Today is very strange for me. The government has announced it'll ban conversion therapy. 9 years ago I subjected myself to it, going undercover to investigate conversion therapists. No UK journalist had done this before. No one knew what was going on. This is what I learned. 1/
2/ The level of harm and damage done is beyond what you can possibly imagine. I was a journalist. It shouldn’t have affected me. I ended up having neurological episodes – spasms and uncontrollable contortions in my face and other parts of my body.
3/ The neurologist I went to see sent me for brain scans. They found no obvious cause. She said simply, “When there is no cause, it tends to be extreme stress.” But that was just the beginning. You can read about what happened during the therapy here: independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-b…
4/ You can read about the aftermath here: buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwi… But in short I then spent 6 months trying to get my story published. An array of newspapers turned it down. They didn’t get it. The Independent did. It triggered a chain of events that led to today’s announcement.
5/ First I had to get one of the therapists who “treated” me struck off. This took two and a half years. During this, I was attacked by the Daily Mail and even journalists on the Independent. No one helped me – except one barrister called Sarah Bourke.
6/ She worked for me for free for two and a half years. She is a true LGBT hero. She kept me going, kept me afloat when no one was supporting me. We won. What happened next astonished me.
7/ One by one every single mental health body in Britain issued statements condemning conversion therapy. Including the department of health, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. MPs started getting in touch.
8/ Including Geraint Davies – a lovely man who really cared, and really understood. He introduced a private member’s bill to parliament to regulate psychotherapy – and therefore ban conversion therapy. It didn’t go through.
9/ The fact is Gordon Brown wanted to introduce state regulation of therapists and counsellors, but ran out of time and then David Cameron didn't want to. Did you know anyone can set themselves up as a therapist without training or experience and charge people for their services?
10/ Therapy needs to be regulated. After all, art therapists are, but not psychotherapists. Where is the logic there? Above all, conversion therapy does need to be banned. It is abuse.
11/ I have seen, and felt, the damage it does. After my investigation came out, I was flooded with emails from around the world. They told me about the suicide attempts. I saw the self-harm scars.
12/ But in order for the government to ban it, it needs to make a difficult choice – either there's an outright ban on not just therapists but all faith leaders, which has vast implications for religious rights. Or it is restricted to therapists, letting churches off the hook.
13/ The government needs to understand the scale of conversion therapy. It isn’t just restricted to therapists, it infects a range of religious organisations, often in private. In the end, the very idea needs to be attacked.
Love needs no cure.
Love needs no cure.
