Stop being gay
The Lies and Dangers of Efforts to Convert Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity
Organizational Positions on Reparative Therapy
Declaration on the Impropriety and Dangers of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Change Efforts
We, as national organizations showing millions of licensed medical and mental health concern professionals, educators, and advocates, come together to convey our professional and scientific consensus on the impropriety, inefficacy, and detriments of practices that seek to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender persona, commonly referred to as “conversion therapy.”
We pose firmly together in back of legislative and policy efforts to curtail the unscientific and dangerous exercise of sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts.
American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry
"The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry finds no evidence to support the application of any “therapeutic intervention” operating under the premise that a specific sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression is pathological. Furthermore, based on the scientific evidence, the AACAP asserts that suc
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Can Gay People Just Say No?
March 3 -- Are you gay? Do you want to be straight? Today a number of groups tell people it's achievable to stop being gay, saying that through therapy and prayer, God can help people convert their sexual preference.
Some groups offer advice such as telling gay people to inhale ammonia when they have homosexual thoughts. Programs have advised gay men to play sports and womxn loving womxn women to wear makeup. Jack Pantaleo went to one of these groups. He says it taught him things like how to cross his legs in a manly way: "On occasions it was okay to cross ankle over ankle," he explains, "But a real man takes his ankle and puts it over his other knee."
'Like Puberty at Twenty-Five'
There are lots of testimonials from people who state this type of therapy works. Alan Chambers says he's been straight now for 11 years. He's on the board of Exodus, which is the biggest network of groups claiming to help people become, "ex-gay." Chambers says learning to be linear was "like puberty at age 25." He just chose to deny feelings of homosexuality and says other people can accomplish it too. Chambers is now in his
It is dangerous to be different, and certain kinds of difference are especially risky. Race, disability, and sexuality are among the many ways people are socially marked that can make them vulnerable. The museum recently collected materials to document gay-conversion therapy (also called "reparative therapy")—and these objects allow curators like myself to explore how valid people experience these risks. With the help of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., Garrard Conley gave us the workbook he used in 2004 at a now defunct religious gay-conversion camp in Tennessee, called "Love in Action." We also received materials from John Smid, who was camp director. Conley's memoir of his time there, Boy Erased, chronicles how the camp's conversion therapy followed the idea that being gay was an addiction that could be treated with methods similar to those for abating drug, alcohol, gambling, and other addictions. While there, Conley spiraled into depression and suicidal thoughts. Conley eventually escaped. Smid eventually left Love in Action and married a man.
In the United States, responses to gay, lgbtq+, queer, lesbian, bisexual person, transsexual, and gender non-conforming