Supreme Court Clears Path For Extremely Dangerous Practice — And Now More Young People Will Die
On a sunny California day in the spring of 2015, I sat down and chatted with my nephew, Isaiah.
“My therapist said faith can fix what nature has distorted,” he said, leaning toward me.
Also Read: I Spent 3 Years in Conversion Therapy. What I Experienced There Traumatized Me for Years.
We collapsed laughing. While conversion therapy wasn’t funny, we were making the best of a desperate situation. As a trauma therapist, I found his treatment in the therapy room extremely disturbing.
This week, The United States Supreme Court struck down Colorado state law banning the practice of conversion therapy. In an 8-1 decision, the justices found that these bans violated the First Amendment. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, reading: “It threatens to undermine the ability of states to regulate the provision of medical care in any way.” Treatment causes medical harm – First Amendment rights are not the issue here.
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Conversion therapy attempts to change the client’s orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. It tries to make LGBTQ+ people heterosexual or cisgender. This is a useless fraudulent practice, and what’s more, it has the potential to cause deep, even fatal harm.
As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I have witnessed firsthand the profound damage this type of therapy causes. Therefore, they are clients who experience trauma, shame, depression and suicidality. I advised against it for my nephew, explaining that this so-called “cure” for homosexuality was considered abusive and unacceptable in the professional community because it threatened the lives of countless LGBTQ+ young people.
Among major medical organizationsAmerican Psychological AssociationHe declared that “***** efforts to change orientation” were harmful. The practice is rejected by all major medical and mental health organizations because it has been proven to cause measurable psychological damage.
Experts agree that this approach is an extremely dangerous practice. It was abandoned by the American Medical Association in 1994. Williams Institute’s 2020 report found: “LGB people who have undergone conversion therapy [are] They are almost twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who do not attempt suicide. alarming rates Suicide attempt (12%) or suicidal ideation (39%) that LGBTQ+ youth say they have experienced.
It turned out that my fears were justified. The treatment scarred Isaiah, and when he came to me recently and shared what he was going through, he told me, “It was very scary. They wouldn’t let my parents in. I had to go in there alone and sit across from a man I didn’t know.” He added, “His questions were rapid fire and full of judgments. I don’t remember all the details.”
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I wasn’t surprised when he apologized for not remembering. Isolation and separation are common side effects of conversion therapy. When a child is exposed to a distressing experience, the brain and nervous system react by distancing themselves. The body’s fight-or-flight system creates a numbing distance from thoughts and emotions as a way to escape pain.
Even though Isaiah has gaps in his memory, he remembers important and thought-provoking facts. Imagine sitting across from the therapist and asking, “Do you have malicious thoughts toward men?” he remembers asking. Isaiah was confused about how to answer. Should he tell the truth or lie? When she told the truth, her “duty” was punishing and the shame spiral was intense. When he started lying, the pressure eased and the homework was over. He learned to lie quickly.
“The therapist tried to ‘fix’ me and make me ‘normal,'” explained Isaiah. “For example, he said I sat ‘too girly’ and wasn’t ‘manly’ enough.” This created a fundamental wound for him. Being told that the way you sit is flawed may seem trivial to some people, but it points to something very profound. This told him that his most natural, vulnerable self was somehow inherently flawed; not what it does, but simply how it exists at rest. This is a breach of a vulnerable customer. It goes against everything therapy is trying to be.
Our training as therapists requires us to do no harm, and most therapists consider conversion therapy to be both psychologically and emotionally destructive.basis The main idea of conversion therapy is that homosexuality is a sin and the therapist’s task is to transform the child and make him “normal”. This is like telling a person that they are fundamentally broken and need to be fixed, or that they have a disease when there is no disease at all.
Policy: This Supreme Court Decision Could Cause Complete Displacement of Families
Like many children forced into this type of “treatment” when interventions did not work, Isaiah internalized failure.
“It made me feel bad about who I was,” she explained, admitting that shame destroyed her ability to form healthy relationships. Trust has become a big issue. “This will always be something I work on.”
“It affected my identity,” he added. “I wanted to quit sooner, but I was afraid. This stunted my growth. Their biggest tool is shame. I started to feel ashamed of who I was.”
The decision to involve Isaiah in conversion therapy came at a heavy cost. caught words When he told me at the time that suicide was a real thought, his throat caught up.Dark thoughts crept into the quiet moments.
Also Read: In a time of constant political attacks, what I share is risky – but I cannot remain silent.
The odds were against Isaiah from the beginning. He already felt isolated and isolated in the small Christian community he called home. Isaiah fell into a deep depression as he repressed his sexuality and hid his young life from view. He experienced overwhelming feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and sadness at an age that is already difficult for almost any teenager.
“Conversion therapy tried to change me,” Isaiah told me. In fact, my sweet, happy, talented niece has changed, but not in the way her church had hoped. Instead of being “straight,” he learned to lie and keep secrets. He realized that the only way to get out of treatment was to say, “I’m healed. I don’t have those thoughts anymore.” And that’s how he got out of it. Doing as he wished, he retreated deep into the closet and emerged years later.
The following year, Isaiah started a drama club and took up acting, appearing in every play the performance group performed throughout high school. Later he went to a famous drama conservatory.
“College was a transformative moment for me,” he said. “I saw gay men living openly, and I think that triggered something in my brain and changed everything. That’s what it feels like to be free of the shame that was holding me back.”
As a result of this acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community, she found the courage to come out at the age of 19, but the psychological damage she experienced never went away.
“I honestly don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” he said. “You know, it’s always going to be something I’m going to work on getting better at; rebuilding all of this.”
Despite his scars, Isaiah now lives in New York City, where he enjoys “the best gay life” by running a high-end interior design gallery.
“People need to know that conversion therapy doesn’t help anyone,” he explained. “They need to be educated about how terrible this is.”
This ban was extremely important because it protected a vulnerable population from oppression disguised as treatment. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, countless young LGBTQ+ children may be at risk, and some will choose to end their lives after experiencing the torture of conversion therapy. Their blood will be on the hands of these judges.
Looking back, I now realize that my nephew was lucky to have survived such a traumatic experience. I am grateful that she is still with us as both a therapist and a mother figure in her life. When I asked Isaiah what he wanted people to understand about conversion therapy, he said: “It’s the most damaging thing you can do to a young person. You’re abusing them. It’s mental abuse.”
If you’re in crisis, here are a few resources that can help:
Trevor Projectis the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit providing information and support for LGBTQ+ youth 24/7, 365 days a year.
988 Lifeline: Call, text or chat at 988 Lifeline for free and confidential support 24/7 in times of crisis.
911: If a teen is in immediate danger, call 911 and inform the operator that this is a mental health emergency. You can make a requestCrisis Intervention Trained (CIT) officer in your case.
Melissa Garner Lee is a novelist and marriage and family therapist whose writings and clinical work explore trauma healing. Her debut novel, “The Gleaner,” examines women’s rights through the lens of 1960s California. While her therapy practice specializes in healing women’s trauma, her articles examine current issues through the lens of mindfulness and resilience.
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