To those weighing the ban on conversion therapy--
Good afternoon to you.
In 1989 in my freshman year at Duke University, I visited my on-campus counseling service wrestling with deep depression over the flood of awareness that I was attracted to other men and that I wasn't able to sidestep it any longer. I appealed to that therapist, a licensed psychologist, to see all the options for moving forward. It's hard to think now about how much I contemplated suicide. The therapist suggested that if I really wanted to change there was a conversion program based off of Freud's psychoanalysis fifteen miles down the road that was two hours a day, four days a week for fifteen weeks. I couldn't see how I would have the energy, time, and money to drive there every day and take classes. I think I would've considered it if it had been less "intense". In the end, things worked out. I'm as happy as I have ever been. I fear what might've happened though if I had gone through that at 18. What did sting though was how that psychologist reinforced my shame. That took a while to work through. Please be on the record unequivocally that conversion therapy is junk science. That Virginia is a state for truth, empathy, and principle. Thank you.