How Conversion Therapy Doesn't Work

Conversion therapy is a misguided attempt by religious zealots to convert people from gay to straight. News flash - it doesn't work. Learn all about this abhorrent practice today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do do Do Do Do do do Well. You know
what that bad trumpet means? We mean bad, I mean,
you know, bad as in Miles Davis was bad. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
thank you. Uh. We're announcing our live show at our
annual trip to San Francisco Sketch Fest. We're gonna be

(00:22):
where We're going to be at the Castro Theater, are
home away from home in San Francisco on Saturday, January
that's right. And I'm doing my third ever movie Crush
at Sketch Fest. And this is gonna be a nighttime
usually do a mattinee, but this is the following day
on Sunday, January nine, at eight pm. Uh, and it

(00:43):
is going to be at Piano Fight on Taylor Street.
And for all these you can get tickets at the
sketch Fest website or you can learn about tickets at
our home touring home on the web that is s
y s K live dot com. Right, that's right, we'll
see you guys there. Welcome to Stuff you should know,
a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,

(01:10):
I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck. Bryant.
There's guest producer Josh over there. Don't be confused, everybody,
there are more than one Josh in the world. It's
nice to hear you finally admit that it's taking a
long time, a lot of therapy. Hey, nice segue. It's
like a short stuff. I'm like, let's get to it.

(01:31):
Let's get going. Well, I have a c A to issue.
You know what cracks me up as people who are
still like, what does that mean? You figure it out?
You can email eventually some people will uh yeah, So
my c A is just a personal c A that
I'm going to try and just disguise my disdain for
this entire topic. But I might not do a great

(01:52):
job about it. Well you've already shown your hands, all right, good,
that's my c o A. Yeah, yeah, I don't think
there's too many stuff. You should know listeners who are
probably into this, yeah what. But part of the problem is,
we'll see later in this episode. It's part of the
problem with conversion therapies coverage in the media is that

(02:14):
it has largely been fairly even handed and described as
like this controversial therapy and not said, uh, this scam
and this junk science fraud perpetrated by zealots super harmful. Yeah, yeah,
so that's where that's where I am. You know. That
stuck out to me too, that in the late nineties

(02:34):
we'll talk about it, especially when it was treated even handedly,
and it made me think like we should do an
episode on that, like the like, should the media treat
all sides of an issue equally? And if it does,
does that just like perpetuate ignorance or if it doesn't,
does that like support fascism? Like that's a hornessness. I

(02:56):
really think we should do it sometimes it is. That's
a good good call, Thank you, Charles. I don't know
how we I mean, I guess I could be researched. Yeah,
surely somebody's done a think piece on it and we
can springboard off of you know, I think piece. That's right,
that's what we do most of our research. Uh. This

(03:19):
is from one of our great writers, Julia Layton, and
she put this a lot of this stuff together for us. Yeah,
she did a good job on this. So like the
additional histories you found out though, Yeah, because this this
so we will define it first and then we'll talk
about some histories. But this stuff, um, goes back way
further than you would think. But that what we're talking

(03:40):
about today is called conversion therapy reperative therapy ex gay therapy,
where um, reperative therapy is trademarked by the way we
should say, well, you couldn't hear it, but under my
breath and said more like t s it was. Yeah,
it was trademarked by a psychologist named Joseph Gelosi. Yes

(04:01):
sor um. So uh what conversion therapy is probably what
we're gonna mostly call it though what it's what it
is is it's an alleged psychological theory and practice that
is based on the idea that all people are born
heterosexual and because of certain um, certain events past traumas

(04:30):
usually traumas typically but also um the family dynamics play
a huge role. Um, people who would otherwise are meant
to be heterosexual can be accidentally steered into homosexuality and
therefore can be ex or purposefully steered back cured, yes,
cured being gay, right back to the righteous land of heterosexuality.

(04:53):
And as you can imagine that this is a very
popular with the fundamentalist Christian and um, I mean like
that's not even like a guess like it overtly is
they've adopted and taken on X gay, the X gay
movement as UM as basically one of the the what's

(05:15):
it called in a temp pole A temp post, sure
one of the planks and there in the Christian Rights
Platform for Social Change. Oh, it is a and it
was officially part of the two thousand sixteen Republican Party platform.
Even what that's right, Well, the whole RNC, yeah, which
has been called the platform has been called by far

(05:38):
the most anti l g t b Q platform in
the nation's history. I mean, yeah, that's a plank in
the party's platform. That's pretty significant. Like they don't throw
just anything in there. So um with the with with
um the X gay movement and conversion therapy um. I
saw it described at least back in the late nineties

(06:01):
as a front in the culture war that's as strong
and as significant as abortion. Like the the the Christian
right in particular is has basically dedicated itself to stamping
out gayness and by do by converting gay people to
to straighten us. The problem is is there is no

(06:23):
scientific evidence whatsoever that that is even possible, right, And
the problem is when you try and stamp out gayness.
That creates a good beat that you can dance to.
It makes that sound, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no,
stop stamping. I had actually I went to well should
I say this? I don't sure? Why not? Because this
is the truth. I went to a church camp once

(06:45):
when I was a youth. Well I figured a story
or two like that. They talked about, uh, stomping your
feet to the music or whatever they're playing, and they
literally said, don't alternate feet because that's too close to dancing.
Wow right, Yeah, And these weren't like, uh, I mean,
these are pretty mainstream Baptist church camps. It wasn't like

(07:06):
I went to some snake handling thing. No, but I
had a really good episode on that. Yeah, that was
a good one. Said anyway, stomp your feet, everybody, just
don't alternate so you stomp them both at once, because
that's not just stomp one foot, just on your right foot.
I was gonna say, that's just jumping lightly. Okay, So
that's what we're talking about. Conversion therapy. And like I

(07:28):
said it, um became part of the Christian rights kind
of philosophy and part of their their culture war, their
culture war they're fighting. Um. But it goes back way
further than that then. I think it was the late
nineties when the right kind of adopted it um. As
a matter of fact, like into the nineteenth century, there

(07:50):
were people who subscribed to this, but they were all psychologists.
This is back of the time when you could be
a ghost investigator and say I'm a psychologist. This is
the times when you could say, you know, this cigar
reminds you of your mother, you know what I'm saying. Uh,
And you could be a psychologist. You could be a
father of psychology at that point. Yeah, you dug up

