UK slams LGBTQ+ ‘conversion therapy’ – but no ban is in sight
When Alex came out as gay, the 15-year-old’s parents issued a stark ultimatum: undergo so-called ‘conversion therapy’ or clear out of the family home in the northern English city of Wakefield.
Alex chose option one and underwent multiple sessions with elders from the family’s Jehovah’s Witness congregation, seeking a ‘cure’ for homosexuality. “It was a series of sessions based around how I was broken and needed fixing.
How I was dirty and needed cleansing. I still feel the effects of it to this day, in my lowest moments,” Alex, who is non-binary and uses the pronouns they/them, told Openly by phone.
Alex – not their real name – is now 20, and one of hundreds of thousands of Britons to undergo ‘conversion therapy’, a process that can range from prayers to counselling.
