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My Statement re: HB2307 Conversion Therapy Ban in the State of Oregon

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I am a mess at the moment, but this is vitally important to me. I have been getting very little sleep, and too much exercise and rain while without shelter. I'm in Salem today after biking down yesterday.

Hopefully I will be able to share at least part of what I wrote to the hearing.

A state House panel heard testimony on the measure, which is being promoted by Basic Rights Oregon, a nonprofit gay and transgender advocacy group from Portland.

The measure is part of a national push to prevent mental health care providers from practicing so-called conversion therapy. Laws banning the practice have passed in New Jersey, California and Washington, D.C., and a dozen other states, including New York and Florida, are pushing for similar legislation.

Under the bill, social workers and licensed medical health care professionals, such as psychologists or psychiatrists, would be barred from practicing conversion therapy on children under age 18.

My two cents below:

Thank you all for attending in order to hear public comments on this matter.

I am in favor of the ban on conversion therapy. In fact I feel it does not go far enough, these charlatans destroy families and should be incarcerated in proportion to the harm they cause and they should be financially culpable to those they have damaged. These therapists place a psychiatric seal of approval on homophobia and Transphobia for the rest of society. I  have seen it over and again how the children they get their hooks into become less than they are capable of being. Parents throw money away on therapeutic methods that not only have no positive value upon the patients they do a lifetime of psychiatric harm. These grifters exploit the greatest fear any parent can have, that there is something wrong with their child. And for the children their psychological manipulations are even worse, every child wants love and acceptance from their parents and will do anything to gain it. Their actual success rates are abysmal and regardless of outcome the children will need a lifetime of psychiatric care. When these patients become adults they generally go into a self destructive mode, drugs, alcohol, and suicide.

If the child is not receptive to these efforts the children are labeled as incorrigible and these therapists suggest strongly that these children are sent away from their homes, friends and family, ostensibly to eliminate any corrupting influence. These ties essential to normal human development are severed. At these camps the children if not receptive to treatment are beaten, given exercise far beyond what is safe for their developing bodies, and in some cases corrective  rape is used. Children have so frequently died at these facilities that many are now off shored to nearby island states where the laws of this country can not protect them.

There is a phenomena in Mormon communities referred to as ‘lost boys’. These are male children deemed imperfect in some way and considered competition for females of what they consider marrying age. These lost boys are taken to a town away from their home as teens and dumped at the edge of town. They are told if they attempt to come back they will be beaten to death. The constabulary knowing the situation of these lost boys quickly swoop them up, not to provide a loving home and a safe harbor but to jail for usually petty infractions. I see this ‘lost boy’ phenomena with LGBT children as well. Many will need strong positive guidance as teens in order to correct their impaired development. Others go right into self destruct. One young man that sticks in my mind, suddenly appeared in downtown Riverside, California. With no  education, skills, or family to rely upon he turned to survival sex. Within six months he became a walking skeleton with Karpisi’s Sarcoma all over his face, a condition I had not seen since the dark days of the AIDS crisis before the AZT cocktails were discovered to quell the progression of the disease. He soon disappeared, probably to die due to his untreated condition. Every child deserves better than that fate.

My own experience with these methods included physical abuse encouraged by the therapist in order to correct my male identity. I was not allowed to visit certain friends, usually male, my social circle became my cats. I was also forbidden to watch certain television shows and movies lest I get any ideas about an alternative to straightness When I failed to comply I was given ECT shock treatments, this managed to make me complacent enough my parents could get me into a dress for about six months. I was then sent to group counseling and attended until my parents could no longer afford it. I had no clue why I was being sent to therapy, only that I was told there was something wrong with me. A something never mentioned directly, just obliquely “my problem” was the phrase most oft used. I never fully understood why my parents hated me until I was much older and could comprehend it was my immutable characteristics that were offensive to them. As a child I only knew they hated how I dressed, walked, talked, and played.

I feel like a broken person, every day. That feeling of belonging and trust never matured in me because these therapists ensured that it would not in their efforts to try and convince me my gender matched my anatomy. I have no relationship with my biological family and have no desire to. Although outwardly my parents do not directly criticize, I still feel like “Vita Bohem” in Too Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything when her mother recognized her and withdrew her greeting. My trust was irrevocably broken. Not only with my family but with therapists and physicians as well.


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