(08:11):
a great article from history dot com called k Conversion
Therapy is Disturbing nineteenth century Origins by Aaron Blakemore and
uh attribution check. Yeah, Well, Aaron wrote a great article
and in it, um she talks about in eighteen nine
this hypnosis. Well again in the days where you could

(08:34):
be a hypnotist and be a legitimate scientist at the
same time getting a stage shows or psychology. That's right,
where's the money. But he was German, of course, and
he claimed to have turned a gay man straight after
forty five hypnosis sessions and some other therapies, and that's
sort of the first evidence of what we would later

(08:57):
call conversion therapy starting up, although I'm sure even before
that people they probably didn't call it conversion therapy. But
if you were an effeminate man, you are no doubt
probably beaten by your parents and shunned by your community. Right. Um.
I think one of the other things it's kind of
a hallmark of this long tradition of converting people in

(09:18):
from being gay to straight or trying to, is this
idea that there's something wrong with you if you're gay,
and that that idea can actually become hung up on
the individual, the gay person, so that they actually do
seek out help in becoming straight. But the problem is
in seeking that help, they're going to be frustrated and

(09:39):
they're ultimately probably going to be um, they're gonna have
feelings of shame, guilt, inadequacy, that they're not capable of
helping themselves, or something wrong with them why can't they
just be straight? Kind of thing. And then if you're
a minor and your parents are forcing this on you,
that then that raises it a whole other um can

(09:59):
of worm of ethical dilemmas. But even from the outset,
there were probably people who sought out hypnotists and other
psychologists for help. It wasn't just people walking around kidnapping
gay people and taking him off the street and trying
to convert them, right, It could have very well been
some man that's like, wait a minute, I don't feel
normal feelings because I'm looking at Joe out there in

(10:21):
the field and things are happening, if you know what
I mean. Doc, And they're like, well, come on in
watching him swing that scythe take his sweaty shirt off,
ring it over his face, that kind of thing, right,
So just sit down and follow the wrist watch with
your eyes or I guess the pocket watch would be
a weird uh technique. But from that same history dot

(10:46):
com article there uh she she talks about some of
the early attempts, like with electro convulsive therapy Lobotomyes, I
think we even talked about some of the lobotomy's episode
and they would give you a lobotomy for anything. Oh sure,
what about testicular transplantation, right, because that was a theory
from a doctor, an interochronologist name Eugene Steinach who thought

(11:08):
that your testicles were the root of the problem, Well
a lot of people did. There was like you could
have gay testicles literally and they would swap them out
for straight ones, right, And there's no I could not
find any evidence one way or the other that any
of these testicular transplants worked or were successful. I don't
think they were. But I didn't see anything that said

(11:29):
like all failed or whatever. But like what happened and
they just shrivel up and fall off or something? So
what do you mean if it actually like medically took
to the body or Yeah, that's what I mean. Okay,
saying like did it convert them? Did it work? Yeah,
that's the answer. But yeah, I didn't know that you
could in the nineteen twenties testical transplant successfully. That's what

(11:53):
I'm saying, Like, I surely, I mean at some point
and we must have talked about this in the Michael
Um Dylan episode. Um we talked about the I don't
think it was but it wasn't a transplant. It was
just a straight up removal an orchiact to me, I
believe castration. So but at some point testicles have been

(12:13):
transplanted onto a person successfully. When did that happens? My question?
He probably did to a dog first. But I mean
think about it, like, if it didn't work, well, sorry
you're castrated now. Yeah. They probably didn't say sorry though,
but we took your gay testicles. The heterosexual testicles just
didn't pan out. But now you don't have any testicles,

(12:34):
gay or otherwise. That's right. Some of the other awful
techniques that they would use back in the day, um
were chemicals that they might have to make you wretch
and vomit when you look at, you know, pictures of
people of the same sex. It's called covert sensitization. Yeah,
or if you're cross dressing, maybe same thing, or look

(12:56):
in a mirror and be discussed it with yourself and
wretch and vomit. Yeah, I'm very sadly. If you have,
say like a UM as someone you're in a relationship
with that you love, they might show you a picture
of that person and um carry out aversive therapy or
aversive conditioning. Um, what's weird, As you said, these are

(13:16):
these are things they used to carry out. From what
I've seen, this stuff still goes on today, some of it.
So what we're talking about though, back in the nineteenth
and most of the first half or so of the
twentieth century this was all like the domain of psychology.
And then eventually gay psychologists and and other straight psychologists too.

(13:40):
We're basically like, this is wrong, Like the science is
not adding up. Um, this is just this is just incorrect. Yeah,
there were medical doctors too though, wasn't just psychologists. So eventually,
in nineteen seventy three, the American Psychological Association said, hey,
big news, We're no longer going to classify homosexuality as

(14:02):
a mental disorder. Right, And a certain part of the
population went, yeah, it's nineteen seventy two. Why did it
take this long? Right? Exactly? But that was a big deal,
and at that point a psychology mostly abandoned the idea
that being gay was a disorder of any kind, and

(14:22):
therefore there was no point in researching how to cure
someone of being gay, and so it turned its back
on this whole history of um conversion conversion. But it
didn't fully die away, and I believe starting in like
the eighties, the Christian rights started to kind of pick
up on it and kind of breathe new life into

(14:44):
it again. That's right, I think we should take a break. Yeah,
that's a robust and a half set up? Is that?
Oh I thought we were already into it. Oh my gosh,
it wasn't just a setup. You're right, we'll be right
back shock alright. So let's talk a little bit about

(15:26):
because there's a couple of a couple of schools of
thought here, um, and I hesitate to one to call
the one more bona fide. But you know, there's conversion
therapy that can happen at a licensed therapist office. And
there's conversion therapy that can happen in you know, somebody's
basement or the basement of a church. I was going

(15:48):
to see basement to yeah, or a room. Couldn't have
to be a base, I know, but a basement makes
it seem surely sinister. That's probably why I said it. Uh.
So there are two sort of ways that can happen.
We're gonna talk a little bit about the first way.
Uh the patented way Reparative Therapy trademark by Joseph Nicolosi SR.

