Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Health Professions
 
Board
Board of Counseling
 
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4/16/19  1:46 pm
Commenter: Jay Corprew

BAN CONVERTION THERAPY. My personal story
 

I had personally dealt with convertion therapy when I was a preteen. My parents and my church forced me to go. Not only was this against my will, but the therapy was abusive, homophobic and mysogonistic, and in no way theraputic! I was locked in a room with 3 male members of my church. They would discuss their personal views about lgbt community and use verses from the bible to somewhat back their ideas. I was not allowed to leave the room and not allowed to speak, not allowed to share what was said in the room  this “therapy” continued for weeks and created my battle with life long depression and ideations of suicide. Convertion therapy isnt therapy! It is a way to make a child suicidal, depressed and also invoke ptsd or anxiety. It is abuse. If anyone actually is reading this I want you to know that crap haunted me for over 20 years and if it never happened I wouldnt have been suicidal from age 13 to age 32. If you are ok with causing children or teens or adults to want to kill themselves because they were not born like you feel they should have been born, then you need convertion therapy to be a better person. I am transgender. Born female but identify as male since age 5. I am also a straight man. If convertion therapy worked on me I would be living as a gay man right now. That sure doesnt make sense now does it? But instead. I worked hard to live my authentic true self as a man who is straight. And now happily married to my wife. 

CommentID: 71482