10% of LGBT Australians are still vulnerable to the draconian practice of religious conversion therapy, with at least 10 organisations promoting the practice in Australia and New Zealand, including Renew Ministries and Exodus Asia Pacific.
The list of harms that result from conversion therapy include:
- self-hatred,
- shame,
- loneliness,
- thoughts of suicide,
- problems with being touched or loved,
- sexual dysfunction,
- causing harm to those they love including partners and spouses,
- grief,
- loss of faith,
- loss of community,
- depression,
- ongoing mental health problems and
- economic disadvantage
That’s according to a new report funded by La Trobe University, a joint initiative with the Human Rights Law Centre and Gay & Lesbian Health Victoria.
The report, titled Preventing Harm, Promoting Justice: Responding to LGBT conversion therapy in Australia, recommends new state laws prohibiting conversion therapy against minors. It also calls for a ban on all doctors, social workers and teachers from engaging in any activities that could constitute conversion therapy.
The 83-page report, which you can download here, includes lived experiences of 15 LGBT people who lived through conversion therapy. The report marks a poignant moment for Australia, where to date, there has been no scholarly research on religious conversion therapy.
One study participant, Gary, had been sexually abused by a male relative as a child and received Christian ‘counselling’ after disclosing his abuse.
Gary said he suffered years of anxiety and depression as a result and felt he should fulfil his “societal role” and get married.
“I was like, ‘I’m great, you know. I’m doing all the manly things … I’m engaged’, I … was married for five years, and I think that it was really during the marriage that things kind of completely unravelled.”
One participant’s parents and extended family were missionaries and ministers. She was place in a mental hospital when she was 17 years old.
She told researchers she was often handcuffed to her bed at night, and made to sit in an ice bath while Bible verses were read to her.
“Then I remember going into another room … with a surgical table, and being restrained … having an electrode attached to my labia; and images projected onto the ceiling … and a lot of pain from the electrodes; and being left there for quite a long time afterwards, exposed and alone.”
The researchers found that from the 1990s, and even more so during the marriage equality era, religious conversion therapy organisations presented themselves as conduits for spiritual healing, mental health, and religious liberty.
While La Trobe University, the Human Rights Law Centre and Gay & Lesbian Health Victoria call for a change in legislation, Prime Minister Scott Morrison just last month said the debate around gay conversion is “not an issue for him”.
He told Melbourne radio station 3AW: “I respect people of all sexualities, I respect people of all religions, all faiths. I love all Australians.
“I’ve never been involved in anything like that, I’ve never supported anything like that, it’s just not an issue for me and I’m not planning to get engaged in the issue.”
The government has now pledged to change existing laws that essentially enable schools to exclude children based on their sexuality.