(16:11):
That guy doesn't even get the Italian accent, man, And
I don't blame me, he doesn't, which we should say,
by the way. In July this year, Amazon stopped carrying
his works on their website. Yeah, because they they considered them,
um that they promoted fraud, that's right, which we'll get to. Yeah,
which is interesting. But this guy is like a psychologist. Yeah,

(16:35):
he's He's a trained psychologist who basically said I'm gonna
take everything I learned and directed towards curing gay people
of being gay. Yeah. I don't know much about do
you know much about his religiosity or I think he
was Jewish okay and born in Brooklyn from what I understand.
I wrote a really really great um article, not a
think piece, but a memoir in the American prospect Um

(16:58):
from the American Prospector two twelve. Yeah, it's different by
Gabriel Urana. Okay. Um, it's called my so called ex
gay Life. It's definitely worth reading, but it's it's a
great look at um conversion therapy, but also is like
overlaid with his like personal experience with it. Okay. At

(17:19):
any rate, his contention was that, like we said, um,
you develop homosexuality or homosexual feelings at least because of
a result of environmental conditions childhood traumash and they call
it same sex attraction s s A, and that could
stem in his opinion from a few different things. Desire
for adventure, pure acceptance, uh, loneliness or boredom or curiosity,

(17:44):
um approval or affection from males. And a lot of
this is centered on men, although it's certainly women are
have been involved in this as well. Yeah, we'll get
to that. Yeah, but a lot of them are a
lot of this over the years is making gay men straight. Oh, yeah,
I see what you mean. Yeah, it's but it's not
exclusive to that. Uh, general rebellion, which is pretty funny.

(18:06):
And then uh, sexual molestation by another male, And I
think that is a very like I think that the
idea that that leads to being gay is very widespread
in culture, well beyond the Christian rioter people who believe
in conversion therapy, the idea that if you're sexually abused
by a man or somebody of your same sex, you

(18:28):
become gay, which is just wrong, but I think a
lot of people still believe that. I know, that's what
I thought when I was a kid. Yeah, that's right.
I mean, it's not real, it's utterly wrong, but yeah, uh.
And the whole basis of Nicolosi's theory, he takes back
to a study from n called Demography of Sexual Orientation
and Adolescence. And this was an actual study from the

(18:51):
Journal Pediatrics that looked at patterns of sexual orientation high
school students in Minnesota. And what they found out was
that younger teens and Minnesota in this study, uh, we're
more likely to express sexual confusion about their orientation when
they were younger, and as they grew older, they were

(19:11):
less confused about their sexual identity and orientation. Right. And
that's a legit study. And I think that probably anyone
who's ever been an early teenager in a late teenager
can be like, that sounds about right, exactly you. But
the extrapolation that Nicolosi did was what the problem is, right,
So Nicolosi was saying, like, yes, that shows that like

(19:34):
you're you're, you're in a dangerous place earlier on, and
that if a couple of things happen in a certain way,
you can be veered off of this natural path towards
heterosexuality into homosexuality, right and also more dangerously that means
we gotta get them while they're young. Right. So um.
One of the other things that he's he really based

(19:55):
his practice on was this family tria of a domineering
over attendant mother, a passive detached father, and a sensitive
child in kind of in um, that's a good one
in that that um that triangle, like you would like

(20:20):
almost certainly have a gay kid if somebody didn't intervene.
So he decided like this was his career was intervening
in that kind of stuff. But that in and of
itself has never been proven to um create gay kids
like that, Like whether you believe in conversion therapy or not,
if you have a domineering mother and have some father
and you're like a sensitive type who likes dolls, even

(20:43):
doesn't mean you're gonna turn gay. This is the basis
of that though, is that yes you will turn gay.
And um still to this day this idea is allowed
to live because science is never fully satisfied the question
like are we born gay? Do we develop being gay?
And it looks like it's on a pretty strong track
towards a genetic basis of homosexuality, but it's still nothing's definitive,

(21:08):
and so people can say, well, maybe we do develop
you know, an adolescence you know, being gay or whatever,
because science is not filled this void credet. Yeah, and
the way Nicolosi. Will would write about this stuff and
describe it as in a very sort of professional inaciost
type way, where a casual reader, uh might say, well,

(21:30):
this seems totally valid and above board. Yeah, Newsweek reader, yeah,
or an OPRAH viewer, that's right. Um, this is uh,
this is one of the things that I think. This
is from one of his books. Um. And this is
how he describes a relationship to from patient to therapists.
The client has come to the therapist seeking assistance to
reduce something distressing to him, and the RT psychotherapist agrees

(21:52):
to share his professional experience and education to help the
client meet his own goal. His own goal. The therapist
enters into a collaborate relationship, agreeing to work with the
client to reduce his unwanted attractions and explore his heterosexual potential,
which again, it seems very innocuous. Uh. And and and
there are plenty of cases where a grown man of
his or woman of their own um volition goes and

(22:16):
seeks this out. But what they don't say is what
happens many times is apparent forces their young child to
do this. So that's a big one. Yeah, that's a
big one. In this Um, that American Prospect magazine. Uh,
the author was like in his early teens when he
went to Nicoloson's therapy. Um, but he said everybody else

(22:37):
in the group was in there, like forties or fifties.
So it's definitely both. But there's something here that's really
important because, like you said, if you just read this stuff,
it does sound innocuous. It's all very much based on
things like cognitive behavioral therapy like stuff that works, which
means that this works in a weird, twisted way, which
we'll talk about, but not in the way it's ultimately

(22:58):
meant to it. It's in a bent way. Yeah, I mean,
do you want me to explain now? I feel like
I should. I take issue with the word works at all.
There are situations where it might prevent someone from acting
on a homosexual impulse, That's what I mean. Yeah, but
that doesn't change the nature of their sexuality. No, no, right,

(23:20):
And ultimately preventing someone or training someone to not act
on their sexuality is damaging in and of itself and
causes all sorts of other problems. But maybe good enough
for a really religious family, right you know. Yeah, Well
that's what I read is that over time, as the
Christian right adopted the idea of, you know, championing the

(23:42):
ex gay movement, that part of that was accepting gay
people who refrained from gay sex. So if you were like,
I'm gay, I'm never going to be straight. I tried,
but I don't have sex with men, but I won't
being welcomed in church. Yeah. So I was saying, though,
is with with Nicholoson's thing, that there's something fundamentally wrong

