Kathmandu (Pahichan) July 8 – sometimes known as \u201creparative therapy\u201d or \u201cgay cure therapy\u201d \u2013 claims to alter a person\u2019s sexual orientation from gay to straight. The practice is based on the mistaken idea that gay people suffer a traumatic experience early in life that has damages them and that homosexuality is a \u201creparative drive\u201d to overcome this early trauma.<\/p>\n
In the UK, practitioners are legally allowed to promote and provide conversion therapy. But, hopefully, not for much longer. The UK government has\u00a0announced plans<\/a>\u00a0to ban conversion therapy as part of its LGBT action plan.<\/p>\n Attempts to \u201ccure\u201d homosexuality were not always couched in the language of therapy. In the early 20th century, medical professionals believed that homosexuality was a birth defect. One \u201ctreatment\u201d involved\u00a0replacing a testicle of a homosexual man with one from a heterosexual man<\/a>. Later methods included\u00a0lobotomies<\/a>\u00a0and chemical castration \u2013 a method used on\u00a0Alan Turing<\/a>, the\u00a0Enigma codebreaker<\/a>.<\/p>\n Homosexuality later came to be seen as a condition that could be \u201ctreated\u201d psychologically \u2013 although this doesn\u2019t mean that the methods used were any more humane.<\/p>\n In the 1950s and 60s, when homosexuality was still illegal in the UK, the NHS routinely used\u00a0aversion therapy<\/a>\u00a0on men convicted of homosexuality in an attempt to turn them straight. If they volunteered for this treatment, they could\u00a0avoid a prison sentence<\/a>. Volunteers \u2013 if they can be called that \u2013 were shown pictures of naked men and given either electric shocks or\u00a0drugs that induced vomiting<\/a>. The aim was to make them respond negatively to their homosexuality and thus to be \u201ccured\u201d.<\/p>\n