(LifeSiteNews) — “Conversion therapy” is a term used by the LGBTQ movement and its supporters to define efforts by counselors and therapists to help a person with unwanted same-sex attractions change from a homosexual orientation to heterosexual. It also applies to efforts to help a person move from a transgender identity to their biological gender identity. The term has been intentionally misrepresented by the LGBTQ movement to portray a negative image of hard-hearted therapists forcing their moral values on unsuspecting LGBTQ victims. The truth is just the opposite.
The current term that accurately describes professional therapies designed to help individuals with unwanted same-sex attractions change their sexual orientation is “sexual orientation change efforts” (SOCE). There is a general lack of knowledge of what conversion therapy or SOCE are. Thus, the terms are widely condemned out of ignorance. This article intends to provide the reader with the basic facts.
From my studies I have found that sexual orientation change effort therapies generally consist of three specific components. Depending on the therapist or counselor, each of the three components are given different levels of priority. One of the components focuses on psychoanalytic therapy. This consists of a therapist helping a client explore his or her past and present relationships with his or her parents and peers. Usually, revealed patterns of shaming incidents and unhealthy personal relationships help explain why that person developed same-sex attraction. The same kind of psychoanalytic exploration can help reveal causative factors of gender dysphoria, or what prior to 2013 was classified as gender identity disorder.
If the therapist prioritizes the psychoanalytic component, he or she will often try to help the client understand their psychological wounds that stunted their heterosexual development or biological gender identification. The therapist and client can then work together to build new relationships and memories to counteract the negative ones from the past.
A second component of SOCE is cognitive therapy. This is where the therapist helps a client examine their decision to alter their sexual orientation. It includes honest assessments of the difficulties involved, stories of others who went through the same process, and the therapist’s support in multiple ways. The realities of living a gay lifestyle or transgender identity versus a heterosexual lifestyle or a biological identity are also examined.
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In the cognitive therapeutic component, when a client brings up past shaming incidents and unhealthy personal relationships, the therapist will explain that they have the power to respond to them how they want to. The client does not have to accept the negative words said to them as true of themselves. The client may not be able to change others, but they have the cognitive power to change themselves.
A third component of SOCE involves helping the client to develop healthy nonsexual interpersonal relationships. More often than not a person with a homosexual orientation or gender dysphoria has not had a healthy supportive relationship with the same-sex parent or with their same-sex peers. There is often a sense of inferiority where the client feels they do not fit in with their biological sex. For the male there can be the rejection of their masculinity, or they may feel they lack masculinity. Some with same-sex attraction seek to gain masculinity through homosexual contacts. A SOCE therapist of the same sex as a client can help the client learn how to relate to the same sex in non-sexual ways. The therapist encourages, advises, and supports the client through this new relational territory. Many SOCE therapists become positive role models for clients to learn from.
No therapist who uses SOCE techniques that this writer has read or talked with has advocated that homosexuals or transsexuals should be forced to try to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. What they adamantly state is that those with unwanted same-sex attractions have the right of self-determination to try to change their sexual orientation, including the opportunity to have professional help. They advocate that the same right applies to transsexuals who want to detransition and to those with gender dysphoria who want to identify with their biological gender. SOCE therapists work with homosexuals and transgender individuals who come to them for help to change their condition.
With regards to children who are sent to a SOCE therapist by their parents, the therapist becomes a source of information to the child and the parents. The therapist can explain to the child and the parents that no one is born gay or transgender. Some of the psychodynamic conditions that cause homosexuality and gender dysphoria can be explained and possibly even identified in their family dynamic. Through case histories a therapist can provide hope that a heterosexual identity or biological gender identity is possible for the child. Oftentimes, the therapist will work with the parents much more than the child in order to build an environment supportive of heterosexual development and biological gender identification. The earlier in life the sexually confused child meets with a SOCE therapist, the more likely he/she will have the parents’ desired outcome of a heterosexual and/or a biological gender identification.
In addition, the SOCE therapist is especially suited to help children who have been sexually abused by someone of the same sex. In a culture that is moving toward the acceptance of adult-child sexual relationships, a SOCE therapist will see the past adult-child sexual relationship as sexual abuse that was confusing and harmful to the child. SOCE therapists can then help the child move from the past abuse toward healthy heterosexual development and biological gender identity.
Since the 1970s it has been the goal of some homosexual activists to prevent those with unwanted same-sex attractions from having professional help to change their sexual orientation. Now that goal has become mainstream among the LGBTQ community.
LGBTQ activists claim that conversion therapy/SOCE is harmful. In general, the possible harm to a client is that if they are unable to change their sexual orientation, they may become disappointed or depressed. The rate of success with changing sexual orientation through SOCE is roughly equal to the success rate of other psychoanalytic based talk therapies. Yet there has never been a movement of activists to ban psychoanalytic or cognitive based therapy to those wanting to overcome an alcohol problem, a smoking or drug addiction, depression, or anorexia, even though failure may lead to the same types of harm.
If there is significant harm caused by SOCE, it is to the LGBTQ movement in general. A person who changes from a homosexual orientation to a heterosexual orientation negates two of the fallacies that the LGBTQ movement promotes. The first fallacy is that a person is born that way. The second is that a homosexual orientation is immutable. Despite decades of efforts to find a gay gene, none has been found. Instead, the evidence points toward many causative factors. Individuals who seek to change their homosexual orientation or transgender identity often shed light on the emptiness and hopelessness they feel in that lifestyle. In response, for the last fifty years the LGBTQ movement has demeaned the individual who wants out of an LGBTQ identity.
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The most harm occurs when SOCE is banned. When individuals are denied professional help to reach a heterosexual goal or to identify with their biological sex, they are being denied clinical mental health services. This may lead to depression, harmful life choices, and even suicide, the very things that LGBTQ activists say SOCE will do. The harm to society in banning SOCE expands exponentially when applied to children and adolescents who have been sexually molested by a person of the same sex.
The writer heard this testimony from an ex-gay man named James in 2006. James had been molested as a boy from the age of five by a male babysitter. As an older child he was caught performing the homosexual acts he had learned from his abuser on a boy younger than himself. All he knew of sexuality was homosexual behavior. He sought the help of a school counselor as a teenager. The counselor told him that his past behavior affirmed that he was gay and that he had no other sexual orientation options. In the years that followed he found his gay life disappointing and empty. Fortunately, he was able to find a Christian-based ministry that used the components of SOCE. He was able to change his sexual orientation and later married. As he looked back on his past, he lamented that he was classified gay by his school counselor and never told about options that could have helped him pursue a heterosexual orientation and identity.
In closing, the overwhelming LGBTQ influence and bias in the medical associations and the universities has led to the banning of any training in SOCE in academic institutions. In their persistent efforts to ban SOCE and marginalize individuals who want to change a homosexual orientation or transgender identity, the LGBTQ movement has demonstrated what intolerance looks like.
Thomas Coy completed his master’s thesis on “The Professional Division Over the Treatment of Homosexuality and How It Has Been Influenced by the Gay Political Movement” in 2012. The thesis is available at Deep Blue and ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Global.