(24:04):
with it, and that if somebody came to you and said,
I'm tired of being white or black or Hispanic, I
can't stand it. You wouldn't say, oh, well, let's figure
out how to make you not black or white or
hispanic or straight. Let's figure out how to change you.
They would say. Any therapists worth their salt would say, well, no,

(24:26):
there's a lot of great things about being white or black,
or Hispanic or straight, and let's focus on that so
that you can own your identity, the like conversion therapy does.
The opposite says, yes, let's figure out how to get
the gay out of you. Let's change your identity because
this group of society has said that it's unacceptable and

(24:46):
that is an extraordinarily damaging position to come from, and
that is the basis of conversion therapy. Yeah, and as
we'll see later on the a m a's official stance
is that it is and we'll read the quote later,
that it is a damage ng prospect right and and
creates real harm an American prospector. So this approach by

(25:08):
Nicolosi um has four steps to it. The first one
is interesting because it's the disclosure of the therapist personal, professional,
philosophical and religious views on homosexuality, which includes Nicolosi says, uh,
the gay affirmative therapist also discloses his philosophical views to

(25:29):
the client. But from a gay affirmative perspective, does he
just put that in there to like cover his baces. No,
it's true though, because you wouldn't send your your son
or daughter to a gay affirmative therapist to convert them
into right. And I think this is what he's saying.
You've been to therapy before, right, Sure? Have you ever

(25:51):
noticed that when you first your first session, the therapist
tells you a lot about themselves and what they think
about mental health or life or whatever. Yeah, And I'm
always like, wait to what about my problems. So we
were talking about me, I'm getting charge for this. I
don't care about your family. Um right, Uh, that's what
he's saying that they do. But because this is about

(26:13):
being gay, that's what they're going to talk about, their
views or whatever. Interesting They're going to share their opinions
of it, and that they think that there's problems with it.
You know what my line is at the therapist when
they do all that stuff. My great, that's really interesting
at the end, and like you want to start the
clock now right? Nice? Either that or I can pro rate. Uh.

(26:34):
Number two of the four steps is encouragement of the
client's inquiry, so basically asking the client the questions, examining
their feelings um to try and discover like what lies
beneath Number three, resolution of past trauma if it is,
in fact one of the reasons they suspect this person

(26:57):
has has gone down the road to homosexuality. And then
UM education regarding features of homosexuality, which includes everything from
what motivates you to do this? Two? You know that
if you are gay, then this lifestyle ends in a
very bad way for you, right that there's a lot

(27:18):
of physical harm, social harm, emotional harm, yeah. So what's
weird though, is like I can't Nicholas. He is like
a tough person to paint with just one brush. Even
though I totally disagree with what he did, A created
dedicated his career too. He doesn't seem, at least from
what I've read in including that American Prospect article from

(27:40):
somebody who was a patient of his for years, he
doesn't seem to have been like any sort of evil
man or anything like that. Um. I I don't know
if he just thought like this was a real thing
and he was really helping what But for example, there's
this one quote from from Gabriel Arianna who said that um,
he had been like experimenting with um sexual encounters with

(28:03):
other men as a teenager. And he said that he'd
been meeting men off of the internet and he told
Nicolosi like he's like, I trusted the guy enough to
share this in therapy, and he said that Nicolosi told
he said, he told me to be careful meeting men
off the internet, but that I shouldn't dwell on it
or feel guilty. He said my sexual behavior was of
secondary importance if I understood myself and worked on my

(28:25):
relationships with men, the attractions would take care of themselves.
I just had to be patient, which is I mean,
that's a pretty great thing for a therapist to tell
a patient. Don't dwell on it, you know, don't feel guilty,
just you know, except it, move on and learn from
it or whatever. But then the second part, that's why,
And so the thing is with conversion therapy in most cases,

(28:46):
Nicolosi is like he's almost a shining example in a
weird way, whereas other people associated with it are It's
very easy to paint them with just one brush, you know.
So we should talk a little bit about the argument against,
a little bit more about the argument against, which includes
a little bit more history. Um. You know, we talked

(29:08):
about the earliest stages of conversion therapy in the late
eighteen hundreds, but uh, it really kind of picked up
steam in the United States in the nineteen sixties. Uh,
when the Civil rights movement, you know, when gay people
started coming out of the closet more, presenting themselves more
in public, um, gay bars, popping up, things like that

(29:28):
Stonewall stonewall of course, Uh, which you know, anytime something
like that is becoming a little more accepted in the mainstream,
there's gonna be another side that really roots down and
digs in. And that's sort of how the modern gay
conversion therapy movement was born, was out of homosexuality becoming
more accepted. Yeah. I read a really interesting journal article,

(29:50):
UM from two thousand and seven by Robinson and Spivey.
It was in Gender and Society the journal, and UM
they based really they they looked into the ex gay movement,
not necessarily the psycho the psychology communities basis of it,
but the later on the adoption of it by the
Christian right. And they explained why the Christian right would

(30:13):
be interested in that, and they were interested in it
and dug in, like you said, because they saw homosexuality
and feminism in particular as signs of a decadent society
that would eventually cause us to crumble and collapse. And
that the the And this is according to Um Robinson inspired.

(30:34):
I haven't actually interviewed anyone on the Christian right who
believes this, but they are academics and this was a
pure view journal UM that the that masculinity is the
antidote to that, it's the antidote to homosexuality. It's the
antidote to feminism, and that it was up to each
man to be a strong leader among women and children

(30:55):
and to be as masculine as possible. That's how you
how you did that? Yeah, I mean I I went.
I heard sermons every Sunday, well not every Sunday, but
I heard sermons on many Sundays where uh they were
still saying wives submit to your husband's um straight out
of the Bible, um, you know. Yeah. And and like
most of the antidote is dad's you're being way too passive.

