Here & Now

'Conversion Therapy' Survivor Shares Dangers of the Practice

Frederica Freyberg:

A ban on so-called conversion therapy has been lifted in Wisconsin. Republican majority members on a legislative committee blocked licensing rules banning therapy designed to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people. Marisa Wojcik has more.

Marisa Wojcik:

Lawmakers lifted the ban despite conversion therapy being deemed harmful, ineffective, and non-evidence based by the state’s examining board of therapists and counselors.

Mathew Shurka:

What makes it so harmful is that you are trying to change something that is not changeable.

Marisa Wojcik:

Mathew Shurka, co-founder of Born Perfect, tells his story of conversion therapy as a cautionary tale.

Mathew Shurka:

A lot of parents really are being duped in a way.

Marisa Wojcik:

Including his own.

Mathew Shurka:

They wanted to speak to a licensed professional who could guide them as parents and myself as a young man.

Kelda Roys:

It’s about protecting consumers from harm so that they’re not paying money and thinking that they’re getting a legitimate therapy or treatment, and actually what they’re getting is something that has no therapeutic value and is actively harmful.

Marisa Wojcik:

Starting when he was 16, Shurka and his family spent five years and $35,000 to be told a litany of reasons why he wasn’t normal.

Mathew Shurka:

The first steps in my diagnosis was that I was not allowed to speak to my mother and two sisters, which lasted three years. Someone who’s in a professional setting is just like pulling irresponsibly these diagnoses that I have to explain or try to rationalize that what I’m experiencing is not real.

Marisa Wojcik:

Survey data from the Trevor Project found that 44% of LGBTQ youth in Wisconsin seriously considered suicide in the past year. And those who underwent conversion therapy, or warned of the possibility, were more than twice as likely to attempt suicide.

Mathew Shurka:

I think this is where the suicidality comes in. This is where the running away from home, because every LGBT person I’ve ever spoken to knows they never changed.