OutCasting; Conversion therapy - part 3 of 4

set you philadelphia lawyer says the largest public conversion therapy is that their suicide rates are astronomical compared to those who was not controversial therapy and is in large part because you feel like a failure as your family the vision failed to do what they hoped to set out to do but you absolutely feel like you could do what your god and your family and you want to just change now i understand there is nothing to change but back then it was debilitating depressing this is our past in public release of the beatings program we don't have to be queer figure out testing is reducing your idea for the public good online at how casting your double high on foreign on this edition of our testing we continue our conversation about conversion for the practice of trying to change someone's sexuality from gay or bisexual streak homosexuality you see be defined as a mental disorder

and they psychiatrists used to practice conversant there the practice is now widely discredited within the medical and mental health professionals are they still exist throughout the country usually associated with religious institutions rather than medical institutions what actually happens during these practices have on people and the priest edition's about casting our guest was jack drescher a gay psychiatrist psychoanalyst in private practice in new york city russia has been working with lgbt q patients for over thirty years and writing about conversion therapy for over twenty years if you miss it on the air you can listen to his interview on a website asking media power thatcher's interview is a technical perspective on conversion therapy now we turn to the person story of sam printing was subjected to conversion therapy as a child and survived to tell about

sam who uses gave them pronounce founded and leads the fifty bills fifty states campaign which aims to bring legislation that bans confirms that there'd be all fifty states they talked with the pastor andrew this is part one of that interview series will conclude next month with the rest of the injuries interview with sam and the discussion about the assumptions about lgbt q i fancied that fuel the perceived need to turn gay people straight seventeen thanks so much for joining us again how i did find in prison for the conversion therapy is dangerous and discredit it out that you can change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity it takes a lot of different forms sometimes it is physical what we call a reverse of therapy where you try to associate band negative feeling more stimulus with something that has to do with the situation in change sadly it still practiced all over the country it's still legal to put children

to this barbaric process oh what methods heavy lifting is simply isn't it conversion therapy takes on different methods from seoul a different practitioners who were all trying to use snake oil to treat their families into thinking that they can actually change a child so some of those methods included sheet being applied or holding applied to other hand certainly you associate that feeling with what we might be seeing on the screen other changes the spring the gay away so sitting in church office tried to pray sometimes this is being sent to a camp where persons taught to act more manly or awkward family depending on the set they were assigned at birth to try to stereotype a person into her sexuality it's all snake oil and all wrong but it takes a lot of records which makes it so hard to stop and something that isn't therapy is forced upon children by their parents and sometimes unwilling

adults seeking out so can you tell us a bit about these two types of situations and the similarities and differences between them yeah so conversion therapy is a cultural phenomenon where because the option exists people think they have to take so for some parents they will force their child into christian charity either directly or indirectly so sometimes they basically say well if you don't go through conversion therapy you can't live in this house or if you don't go through conversion therapy we will pay for school anymore this will force the child to basically commission thirty two houses didn't until live for an adult this can sometimes just be an option or way out is a sculpture telling them that they're not right with er and that there's something to change this is based on historical ideas that you people were or sick or had mental health challenges thankfully back in the nineteen seventies every major medical association importance or saying that being lgbt q was

a natural part of our biology and natural part of existence and it was cultural pressure that actually causes a lot of the parts so it's fascinating to think of conversion therapy as both an option and has a forced out practice but it just really depends on what your situation is where you are does that mean that you think that conversion therapy should be allowed to exist as long as it's consensual even if it's not gooden that's a really good question i'm not saying that i think it should exist i'm saying that it currently does and basically with a changed the national conversation around for security so that it doesn't even seem like an option so getting injured and suri how accepting of lgbt q people with the environment you grew up people have always existed sometimes even celebrated sometimes even heated just really depends on the day and the location the scene was kind of true for my story i didn't even know i was coming

out when i told my family that i was really attracted to the bleep store because we hadn't talked about it didn't talk about sexuality and so it wasn't that it was he was just not the thing except for ones i had come out as you know lighting the boy i was immediately and quickly punished for that attraction my father became very physically abusive and it would lead to my mother leaned to conversion therapy to try to fix me thinking that would solve this problem so i guess i came to say that it was from indifference to shore hatred of my sexuality in an instant do you think that your parents responses were representative of most peoples impressions of what it meant to be lgbt hewitt was like well that's a great question and

i think my story is typical of many who finds that when confronted with an oppositional reality to what hurt her presupposes the fear takes over that anger takes or so i think it's a common reaction first their way to be hurt by this idea that a child is not taken they would be and it's how they manage the kurds that matters that's the harder i think my family didn't brawl but some families to do it right seventy thousand more about what your parents' reactions were when they found out about your sexuality sure when my friends all started to be really attractive to a car battery magazine that we found it in the trash i thought i was so when registered to a factory but until my dad that i was attracted to when a store in the same kind of way no one thousand but not realizing just how much of a stand my parents would see him as my father became extremely physically

