More and More States Outlawing Gay-Conversion Therapy

Two years ago, in a testimony to the state of New Jersey, Benjamin Unger recounted how he was made to beat an effigy of his mother with a tennis racket. The action was part of a “treatment” meant to curb his attraction to men. According to Unger, a religious organization tasked with turning him straight told him that his close connection to his mother was the cause of his sexual orientation. He stopped speaking to her entirely.

So-called “conversion therapy,” the practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation (almost always from gay or bisexual to straight), has a history of damaging, scientifically unfounded approaches. In , Peter Gajdics being pinned down by two other men as his psychiatrist as well as women in —recount similarly violent, coercive experiences.