Conversion Concerns

by Matorma Howard & Layla Charron

Conversion therapy is still happening because their “patients” are forced into conforming to the normalities that society sets for them. In the article Anti LGBTQ 'Conversion Therapy' Fundraisers Are Still Alive and Well On GoFundMe, the author quotes a conversion therapy fundraiser organizer, saying, “I’m disgusted in my own skin and my whole family has thrown me out for my selfish decisions” (Sherman 2020). The author uses a tone that is repulsed + disparaging.

People feel the need to go to conversion therapy in order to “make themselves better”. This matters because it shows that society’s antiquated ideas are causing queer people to feel less important or invaluable. When people put this idea of LGBTQ+ out into the world, not only are they causing straight people to believe that the idea of being gay is bad, causing them to be aggressive, violent, or plain mean to the queer community, but the idea also makes queer people themselves believe that who they are is wrong.

Society teaches gay people that their identity is wrong, causing those people to lack a feeling of self worth. That even those who identify on the gay spectrum are often uncomfortable with themselves enough to try to change. Furthermore, the author uses terms like “disgusted” and “selfish” to convey the feeling of anger at one’s self for being gay.

Conversion therapy is still happening because a lot of people view being LGBTQ+ as an illness that can be fixed. It hurts it’s patients by making them deeply hate and be disgusted with themselves for who they are. The author states, “They were able to turn us against ourselves,” he said. “This is what drew so many people to suicide. We all shared a sense of loathing towards who we were and who we loved. It wasn’t just your regular ‘I hate myself.’ It was a disgust with the person you were and you wanted to do anything you could to change... Watching people disappear just became a fact of life after a while. You got used to it”(Nichols 2016). Here the speaker uses a tone that shows disgust . This tone shows disgust and deep loathing.

Conversion therapy makes them feel disgusted for being who they are, and the goal of the people making them feel this way is for them to loathe themselves enough that they feel like they have to change their sexuality or even die. It shows how much hate the queer youth feel about themselves when they are put into these places. Not only that in these places they are harassed and manipulated into hating their gender identity and conforming to what society expects on them. This matters because conversion therapy is an extremely harmful thing that causes kids to hate themselves to the point they feel like they have to change or even commit suicide, which is why it should not be allowed to exist nor be legal. We should deconstruct conversion therapy and educate more people about it.

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