abusive and no one could protect me because i was the son of missionaries and so my parents were fine upstanding people i'm walking to our commissioner's office with another of her past because this was going to be better than physical abuse it was and i was told by my christian there is the alaska child left alive that the government had come to enjoy the everyday child when they were found and then i was told that the reason fountain killed was because hasan i probably isn't to america and so i now have bees this is clearly not true as well but it was great fear mongering and then to put icing on a horrible take the commercial there is a reason to speed

visit to america was because they were abominations and i'll understand understood until he said the word abomination i knew exactly what that was because i was very very unlikely that i knew exactly the abominations were hated by god and that that night was headed by god it was beyond devastating it would move from that both talk therapy into physical therapy physical aversive their excuse me the hat you would start with my hands in place in case what pictures of men holding hands were shown on a screen so super cold i was feeling the images that i've seen when that wasn't enough wires are run through my hands and he was turned on when pictures of management or show and he was turned off pitches and manage your show isis is a sea of painted with men

and their comfort with women and then when that wasn't enough it wouldn't electroshock with needle stuck into my fingers and images of men having sex with men playing across the screen it was horrifying is the only word for a i screamed for my mother to make it stop what she loved me so much and thought she was protecting me and so she let that horrible conversion therapist do horrible things to you so how easy or hard was it for your parents to find an axis contingent on you i'll never know for sure but it was very simple because of a lot of big national organizations that helped facilitate this so during the legendary cult exodus international which had numbers in every single state and basically hold families and friends

finding commissioners for a person i dont know if my therapist was from athens international but i do know that there were thousands of corrosion terrorists even today we can easily tracked hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of all over the country and so it wasn't too hard so did you know when to resist being sent to conversion therapy that's an interesting question resisted internally but not her very extremely loud and how very much an option i didn't want to go back it hurt but my parents kept saying about us that you know sometimes pain is needed to solve it hurts only run a mile write it at prisoner muscles when you lift weights babies are the way on face muscles were being tested

it desperately wanted our parisian there be but because it's really an option to get out it had multiple suicide attempts i never thought it could take a lot of pills and go sleep another wakeup enter inside of the two advil it took three until thinking that that would be enough and it wasn't as what it kind of gave me this idea i had to keep trying and so when will we didn't find me up on the roof about to jump and if you would just change i was so heartbroken but i told her that i had been healed so that the pain would stop and immediately decommissioned air base about it is if everything was ok all over again this is about casting public korea's lgbt q news program produced in

new york by new media for the public good online at our passing via dot org and the sedition outcast are andrew's talking with sam clinton who was subjected to conversion therapy as a child and fifth to tell about sandy's as they can pronounce and is now an activist working to ban conversion therapy nationwide so how long were you in a verse was it was a residence or were you living at home and is going they're intermittently i was going about every other week when they started what was eerily sings it with religion and their religious community that your parents her partner my faith was very strong in my convictions were very very strong and they never really stopped even all through conversion therapy i would leave it at one point when fellow christians would show me for being gay the second time now

that i basically always for all my life and a person who believed that he has a really important part of my life and how i interact with the world so it was a very very large portion of how i view the world and how i worked to get better so how did that seems as you went through conversion therapy it didn't i felt that i was the center but that if i tried hard enough i could become close back again with god so when you're in conversion therapy does you have any sort of congress facing did you have with the people who are administering it in the conversations with my conversion tourists range the gamut so sometimes i was a horrible center who usually pre order sometimes at one is all washed science of my mother was too overbearing my father was too distant sometimes it was the introspection why did i feel this way

why do you think i would ever create some minor sinful as you why do you think you made it through my goal to change me and this is different from the work that we do now which is affirmation letting someone know that they're beautiful but we are and that we all have work to do to support mental health but that our sexuality in terms of her our love is beautiful but that's not what i was here to harry's you react to what they told you at the time i believe every word i truly fought that my conversion therapist was doing everything he could hold me and i wanted to my car so what effect did that have on you oh you feel like a failure this is the largest public conversion therapy is that suicide rates are astronomical compared to those who have not gone

to conversion therapy is in large part because you feel like a failure and only does your family because you failed to do what they call to set out to do but you similarly feel like you couldn't do what you're god your family and you ultimately want to do which was to change now i understand there was nothing to change but back then it was debilitating depressing disease how your parents or anyone else what it was like i am still remember telling my family very much they have to know i lost weight i became extremely agitated all time high would cry constantly have tons of nightmares but we didn't really talk a lot about what happened in theory it's off because the records and they could tell me i have to help myself did you ever ask your parents to stop singing

and i think they knew they thought at all and they were hoping and so they kept kicking back thinking that this was the best course of action does when to save their child more soul do you have have any support oh gosh in two years that didn't really think through i had so many nice for i sought sought for forgiveness and on it's like couldn't sleep because of how i felt about existing there was always that boys back of my head saying that

