When Mathew Shurka came out to his father at age sixteen, he got the reaction many LGBTQ+ teens would hope to hear: “I love you no matter what.”
But soon after, Shurka’s father began to think about how to best handle this revelation. “It was literally the next day that my father had his own panic of what it meant to have a gay son.”
Despite all mainstream medical and mental health groups viewing conversion therapy as an extremely dangerous and ineffective practice, there is no nationwide ban on attempts to “cure” LGBTQ+ people.
Without Shurka knowing, his father arranged an emergency family meeting. While Shurka’s mother and two sisters were more or less OK with his sexuality, his father remained riled over his coming out and reached out to a therapist for support.
“He found a therapist who explained to him that there is no such thing as homosexuality and that because I was so young and sexually inexperienced, it would be easier to overcome these feelings,” Shurka tells The Progressive, recalling the events that transpired in 2004.
Shurka’s father hadn’t heard of conversion therapy before meeting this therapist and thought the sooner the treatment began, the better. “[My father] saw it as an opportunity to give me an actual chance to live a good life, a ‘normal life,’ ” Shurka says.
What started as a “quick fix” for Shurka’s sexuality turned into a five-year ordeal. In a bid to remove women role models from his life, Shurka couldn’t speak to his mother and sisters for three years. During this time, he had severe anxiety and contemplated ending his life on many occasions.
After turning twenty-one, burned out from the years of therapy that had attempted to change his sexual orientation, Shurka began his journey to living as a proud gay man. Now thirty-two, he uses his experience of the intense harm conversion therapy can cause to advocate for an end to this practice across the United States through Born Perfect.
Created by The National Center for Lesbian Rights in 2014, the Born Perfect campaign works to stop conversion therapy and “ensure that every child knows that they are born perfect.” The effort brings together legal experts and conversion therapy survivors to spread awareness of the distress caused by this widely discredited practice and to empower victims and their families.
“Many people think that practices like this don’t happen in more urban or coastal communities in the United States, but it’s just not true. It’s still happening in every part of our country and around the world.”
Despite all mainstream medical and mental health groups viewing conversion therapy as an extremely dangerous and ineffective practice, there is no nationwide ban on attempts to “cure” LGBTQ+ people; only twenty states have banned conversion therapy for minors. Born Perfect is working to introduce conversion therapy bans and fight against pro-conversion therapy bills being passed.
Since its founding, Born Perfect says it has influenced laws in eighty-five cities and twenty states to prevent licensed therapists from performing conversion therapy on minors.
In February, Shurka testified against a bill in the Arizona Senate Committee on Health and Human Services that sought to protect therapists from being held accountable for undertaking so-called conversion therapy. This bill was prevented from advancing.
But in March, the Wisconsin legislature passed a bill to allow therapists, counselors, and social workers to continue to perform conversion therapy.
According to Shurka, the most prevalent conversion therapy today is talk therapy, whether it's done by a licensed professional or a religious counselor who may not be licensed. Cases of electric shock aversion therapy are still reported occasionally, according to Shurka, but the numbers are extremely small.
Even as there has been a marked decline in overt conversion therapy being observed by Born Perfect, proponents of the practice are finding different ways to conduct these practices.
“At the moment, there seems to be a rise of conversion therapy in the same way that you can see conspiracy theories on the Internet growing,” says Shurka. “We’re seeing conversion therapy groups growing their following on Facebook and Instagram. Right now, we’re at more than 2,500 individuals, who we’ve either received a direct claim from or, through our research, we believe they are doing conversion therapy in the United States.
James Guay runs a successful psychotherapy practice in West Hollywood where he helps members of the LGBTQ+ community overcome the trauma of conversion therapy, which can last for many years after the experience itself. His work, too, is informed by his personal experience
“I went through the whole ‘conversion therapy’ process in high school and began getting out of the programming from that cult-like experience at the age of twenty,” Guay says. “It took a long time to unpack and understand just how many different impacts it has had on my life.
After Guay trained to become a therapist, he specialized in working with LGBTQ+ populations in his private practice and continues to do advocacy work by providing workshops and training for other therapists.
For the more than 700,000 people in North America who have gone through conversion therapy, the issues it raises can be complex and interlinking. “It often leads to depression, anxiety and relationship issues,” Guay says. “By rejecting your sexuality in one way or another it can lead to all kinds of problems like substance misuse and suicidal ideation.”
Amy Whelan, senior staff attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, notes a common misconception regarding convrsion therapy.
“Many people think that practices like this don’t happen in more urban or coastal communities in the United States, but it’s just not true,” she says. “It’s still happening in every part of our country and around the world.”
An experienced civil rights attorney, Whelan in 2018 represented conversion therapy survivor Kate McCobb in a lawsuit challenging a conversion therapist under a California state law prohibiting consumer fraud. After winning a couple of smaller battles within the case, Whelan says they were able to resolve the case with the therapist.
Using existing consumer protection laws that are already on the books can help protect LGBTQ+ youth and adults alike from these practices, as well as educating the general public about the tangible damage caused. Just as Shurka’s father was unaware of conversion therapy until speaking to a therapist, many parents who reach out for psychological support when their child comes out will be unaware of the extent to which these practices are harmful.
“When a parent who’s contemplating sending their kids to conversion therapy does a Google search and the first thing that comes up are all these lawsuits, legislations or stories from brave survivors, the more likely it is that parent will make a different choice,” says Whelan.
By providing parents access to the resources they need when they are at a critical point in their decision making process can mean the difference between a child being subjected to conversion therapy or growing up comfortable with their sexuality.
As Whelan put it, “If you’re going to tell somebody that you can cure something that can’t be cured and you’re going to take money for that kind of quackery, it’s no different under the law than selling snake oil.”