the worst effect, suicide.
In the 1970s, psychologist George Rekers attempted to cure a five-year-old boy of the
stereotypically feminine behaviors he was showing at home. Rekers told the boys parents to use
a reward-punishment system with him at home. They were to reward the boy when he showed
masculine behaviors such as playing with trucks or to punish him by ignoring him or even
spanking him when he showed feminine behaviors like wanting to play with dolls. Rekers later
released a statement claiming this as a success even though the boy never changed his
homosexual orientation. These treatments continued to largely effect the boys life into
adulthood. He had attempted suicide at age 17 and eventually committed suicide at age 38.
Six weeks and Ill make you straight. Guaranteed. Thats what Mathew Shurka was
told when he was going into conversion therapy at 16. Shurka was forced into therapy after
letting his dad know his dad know about his secret feelings for another boy. When Shurka began
therapy he was ban from coming in contact with any woman, including his mom and two older
sisters, because they didnt want to take the chance of their femininity rubbing off on him. The
only people he was allowed to spend time with and talk to were men. Under his therapists orders
he hung out with guys, including the boy he had a growing crush on only to make him more
confused about his homosexual feelings. After leaving this therapist who promised to turn him
straight, Shurka entered a deep depression. It wasnt until the age of 23, seven years after Shurka
entered therapy, that he was able to confidently say: Im a gay man. Today, Shurka is the leader

of an anti-conversion movement and hopes to have conversion therapy completely outlawed by


the year 2019.
Michael Bussee is the founder of Exodus International, an organization that promotes
conversion therapy. He was married, a father of one, and someone who had same-sex attraction
feelings. Exodus International began as a small bible study group for Christians who had samesex attraction called EXIT in hopes that their faith would help eliminate their unwanted feelings.
Throughout Bussees journey to rid himself of these unwanted feelings, he found himself falling
in love with another man for the first time. In time, both filed for divorce and moved in together.
Bussee said that within the 40 years that created Exodus, he had never met anyone who had truly
gone from gay to straight. He had met men who got married and said they were happy but they
also admitted that their same-sex attraction had never completely gone away.
This issue has been prevalent in the LGBT community for years. Finding a solution that
both sides see as a win may be very difficult. Each side is strong in their belief and does their
best to have strong background knowledge on why each side is the right side to choose. Though
it may be difficult, a solution can be found. One possible solution is to have heavy state rules and
regulations regarding sexual orientation conversion therapy. This will appease both sides by
getting the harsh and harmful techniques outlawed, like electric shock and having induced
vomiting, nausea, or paralysis while being shown homoerotic images or films, but also allowing
the practice to continue and grow hopefully using talk therapy and nothing physical. Getting the
state involved with monitoring and regulating these issues and therapeutic techniques will keep
practitioners from overstepping boundaries in their practices. It will help keep long term effects
at a minimum by keeping their methods and techniques under close watch. Another solution
would be to outlaw the practice for minors unless it is the minors choice to endure the therapy.

Conversion therapy has been around as long as lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender
people have been around. The LGBT community has been actively trying to bring an end to it
while those who believe in the practice have been struggling to get out from under all the
scrutiny the LGBT community has brought upon it. This is an issue that needs to be focused on
and solved. Everyone has a different side to conversion therapy; some are great but some are just
plain horror stories. In either case, the experience is life changing. It can be for the better or for
the worst because everyones experience is different. Regulating the practice and making the
therapy voluntary for those who go through it will be beneficial to everyone involved. Though
the entire LGBT community may not see it as a total victory because the practice would
continue, it should be counted as a win. They will have control over whether or not they must
endure the therapy and how long they will endure it for. Those who believe in the practice may
see this solution as a set back but the practice will continue and maybe they will be able to find
better evidence to support their theory on the fact that conversion therapy can work for everyone.

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