(31:19):
You need to step up and be the leader of
your family. But also moms you can help by saying, oh,
you have a question, ask your father. I defer to
your father. Go ask your father. And just yeah, being passive. Well,
which goes back to the that triad you mentioned earlier
about the domineering mother, the passive father equals gaps. That's
basically the basis of the whole thing. From what I
could tell is that at least among the Christian right,

(31:43):
that that if if the father is not the dominant,
in in leading figure in the family, that's where the
trouble comes from, and that can produce homosexual children. Interesting, Yes,
so something we we failed to mention as part of
the A M A s uh change in ninety two,

(32:08):
or was that the A p A A p A
um was they said, And this is an important distinction,
is that homosexuality they deemed a normal variation, not deviation,
but a variation in human sexual orientation, and like other
normal sexual orientations, can't be changed. In other words, you

(32:28):
can't make a straight person gay anymore than you can
make a gay person straight, is what that equals. And
because of that, as we'll see you later on, that
became the basis for this idea that conversion therapy is
um in essence of fraud, right, because it purports to
do something that can't be done. That's right. Should we
take another break? Oh? Man, really, they're coming hard and

(32:50):
fast like men's swinging sides and sweaty shirts on the field.
Uh yeah, let's take another break and we'll talk about
what might happen in conversion therapy right after that. Soosh

(33:17):
and shock. Alright, Chuck, I'm excited about this part. You're
excited about the horror show of Persian therapy. It's not
all horror shows. Some of it is just alright laughable. Yeah,
so uh statistically. Also also, I'm sorry everybody. I want

(33:40):
to say something too. We typically try to be super objective.
This one is very tough. We have science on our
side too. This was really hard for me to research.
Nothing is ever hard for me to research. This one was.
It was like turning over a log and finding it
like Maggot's writhing underneath. That was what researching When this
one was like, I just kept putting it off and

(34:03):
just keep leaving it and just going and watching like
the Office or something like that. Just anything but researching
this because it's super sad. It is it's that that
children are taking at their most vulnerable time and adolescence,
when they don't know what's going on, and they're told
that there wrong and they're sinning and their dirty that
is That is a part of why it's sad. Another

(34:25):
part to me of why it's sad is that the
idea that grown ups would direct this much thought and
attention and effort into well slamming their head up against
a wall to try to change someone else to a
way they think they should be. That that, I think
is um that that's that's at least as sad to

(34:48):
me is your children being misdirected like this, because the
kid can go on and grow up and be like, jeez,
my family was super messed up. I'm really glad I
don't speak to them anymore because I'm much happier over year. Right. Um, Well,
that can happen in the ideal circumstances or the ideal
circumstances that the family is just like, hey, we're really
screwed up, We're really sorry. We love you no matter

(35:11):
who you are. But the idea that there's a group,
a social movement dedicated to just eradicating another group of people,
that I find that very hard to swallow. Yeah, agreed.
So apparently statistically about or close to seven hundred thousand
people in the United States have undergone conversion therapy, and

(35:34):
we should mention that, Uh, it's a real problem in
places like Africa and Asia and South America where you
can still be imprisoned for being gay, like Uganda is
a big, a big place for that. Conversion therapy is
like on the rise in those places and other places.
But we're talking about the United States in this case
seven hundred thousand people. Um, And like we said, sometimes

(35:56):
it is in the with a license therapists sometimes it's
uh done by a religious advisor, uh in a basement
or at a church that you know what that reminded
me of is another thing we need to talk about.
Sometimes exorcisms, like church exercisms. We've done exorcism. We did
like straight up Roman Catholic exorcism. Okay, I'm talking like

(36:18):
the kind that somebody does in the basement of their
house because they're supposedly an exorcist or something like that.
Sure back door exorcism, basically black market. You'll see, you'll
be like, oh man, we should be talking about this,
all right. Well I agree already, I trust you so. Uh.
The A m A says that conversion therapy programs may

(36:39):
utilize harmful psychological techniques. Um. We were talking earlier about
aversion therapy. Uh. And given chemicals, they can still be
given um noxious stimulus. And I didn't see exactly what
that entailed or could entail. There was a guy named
Robert Gilbraith Heath who was the father of implanting electrodes

(37:01):
into the brain to deliver shocks, and one of the
things he directed that towards was curing gay people. I
don't think anyone in their basement is implanning electrodes or whatever.
But there are things like um uh, giving people like
nauseamit nausea inducing medications is one showing them pictures that

(37:22):
might nauseate them and then figure out how to associate
that with masturbating the thoughts of other men or something
like that. Yeah, I mean we should talk about a
few of these specifically. I mean all you have to
do is, uh, look up on a search engine conversion
therapy horror stories, and there are plenty of people out
there saying what happened to them. Yeah, look up also
conversion therapy, super happy fun stories, and you're going to

(37:45):
come back with almost nothing Google zero results. Uh. There
was one teenager who said that he was forced to
wear a backpack with forty pounds of rocks eighteen hours
a day to just signify the physical burden of being
at One person's family gave them a fake funeral, close

(38:05):
casket funeral in front of him, where they said that
he died of aids and they said their final goodbyes
because he went down the sinful path, pretending he wasn't there,
like that he was dead and in the casket, Yes,
talking about him in third person. That's right, um, his family.
One reporter being told to strip naked in front of
a mirror, uh and say disparaging things about themselves. I

(38:27):
just do that normally, though. Well. I did read one
account where they basically said the whole idea is to
break you down to nothing in the worst way possible
and then build you back up again and in the
image that they want. So I get the impression that
that is one route, but that is not necessarily what
you're going to get at any place you go for
conversion therapy. There are other ones that say that's the

(38:48):
problem is we don't know because so many people don't
talk about it. Um. There's some that that like you
would go to that say okay, we're not gonna abuse
you or anything like that. But the base of our
beliefs in this is that you you are gay because
either you had an absent father, a dominating mother, some

(39:10):
combination of the two, or you always like wanted to
be like loved and you know, popular among your male peers,
and you didn't get that. So now you are misdirecting
this need, this unmet need, toward having anonymous gay sex
on the dance floor with some dude in Miami or whatever. Um,

(39:32):
so we need to figure out how to meet that
need and have you hang out with guys who will
tell you how cool you are and how popular you are,
like tailgating or something kind of. And while we're at it,
we're gonna do that by by excending the masculinity. We're
gonna teach you how to be masculine so that you
can't hang out with dudes in the real world and

(39:53):
they will think you're cool. So things like, um, we're
gonna teach you how to change the oil in your car.
We're gonna teach you to sit without crossing your legs,
no joke. Um, there was a guy who teach a
man spread on the subway. There's a guy who's kind
of a prominent thinker. Uh, I think he was. I
saw him as a sexologist, maybe a Christian sexologist. Gerhardt

