“Gay cure” constitutes torture and can generate suicidal ideas, experts say

The so-called “gay cure”, also called reversion therapy or conversion to heterosexuality, are practices of torture and, therefore, produce many health problems, including the very construction of suicidal ideas. This is the definition of the president of the Federal Council of Psychology (CFP), Pedro Paulo Bicalho.

Without scientific support, the practice has been prohibited by a CFP resolution since 1999. This is because bisexuality and homosexuality do not constitute a disease or deviation.

“We cannot use morality, moral practices, to say that these are abominable behaviors. It’s important to say: it’s not a disease, but it’s not a deviation either. And, as it is not a deviation, no practice that promotes pseudo-reorientation should be allowed in Brazil, precisely because it produces harm”,

explained.

For him, Brazil needs to recognize the importance of affirming public health as secular health, considering that the practice of gay healing occurs, to a large extent, in the context of religious fundamentalism.

“Today this is a public health problem: the existence of these attempts to annihilate the subjectivities of LGBTQIA+ people, largely driven by fundamentalist churches. Brazil needs to look at this and understand that this is causing serious harm to the mental health of our population, especially the mental health of the LGBTQIA+ population”,

scored.

According to the psychologist, the practice is widespread across the country.

“Right now, while we are doing this interview, there are many people who are experimenting with forms of imprisonment to have their sexual orientation reversed. There are hundreds of Karol Eller out there suffering injuries, psychological torture, imprisonment processes, for the simple reason that it is considered that their guidance is wrong guidance. This is not an isolated case, unfortunately,”

highlighted.

Bicalho referred to the case of Bolsonarista Karol Eller, found dead on October 12th at the age of 36. The case was registered by the Civil Police as a completed suicide. Eller would have undergone a “gay cure” at the Assembly of God church in Rio Verde, in Goiás.

Conservative movement

Political scientist Laira Tenca points out that the country has a context of growth of the conservative movement in the political sphere, at the same time, in which there is a greater presence of evangelical religion in the social life of the Brazilian population. This scenario conflicts with an improvement and guarantee of rights for the LGBTQIA+ population.

“LGBT people are part of this Brazil, which is, on the one hand, an advance in public policies for this population, but, on the other, there is also a movement towards greater vocalization of hate speech, transforming these people into victims, in Ultimately, there is a questioning of the identity and existence of these people. In this scenario, the social organization is there, the church, the pastor, the families drinking these discourses, living with these discourses and other ancient practices as well”,

pointed.

In retreats with a proposal for sexual conversion, Tenca adds that homosexuality and transsexuality are treated as a problem, as a sin, as a deviant attitude, and from then on gay healing becomes more connected with religious discourses, no longer with psychology. The suffering is aggravated, according to her, because there is a search for acceptance and belonging in a space that is constantly questioning the identity of LGBTQIA+ people and producing hate speech.

“In this context, the LGBT person is induced to deny part of their own identity. The impact [na saúde mental] It’s scary because sexuality is part of an individual’s life. Having this sexuality repressed in this way by a religious discourse and by a latent connection between guilt, error, mistake and the impossibility of existing in the world is terrible, it is very severe”,

he said.

She highlights that suicide among lesbian women and lesbocide has increased in recent years and that psychological suffering is part of these people’s lives, due to their own social context and the difficulty of existing.

Gay and HIV cure

Researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and survivor of gay cure attempts, psychologist Héder Bello points out that gay cure practices are related to the moment of the HIV pandemic, in the 80s. At the time, there was the misconception, mainly on the part of the more conservative, religious and fundamentalist community, that the AIDS virus was a punishment from God due to sexual freedom or sexualities that were not within the field of heterosexuality. Such a concept, he reinforces, is completely outside the scope of science.

“Efforts related to gay healing practices initially took place in a contemporary way [desde a década de 1980]with an attempt to reverse the issue of HIV through the mistaken idea that homosexuals and the LGBTQIAP+ population, through their deviant behaviors, produced the wrath of God and, as a punishment from God, there was then the outbreak of HIV in the world” , said the researcher.

Bello has been studying issues related to practices or attempts to correct and reverse sexual orientation and gender identity since 2011. He says that he became involved in this research precisely because he was subjected to such practices for 13 years, from the age of 14 to 27.

There was also an attempt to justify the application of conversion therapies by distorting psychological theories and techniques. They produced an understanding that heterosexuality is the only possible sexuality and that there would be a need for people to go through a process of ‘correction’.

According to the psychologist, gay healing practices in Brazil are currently very diffuse and very plural, being spread by religious groups, educators and people who exercise unregulated professions, such as, for example, clinical philosophy, family constellations and coaches.

“Conversion” techniques

Regarding the techniques used in gay healing, Bello explains that this logic points out that a person only learns to sexually desire someone of the opposite sex if they are well suited to gender roles in society. Thus, she is forced to like things she doesn’t necessarily like and do things she doesn’t want to.

“There are prayers, forced fasting, punishments, physical and psychological torture. There is a social isolation movement, there is incarceration of people so that they do not sexually desire people of the same sex. AND [existe] also a spiritual logic in this sense because, if you ask God and you demonstrate to God your sacrifice, God will do it for you”,

revealed the psychologist.

He also reveals the existence of groups that claim to promote exorcism because they identify that homosexuality is something demonic.

According to the researcher, the scientific community – including the Federal Council of Psychology, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Psychiatric Association – understands that when people go through these programs, practices and procedures of the so-called gay cure, there is an effect iatrogenic [reações adversas causadas por tratamento médico] or negative effect.

“There is no proof that people change their sexuality. On the contrary, sexuality is something intrinsic to the subject, which is part of the subject’s identity. It’s not an option, it’s not a choice,”

he said.

“And these attempts to repair, correct, reverse sexual orientation and gender identity through punishment, psychological torture, forced labor, forced fasting, isolation, prison, compulsory hospitalization, isolation from the family, generate processes of anxiety, depression, disorders of post-traumatic stress, eating disorders, self-mutilation, suicide ideations and attempts”, reported the researcher.

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