i still a purpose right that i was i was worthy of love i think it's why i work at the trevor project now is the safety of air i have a purpose i i had something to get out i just had to get through through this horrific part of my life that didn't ever have to happen to very clear that i did not need to survive that an artist do what i'm doing now how but there is something to be said for god god helping me understand that i was so worthy of love that that wasn't coming from my family that wasn't coming from my friends that wasn't coming from my therapist those coming from something ends many people mocked me to have something that was an important part of me through those those horrible horrible years were

you in any way connected with the lgbt q community at that point absolutely not no i did not know a single egyptian prisons is to set against mean you also didn't have any interaction with any other reason to be patient the correct i was not in sentencing will see like those group therapy sessions and i was never that would have destroyed the idea right that one of their program was built on the idea that i was the only one left on surfaces i wouldn't let somebody else that would've gone out the window i never even remember seeing someone before or after me come into or out of the airbus office that's an interesting thing i just first prisoners to i just have never seen another person going out of office it's all in me to pose a fleece and correct the idea that i was the only one bs are never want to tell anybody that was the thing i had friends over

miami of this that when i got to college i still thought i was the only divorced left alive and so when i heard someone say that they were a lesbian ice literally screamed at the top of my lungs trying to break into your drives around me they thought that this person was about to die was trying to say and my friends just so confused and i'm all like i know you're not the only one that we've all arrived we always thought you were damaged but you do and there was this i cannot shower a clear because it was thinking that you were the last a person left alive there weren't other gay people which is a lot of us in isolation with the isolation was mandatory right like it wasn't iq how it ever existed is that you no longer existed your people have been killed and so my idea why certain me

every single tried every single product that i ever go to now i just cry because it's all to the idea that isolation it worked he touched upon the full about how did he finally get out of condition there be i would like to another under a suicide attempts to tell her that i was no longer day ends instantaneously the conversion therapy stocks and i was allowed to resume my life inside a difference i think they were very relieved i'll never know for sure but i definitely saw a lot more i think my mother probably a new that i haven't really changed that was just they shouldn't have to hear me crying all time to think if he could pretend that change is exactly

that that life a letter to hurt the rebel a suicide did conversion therapy have on yourself in in certain aspects of your mental health conversion therapy how desolate it as any so self respect for self confidence in that part of my life and i threw myself into my studies would get full rides into tons of universities ins that was kind of telling me and i took for girls to crawl because my parents were nervous that i would potentially something wrong with the one girl and so as i was valedictorian i took the next three girls who were in line with me and also to drop it was like right and it's fascinating because it's not

completely i shattered it was just that actually didn't think that that party well i could exist so it's significantly better now i work of lgbt activism so clearly it's gotten better now but there's this interesting part of my life that always troubles that what would've happened if all of those years wasted time of doubts in my own identity my own existence i'm getting married it's going to be beautiful moment where my conversion therapy will be shattered into a trillion pieces but imagine how much simpler this wedding could've been if i never had to come back from such trouble really that's the weird part is that also i mean i don't know the whole time but he doesn't just a promotional stars in this

physical scars i was so young that my brain associated everything that i was that was happening to me as as as natural and as normal and so i told you about the electric shocks i still every single time i hold my fiance scams i still feel price of electricity because my brain was so young and i thought this was what every judge will be for the rest of your life now that's not one story i don't want to make anyone story any less powerful but i peeled within seconds of my first kiss because it was so painful it's no longer nearly as painful and i'm jerry i told you about trial gender to have a sexual person like i know who i love it how i am but it doesn't mean that it doesn't

have consequences that were centered it doesn't have consequences so sounds like even though you are it was a little beagle ever be fully recovered but that that's a critical to aim for in actuality a it's very weird to say but i like to think of myself as broken glass broken glass can still be beautiful when in the form of steam glass cathedral windows right like it always be broken but that doesn't mean that i mean anyone care reform at a time of continuing conversation takes time thank so much all that and this has been part one of our interview with the same parents and the same was subjected to conversion therapy as a child and live to tell about it the same he says they've been pronounced and is now an activist working to ban conversion therapy nationwide this interview along with the earlier

parts of our series on conversion therapy is available on a website app testing this program has been produced by the hour passing team including the participants and alex and drew that's a roaring lucas that's the plain truth our executive producer is mark silva's outcast seen as producing you're buying you for the public that more information is available at how trusting meeting dot org you'll find the information about the show recently store all about passing content and the podcast we are passing is also on social media to connect with us on twitter this is a grant if you're having trouble whether its at home or school or just with yourself call the trevor project taught by six six for eighty seven repeats six or visit them online at the trevor project dot org the trevor project is an organization

dedicated to lgbt q youth suicide prevention call that if you have a problem seriously don't be scared even had an online chat you can talk to them on the phone again number is eight six six forty seven three eight six being different isn't a reason to hear or hurt yourself or at the same time he's six six forty eight senate aide six or online at the trevor project dot org you can also finally got our site at passing me a dot org under passing on cbc tv smith i'm sorry thanks for listening