(40:16):
van den Ardluig. It's pretty great. I think I nailed it.
He said that, um, homosexual men need to unlearn avoidance
of getting their hands dirty doing man manual work like
chopping wood, painting a house using a shovel, and that
I say no thanks to all three chopped wood. That's
kind of fun. It is fun, and that not necessarily

(40:37):
just here's an axe, start chopping wood. You're gonna just
suddenly become cured. But that that is part of it.
And in this thought, this tech where they're not abusing you,
they're not degrading you or anything like that, they're teaching
you masculinity and manliness. That the ultimate aim and goal
of that is to go get married and have a

(40:57):
kid or kids, right, And that that is a a
big part of conversion therapy. It was for a very
long time, was saying you might still be gay or whatever,
but you're not really gay. You're now married and you
have a kid, and that is what you're dedicating yourself.
That's right. You're a wood chopping, football throwing dude with

(41:20):
a pencil than mustache. Oh no, no, not that. So
in nineteen seventy four, we should talk about George Wreckers.
He was a psychologist who uh, who tested um whether
or not this was an effective treatment, and uh, he
had a four He this wasn't his boy, but this
was his His client was a foreigner, I guess clients

(41:41):
a weird way to put it. This child was forced
to go to this person at four and a half
years old, and this is a boy manifesting quote childhood
a cross ginger identity. And they said this is based
on the clothes, uh, that this boy wears. UM. And now,
of course looking at this, it was probably a transgender
child yeah, or gender fluid. Yeah. I mean it's hard

(42:04):
to tell because this and the way they wrote about it,
it's hard to kind of piece it together. Yeah. And
it's also like, just how much of this behavior did
this child exhibit? Like it makes it makes it seem
like this is all the kid did was act like
a girl when he was a boy. What else was
he into? What else? You know, It's just such a
narrow picture of the subject. Of course. So in the end,

(42:24):
records Um did something super damaging. He trained the boy's
mother to be the therapist, Like, here's what you need
to do so this kid can get therapy from you,
and basically punished feminine behaviors reinforce masculine behaviors, uh at
all times. And they said that, hey, this is working

(42:46):
because every time this boy gets punished for doing something feminine,
he stops and like chops wood or throws the football
and gets a reward. So because he's four and a
half years old. He's doing the things that their parents
congrat elate him for and reward him for, and not
doing the things that he's getting punished for. And exactly
punishment is what stood out to me. It's just so

(43:07):
sad that the mother was instructed to reject him, to
basically ignore him when he acted like a girl, but
not ignore him like pretend it's not going on, like
let him know that she is giving him the cold
shoulder and that that's how he learned um. And it's
just devastated. It's heartbreaking. And what's heartbreaking is this is used,
was was used as an example like see this works.

(43:29):
This four and a half year old is now acting
more masculine and is not going to grow up to
be gay. And uh this this child died by suicide
at the age of thirty. Like that's the end result
of this road. That's where it ends up. And that's
what I meant earlier when I said, like it does
kind of work because it follows psychological techniques that actually work,

(43:50):
but it works in like kind of a bent way
where yes, you can train somebody, You can mold a
four year old to behave in a certain way by
conditioning them it's posable. You can get somebody to do
just about anything like that. But the ramifications, the results,
the damage to the individual's identity that will eventually come
out later are widespread and sweeping. And that's the point.

(44:15):
That's why you shouldn't monkey around with somebody's identity using
proven psychological techniques. That's what's so evil about the whole thing. Yeah,
I mean, my daughter's forn to have had a hard
time even getting through this stuff. And then also if
somebody this is the other thing too, if you're a
conversion therapy advocate or activist or practitioner, and that you say, no,

(44:35):
there are people out there who are distressed, who are
experiencing psychological distress for being gay. Yes, that's true. I
guarantee that there are people like that out there, But
directing them towards working on not being gay is not
the answer. Go to regular therapy and learn to love
that you're gay, and go find a church that accepts

(44:55):
gay people. Their step two, because they're out there. Um,
let's talk about the science of it, because to a
decadent society. In two thousand nine, there was a report
from the a p A Task Force on Appropriate therapeutic
responses to sexual orientation. Quite a read, and um, this
was the actual final stance was sexual orientation change efforts

(45:20):
can pose critical health risks to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.
Critical health risks, not emotional not I mean it's part
of emotional health too, but critical health health risks. And
if you read the the review of research and peer
reviewed literature and the findings of what it can result in,

(45:41):
it reads like the worst pharma ad disclaiming you've ever heard. Uh. Depression, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, shame,
self hatred, hostility, dehumanization, betrayal, uh, social withdrawal, substance abuse, stress,
sexual dysfunction, loss of faith, and suicidality. Uh. And on
that last note, homosexual teens attempts suicide more often than

(46:04):
heterosexual teens. And then among those homosexual teens, you're twice
as likely to try that if your parents have rejected you,
and three times as likely if you have undergone conversion therapy.
Three times as likely, yes, compared to a heterosexual team.
That's right, Well, you have it. That was just the

(46:26):
A P A. That a bunch of different associations like
legit medical and psychological associations have come out and condemned
in no uncertain terms conversion therapy and all of their
These condemnations basically follow two different texts. One, there is
no science backing up the idea that you can change

(46:47):
somebody from homosexuality to heterosexuality. And number two, there is
science backing up the idea that trying to do that
causes damage to the individual, So don't do that. And
as a matter of fact, some some countries and um
states in the United States have said, we're this is outlawed.

(47:10):
You can't do this anymore everybody, which is really touchy
stuff because again, the Christian right kind of adopted it,
and um and we don't we don't really infringe on
religious beliefs. But that's how strong these condemnations have been
that they're saying, we'll kind of start to wade into
that with this one. Yeah, and we'll we'll talk about

(47:30):
the legalities of recent years in a sect. But before that,
between the seventies and the A p a S stance
changing things a little bit. Then through the eighties and nineties,
where conversion therapy was really sort of hitting its peak,
I think in America, there were a lot of there
were a few high profile cases that were exposed that

(47:52):
have helped sway things a little bit back to sanity.
So first they were more recent years. Yeah, so before
those high profile cases, and I mean right before him,
I think, in a coalition of church groups got together
and sponsored uh an ad campaign, something like a six
thousand dollar ad campaign, and things like the New York Times,

(48:14):
Los Angeles Times all this and these. This ad featured
John and and I believe Anne Paulk, both of whom
were formerly gay but were now ex gay. And Mary
did and had a kid and said gay conversion helps.
And at the time, there wasn't a lot of inc
on the other side saying actually this is totally discredited.

