Conversion therapy is soul-crushing -- and it doesn't work

[QueerDuck]

https://religionnews.com/2026/04/02/conversion-therapy-is-soul-crushing-and-it-doesnt-work/


A sign at Stonewall National Monument in New York during a rally in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of a Colorado law banning conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ minors, on April 1, 2026. (Photo © Chela Crinnion)

(RNS) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday (March 31) struck down Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, siding with a therapist who argued her First Amendment rights were violated by a state law prohibiting her from working with clients to attempt to change their sexual orientations. While conservative Christians and pro-conversion therapy groups like the Changed Movement are celebrating the decision as a victory, many queer Christians who have survived so-called conversion practices, like myself, see this as a moment of lament.

Kaley Chiles, the therapist at the center of the case, argued bans in Colorado prevented her from exercising her free speech to offer counseling aligned with her Christian religious beliefs, which include assisting clients who wish to live in accordance with their religious convictions. In an 8-1 majority, the court agreed.

(snip)

Today, conversion therapy is often framed as talk therapy and marketed as a compassionate response for people questioning their sexuality. But the reality is that in every organization or ministry that promotes these practices, there’s no rulebook and no formal certification process. It’s all based on a mix of pseudoscientific theories adopted from the McCarthy era, dressed up with spiritual undertones.

I know this because I lived it for eight years. The guidance I was given ranged from the practical — “Don’t watch gay porn” — to the outlandish — “By developing platonic relationships with other men, my sexual desires for them would disappear.” But what it truly does is try to disintegrate a person’s body, mind and spirit.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. To me, it's equivalent to your parents forcing you to undergo

electro-shock therapy -- or a lobotomy -- in order for you to make THEM feel comfortable.

[Haggard Celine]

2. I agree.

I wish I could force people who support this shit to become Muslims or nudists or some other thing they know themselves to be incompatible with. Basically, it comes down to assholery. YOU should have to do what THEY want you to do no matter how much it harms you or misrepresents your core identity. They're just assholes.

[jfz9580m]

5. Yeah no shit

Coercive psychiatry in general should be scrutinised more by honest psychiatrists without conflicts of interest.

Else the only people examining it would be: 1) Scientologists; 2) the most extreme versions of anti-psychiatry or 3) grifting charlatans like Laura Delano (to whom the predictably awful NYT gives space along with Reefer Madness shills like the nightmarish sleazebags you find at Stanford Psychiatry for instance. E.g.: Nina Vasan, Smita Das, Keith Humphreys).

Similarly creepy people in bed with sleazy data-miners Google’s Andy Ng or Google in general (I was thinking of that Woebot female andThomas Insel) should face strict oversight. Stanford, Google and Facebook associated psychiatrists should be scrutinized by decent shrinks and human rights advocates. This should not have needed spelling out.

I am sympathetic some to Mad in America. But they are a little too extreme for me. I have no quarrel with psychiatry, but working in one of the greyest areas of medicine is nothing like specialising in different areas of physical medicine. That is where you have to use your brain not scripts.

Medicine is generally fairly apolitical. But psychiatry and psychology less so.

Human behavior in these overpopulated, stressed out societies cannot be treated brainlessly by corrupt and incompetent people who shill VR, chatbots etc but don’t think like actual scientists nor question scripts that are out of date for a world that has changed as drastically as ours has in the last 20 years. Accelerationism without common sense or any checks on greed and avarice.

It is obviously a blatant conflict of interest to work with the surveillance state or surveillance capitalism without privacy/civil rights advocates on board who do safeguard patient’s rights.

Privacy International is a decent group. But groups like that are themselves targeted by the Panopticon. Privacy International had recently sent out an email about how abortion rights advocates are targeted by the police state.

This era will end as society nears rock bottom with a lot of repercussions for at least the low hanging fruit amongst our sleazy, corrupt and occasionally depraved pseudo-elite.

[GiqueCee]

3. On occasions...

... when I'm drawn into a debate over alternative views regarding gender identity, I ask the narrow-minded bigots this question:
Do you know why men have nipples?
It's not a non sequitur. ALL humans, indeed, all mammals, are FEMALE at conception. The Y chromosome does not manifest itself until later in the gestation period. A fetus undergoes myriad changes during its development, and they can all occur in infinitely variable timelines, and in tune with the equally variable developments of other organs, including the brain. Ah, yes, the BRAIN! That is where the sense of self resides, and within the development of those synapses also lies the sense of gender identity.
So, to keep this short, people are literally born gay every day. And a narrow-minded bigot's imaginary Sky Daddy has nothing to do with any of it.
Moral of the story for narrow-minded bigots: Mind your own fuckin' business.

For the record, I'm a 79-year-old straight, married guy, but I loves me some good ol' rock hard science to rub narrow-minded bigots' noses in! So there.

[70sEraVet]

4. So, a state can tell parents that they aren't free to access MEDICAL help....

for their TRANS child, but they CAN subject their GAY child to cruel, scientifically unproven RELIGIOUS therapies? The only consistency seems to be bigotry and superstition.