Hello Tumblr. My name is Alex. I identify as FTM Transgender and I survived EX gay conversion therapy.
I’m here to tell my story-
A while back in 2011 for my 11th grade year of high school, my mother sent me to a Christian private school called Calvary Chapel. That was bad enough on its own with the constant states and remarks, being accused and disciplined for acts I didn’t do, and rebelling against the uniform code to wear pants instead of a skirt.
Calvary Chapel was a bad enough place on its own but I also soon came to find out they held ex gay conversion therapy there courtesy of Exodus International, a cult which luckily closed its doors a couple years back because the main man admitted he still likes dudes.
Let me put it out there that I like women and was out as lesbian at the time, but secretly I identified as Trans because If I had come out as Trans to my family I would probably be DEAD.
So my mother literally tricks me, tells me we’re going out to eat and then instead takes me to my school. I knew what was up so I started to run. She chased after me grabbed me, held me down and dragged me into the conference room, and said “you better change your disgusting sinner ways” and left me there with this older blonde woman staring at me.
I had no idea what the hell was happening so I said “where am I!?” The women said “you’re going to be converted to being straight by me, your mentor. Your mother thought it would be best to put you in gay conversion therapy” immediately I rose up and screamed “I was FORCED to go here you can’t make me!” The women said “your parents have every right to bring you here and there is no law stating they can’t they’re doing what’s best for you and your soul.” By that time I was about freaked out and ready to go, but instead I broke down crying my eyes out for the rest of the session basically staying silent otherwise.
Future appointments consisted of me going straight to therapy after Christian school. Hiding my face incase anyone knew where I was going. Therapy was starting to shame me.
Normal every day therapy would be starting out reading a verse from the bible, reciting it three times and asking God for my forgiveness. Then we would go over my conversion homework (which I will get into later), then she would make me lay down on a table while she prayed over me. She would ask me things like “have you had any lesbian urges?” “What do you think God thinks of those?” “What will happen if you act on those urges?”
Afterwards she would sit me down in front of a computer and make me watch some type of hypnotism therapy. Daily, it was over and over “you will go to hell if you are gay” “why would you want to live the gay lifestyle” it also literally looked like hypnotism on the screen, not only that but the women would hypnotize me herself, which is partially why I’m having trouble recollecting my memories of this. A lot of it I blacked out during.
Onto the homework. The homework consisted of huge pamphlets that I would have to read every day. All of stories of gay people who fell to their sin, or people who successfully “became straight”. After every story I would have to answer a page of questions such as, “what should John have done to control his homosexual urges” and “what would you have done in his situation” “WHY is homosexuality a sin and what will happen if you act on it” being as scared as I was at the time it actually started getting to me. For a while I rebelled and wrote “nothing nothing nothing” or “homosexuality isn’t a sin” but eventually I became afraid, the “therapy” started “working” and I wrote things like “I will go hell” “that character died and became a drug addict because they were gay” “that character went to college and got married because they were straight” and so on.
One time I asked the woman who was counseling me, “have you ever been gay?” She gave me a long look and said, “never tell anyone.” “I used to be a lesbian but now I’m married.” I said, “have you ever even kissed a girl?” She said “no”. Right then she lost credibility to me that and it was sad.
After every session she would make me read from the bible the verse where it says something like “nor the murderers, adulterers, or homosexuals, ect will enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Don’t you like my word for word quote? Lol
But seriously halfway through the year I hauled my ass out of there and stopped going because it started to have effects on me negatively. I became more suicidal, and the effects still last on me to this day.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night crying to my girlfriend asking her if I’m going to go to hell. I’m tied down by religion because I’m afraid of going to hell. This stuff did some serious damage to me, and although it might not be as bad as some of the stories out there I wanted to give people a look into what leelah alcorns life may have been like. When I heard of her passing I thought “that was me”.
That’s why I want to put an end to conversion therapy! I need leelahs law to be passed! Please share my story. I want as many people to know the horrors and dangers of conversion therapy as possible.