(48:37):
And it captured everybody's attention. And this was when the
Christian wright came in and said we're gonna make this
huge push in the culture war, and it really worked.
That's when that Newsweek story came out. Yeah, they were
on the cover of Newsweek. He was the he was
a leader of an ex gay organization called Exodus International.
John Pauk was right, and it brought a lot of

(48:57):
poster boy yes and in x that this international in
particular became one of two main umbrella organizations. They were
kind of like the this I saw it put um
the spiritual version of this, the ex Gay movement, and
then something called NARTH the National Association for Research and
Therapy of Homosexuality, was like the scientific branch of the

(49:20):
ex gay movement and um so Exodus International became a
very well known prominent organization in the late nineties, but
within two three years it would be it would basically
be the poster child for how conversion therapy doesn't work
right because John Paulk is gay. In two thousand, just

(49:44):
two years later, he was uh photographed coming out of
a gay bar in Washington, d C. At the time,
he refuted that he didn't refute to do was there?
He said, what you always say, I didn't know it
was a gay bar. I went in there asking for directions.
I saw he went into use the bath room, So
either way, I just read the article. And then they
were like, but you're in there for a couple of hours.

(50:08):
Did you get the directions and use the bathroom? He
clearly says blue Oyster in neon. Have you not seen
the Police Academy movies? That was the name of it.
In the Police Academy, right the Blue Oyster bar uh
and John Pauk we we should say, now lives life
as a gay man and is a chef. He's been

(50:29):
on like some celebrity chef shows and he is, uh
living his best life. He's living his best life from
from what it looks like. So he's no longer married
any longer to Anne. Actually that I don't know, because
there are some well we'll keep going. I don't think
he is, but um, there are a couple of people
that are. There was in two thousand three Michael Johnston. Uh.

(50:53):
He was another person touted as an ex gay success story,
founder of National Coming Out of Homosexuality A. Uh, he
actually was. He was found out to be having sex
with men that he met online and uh infected them
with HIV. Very big deal. And then there's Ted Haggard
of course in two thousand six. Yeah, he was a

(51:15):
preacher um and president of the National Association of Evangelicals,
or was at the time, I guess very much an
anti gay leader in in the religious circles. And this
one sort of unfolded little by little, like m Hey,
this guy came out and said this guy had a
relationship with me for like three years. We did crystal

(51:37):
meth together. And then Haggard came out and said, you
know what I have to admit. I said, I bought
crystal meth, but I didn't use it. I threw it
in the trash because I wouldn't succumb to the sin.
Did everybody said, yeah, he says he did buy crystal meth,
and because I assumed there was proof and he said
that he didn't use it at all. He threw it

(51:58):
in the trash before he used it. Were the other
guy was like, no, we did tons of meth and
head gay sex a lot. He said, I know he's
talking about. I'm like day four of us staying up.
He like freaked out and threw it in the trash,
but then he went back and got it. Uh. And
the proof was that he paid for it by check.
Maybe no, no, probably not. I don't think meth dealers

(52:18):
take checks anymore anything. Uh. And then that was he
was outed by a having a relationship with an underage boy,
a sexual relationship. This is Ted Haggard again. Yeah, and
the boy sued and it was settled by the church
with a dollar figure. I think it's like a hundred
and eighty grand and then finally in two thousand eleven,

(52:39):
Ted Haggard comes out and it's like, all right, so
I did have a relationship with a boy, but we
never touched each other. I just masturbated in front of him.
And in thousand eleven he said, you know what, I'm bisexual.
I'm gonna admit it. I am bisexual, but I am
going to choose to live my life as a faithful

(53:00):
heterosexual husband to my wife. I wonder if after he
admitted that, um it came out as bisexual, what that
felt like, if he felt like a weight was lifted,
or if the anxiety associated with it was just so much,
or you know what his wife knew or didn't know
or thought about it. It would be very curious to

(53:20):
know what that. You know, what life has been like
for him after that. I mean, he's a preacher again,
because I mean, more power to him. If he's like,
I'm a Christian and I'm just not going to have
gay sex, that that's as much a personal choice as
having gay sex, you know. I mean, the whole underage
boy thing, that's a huge problem that I think I'm
hoping was addressed. But I wonder what his what his

(53:43):
life is like now? Oh, I mean he's like I said,
he's preaching again. I think in Colorado. He's probably a
stuff you should know. Listener Haggard right in, we'd like
to hear from me, sir, Uh, you want to talk
about the law, because right now there was one more chuck,
there's a big one, Alan Chambers. Yes. So John Pulk

(54:05):
when he was out at cruising the Blue Oyster in
DC back in two thousand, he was running Exodus International. Uh.
He was replaced a couple of years later by Alan Chambers,
And about a decade after Chambers took over Exodus International,
he said, I'm gay, I've been gay. Conversion therapy doesn't work.

(54:25):
We're shutting down Exodus International, and I apologize to the
l g tb Q community. Yes. So, within about a
decade or so of the Christian Right adopting the ex
gay and conversion therapy pillar post as part of the
platform for their Culture War, UM, the biggest organization, one
of two biggest organizations dedicated to conversion therapy said it

(54:49):
doesn't work. We're sorry gay people for all the damage
we've done. That's a pretty big turn of events. So, yes,
it's still continues. So that led to Yeah, so that
led to a bunch of laws that trying to keep
it from continuing. Yeah, And the laws are basically usually
around miners, saying you cannot force a minor to do

(55:10):
something like this, not Hey, the whole thing is outlawed.
If you're an adult and you want to go do this,
then that's up to you. As of two thousand nineteen,
this year, eighteen states in Washington, d C. And Puerto
Rico have similar bands enacted. UM. And also it's important
to point out that those bands are about the legitimate

