It sounds like a historical horror, but ‘treatment’ for sexual orientation remains legal in most of the world, including the UK
Mathew Shurka was 16 when he sat down with his father and told him he was gay. Brought up in a conservative New York suburb, the youngest child in a secular Jewish family and the only son, he was “terrified”. But, in that highly charged moment, the reaction was good. “He said: ‘I love you. I’m going to be on your side, no matter what,’” Shurka says. “He created security, which is what my father does ... He said: ‘Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.’”
What he meant was he was going to try to “cure” him. Shurka’s father started talking to psychotherapists in New York. Within a week, he had found one who insisted there was no such thing as homosexuality, that everyone is born heterosexual and “same-sex attraction” is the result of childhood trauma or dysfunctional familial relationships.
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