Ill Treatments

A survivor of conversion therapy speaks out.

By Samuel Brinton

The tears were welling up in my eyes. I kept brushing them away so that I could see the page while I read my testimony. This was the very first time the United Nations had heard the words of a survivor of conversion therapy. I knew that the room was listening. Looking up at delegates from across the globe, I saw tear after tear run down their faces, too. We, the #BornPerfect community of survivors of conversion therapy, had done it. We had brought the voice of the pained and persecuted to an international stage and we weren’t going home until we had won. And boy did we win! The next day, not one, not two, but three delegates would take my story and that of survivors like me to the United States delegation to ask how such horrible practices could still take place in this country. Their answer was silence. But the question had been posed.

Experts estimate that nearly one in three lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth have undergone some form of conversion therapy. Sometimes it takes the form of a pastor’s “deliverance”. Sometimes it’s a father forcing his son to “man up”. Sometimes a kid is sent to a residential facility in the hope that God will save them. And sometimesconv e r s i o n therapy entails a child sitting in a therapist’soffice, with promises of change whispered in a parent’s ear and the pain of not being able to change rending a child’s heart.

Conversion therapy (also known as reparative therapy or sexual orientation change efforts) is a dangerous and discredited practice, condemned by every major medical and mental health organization in the country, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. However, until recently, few even realized it was still occurring. The National Center for Lesbian Rights has dedicated itself to the ambitious goal of “ending these dangerous and stigmatizing practices across the country once and for all” in the next five years through its #BornPerfect campaign. I am honored to serve as Co-chair of the #BornPerfect Advisory Committee, where I help guide one of the only LGBT national organizations dedicated to an issue on which I’ve crusaded for years. Just prior to entering middle school, I told my parents that I was attracted to my best friend, who happened to be male. I was too young to understand why this was wrong or that anyone would have a problem with it. After beatings from my father failed to work, and at the beckoning of our church, I was placed in conversion therapy. The therapy began with what can only be described as mental torture at the hands of what may or may not have been a licensed therapist. I was told that I was alone. I was told that I was sick. I was told that God hated me. The mental pain this caused is something I cannot fathom going through again, and yet thousands of youth across the country are placed in this situation every year.

When mental abuse was not sufficient to change my sexual orientation, we proceeded to what can only be called physical abuse. My hands were tied down and ice was placed on my hands as I was shown pictures of men in physical contact so that I would come to associate the touch of a man with pain. Like Pavlov’s experiments on dogs, this was torture in its worst form. Later sessions would include electric shocks to my hands as I was shown sexually explicit pictures of men, the first pornography I would ever see; again to associate such behavior with pain. I would attempt suicide several times. In one of the later attempts I planned to jump from the roof of my house. My sister realized what was happening and told my mother. She came to the roof and told me if I could just change, she could love me again. In that moment, I decided to lie and to tell her I was changed. For a while the torture stopped and my life returned to some degree of “normality”.

I learned to lie and, through that, survived. But many aren’t so lucky. Children are being subjected to these ineffective and harmful practices every day. Every one of our country’s leading medical and mental health organizations agrees that these practices create – rather than cure – physical and mental health issues, especially for vulnerable youth. Research shows that LGB young adults who reported higher levels of family rejection during adolescence were more than eight times as likely to report having attempted suicide, more than five times as likely to report high levels of depression, more than three times as likely to use illegal drugs, and more than three times as likely to report having engaged in unprotected sex. While California, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia have restricted state-licensed mental health professionals from practicing conversion therapy on children, kids like me remain undefended throughout most of the country, including Massachusetts.

That's not to say there haven't been victories. This past April, President Obama stated his support for state bans on conversion therapy and the Surgeon General warned that the practice of conversion therapy can be harmful to children. The battles are hard fought but slowly being won.

It wasn’t until college that I was able to come out and begin my life being who I am. Once I finally found a supportive community and started living truthfully, everything got better. I threw myself into school, extracurricular activities, and advocacy. I am living proof that what conversion therapy can destroy self-acceptance can save.

This torture continues to have repercussions with youth, but we do not have to sacrifice any more children to the conversion therapy industry. We have the chance to save LGBT youth from ever having to experience what I did. Today, I know who I am. I’m strong in my faith, and I’m strong in my identity. And I know that I cannot change what I never chose. It means the world to have been selected as one of this year’s Parade Grand Marshals in a city that took me in when I didn’t have anywhere else to call home. Together, let us send the message to every child, in every city, in every state, that they were #BornPerfect.

Sam Brinton recently graduated from MIT with graduate degrees in nuclear engineering and technology policy. He now advises Congress on advanced nuclear reactor policy and nuclear waste management at the centrist think tank Third Way and the Bipartisan Policy Center. When he isn't working on nuclear waste containment systems or exploring nuclear weapon nonproliferation tactics he passionately endeavors to end conversion therapy practices across the country. Just as nuclear energy is sometimes misunderstood, so is the sexual minority community and as a proud kinky and gender-bending person, Brinton seeks to bridge these gaps in understanding that our culture is facing.