(55:33):
scientific community, Like you will have your licensere vote doesn't
say anything about a preacher that you go to, or
a youth counselor or any you know, sort of non
licensed church there. It's only scientists or licensed count counselors
or psychologists or psychiatrists or doctors. I'm sure who can
lose their license if they practice, that's right. But yeah,

(55:54):
that's that's because there's religious freedom. It's UM. I guess
if you can still do that to miners though, if
if it's a religious group doing it, that is what
I'm not sure about. So for them, it depends on
the state. So there was a group or there was
a counseling UM organization called Jonah and Jonah Goldberd and Burke. Yes,

(56:20):
they ran JONAH, which stood for I can't find it anywhere,
I gotta hear Jews offering a new alternative for healing.
Okay UM. They were not only found practicing in New
Jersey UM conversion therapy, so they both lost their licenses.
They were also sued in a civil suit by former
patients for fraud and lost. It's interesting if you think

(56:43):
about it, Wait a minute, if this is not possible,
you're charging people for it. So they had like a
three and a half million dollar settlement levity against them,
but and lost their licenses. But then they just set
up shop under another name, apparently the same year of
the verdict in the civil suit. But for the most part,
if you're a state and you pass a law banning

(57:04):
conversion therapy to minors among medical practitioners or counselors UM,
the courts are going to uphold that law. Yeah, it's
been upheld in California, New Jersey. Most of the challenges
are on the grounds of free speech UM and the
New Jersey UH when they upheld the New Jersey or

(57:24):
maybe it was Maryland. The judge said, uh, we're not
infringing on your free speech. You can say whatever you want,
but you can't practice this therapy. That's different than free speech.
You can believe what you want, to say what you want,
but you can't do this as part of your licensed therapy.
It's the same thing as like if you UM, if

(57:45):
you carry out quack cancer treatments that is harmful, like
you're poisoning your patients or whatever, and like they become
UM they lose the use of their arms and legs
because of a treatment that you gave them for cancer
that the American Medical Association has specifically said is damaging

(58:07):
and harmful. You're totally going to get held accountable for that.
You're lucky to just lose your license in that case.
This is the exact same principle. So UM in because
it deals mostly with miners, are exclusively with miners. The
course of upheld it. But New York City actually is
widely considered to have overstepped its bounds and actually misstepped

(58:30):
in this kind of culture war about conversion therapy in
banning the practice among miners and adults, and that got
New York City sued, and New York City was like, well,
the Supreme Court has actually gotten pretty conservative lately. I
don't know if we should test this. And they repealed
the band as a as a strategy right to keep

(58:52):
it from getting tested in the Supreme Court. But the
Supreme Court could say, no, all laws against conversion therapy
are unconstitutional. You can outlawed or bandon in any form. Yeah,
and I think the Supreme Court already refused to hear
one case which actually upheld the state's outlaw of right
conversion therapy. Yeah. Very interesting. There's a movie I haven't

(59:13):
seen yet called The Miseducation of Camera and Post. It's
a two thousand eighteen film from the two thousand and
twelve novel by Emily dan F. Haven't seen it yet,
but it's about a girl who undergoes conversion therapy. And
it's uh, Chloe Grace Mortz Moritz. I you know her,
I do. I can't put the face with the name,

(59:35):
but I know both. Yeah, you've seen her for sure.
If you want to know more about arrested development, conversion therapy,
all that stuff, you can, well, I guess start researching online.
See what you think. And since I said, see what
you think, it's time for listening to mail. I'm gonna
call this complaint pedantic complaint. I right to complain. Josh

(59:58):
the episode on historic districts, you kept referring to them
repeatedly with the indefinite article and rather than A and
historic district. I said, And that's what he says. That
sounds unusual. I don't usually do that. Really, I guess
I was just being unconsciously correct. So is that correct? Yeah?
So what's the rule? I don't even know. Huh what

(01:00:20):
I just said. That's the rule. That's the rule. What
I say, Okay, I'm trying not to exercise it too
much only when I'm right. Joe says this. I realized
this infuriating practice has become popular in recent years in
the US. I feel passionately that it must be discontinued,
especially primarily by those voices are attended by large audiences

(01:00:41):
like you. You know, are no doubt a where the
letter H as a consonant necessitate, necessity necessitating geez, the
use of the indefinite article A rather than an citation.
All grammar books, ever, I should limit the scope of
my gripe with an important caveat Cockney's. They should probably
continue to say, and because they pronounced it historic. This
guy doesn't even know that the rhyming slanging episode is

(01:01:03):
coming out. How weird. But guys, that's not really right
right today, I love the show. I wanted to tell you.
I wanted to wait for a halfway plausible pretense to
make the email a little more fun, which I hope
this has been any chance on an episode of How
Pedantry Works. Keep up the good work, Joe, He's spoken fun.
It turns out he's good peeps after all. Yes, is
the end before an age? Is that a thing? Oh?

(01:01:24):
You know? That? Is it? Yeah? I think? Um. I
don't know if it's proper or not, but I understand
where it comes from because the vowel that comes right
after the age is usually so heavily pronounced in relation
to how it's pronounced when it comes after other consonants
like an historic and historic district sounds and honor and

(01:01:47):
honor a honor which one sounds better like I was
bestowed in honor the other way? But you wouldn't say.
In high school I had a history teacher that was great.
It's really weird. Did Joe tell you to say that? No,
I just thought of it because historic history teacher. I

(01:02:07):
had a historic Yeah, both work, how about this? We're
both right, Joe trying not to focus on such stupid stuff.
I'm curious if there is I really want another rule
now because I know it's a consonant. But if people
are saying it these days, is that just some sort
of a fighting the system. That's the descriptivist way. The

(01:02:28):
prescriptivist is like, no, it's this way. Joe is the
prescriptivist here, or descriptivists? All right. I think we've proven
ourselves that maybe we should launch a side podcast called
the Descriptivists. That's a good one, almost as like a
Civil War era folk band field to it. We'd have
the curly cues that one. That's fine, We're not going
to do that. We could get fake ones that we

(01:02:50):
just took on and offer publicity fils, right, scout mob
all right. If you want to get in touch of this,
like Joe did, have a little quibble, a little gripe
or praise or whatever, you can go on to stuff
you should Know dot com and check us out. Our
social links are all up there. You can also send
us an email to stuff podcast at i heart radio

(01:03:10):
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