CAROLYN’S story
Conversion ‘therapy’ ruins lives – 50 years on, I still suffer from the pain it caused
I was three years old, playing in the backstreets of Preston, Lancashire, when I first persuaded my younger sister to switch clothes with me. I stood on the front step of my mother's shop and hoped people would see a little girl standing where I stood. I went to sleep hoping someone would invent a brain transplant, so they could put my brain in a more appropriate body. Back then, in the 1950s, I had no words for what I was feeling. I know now that I was experiencing gender dysphoria, and I was in distress because my designated biological sex didn’t match my gender identity.
By the time I was a teenager, my confusion had turned into self-hatred. I knew that society saw trans people as wrong and evil – and I thought that must mean that I was wrong and evil. At the same time as dedicating myself to ‘blokey’ hobbies like rugby and boxing, I grew suicidal at the thought of continuing to live as a man.
I confided in my local vicar, looking for some understanding and support. He took me to see a psychiatrist, who arranged a form of conversion ‘therapy’ called ‘aversion therapy’ sessions at a hospital in Blackburn. At the time, I wanted that – I wanted to be cured of feelings that I felt were abnormal, and that were ruining my life. Now that I look back on it, I wonder: even if I agreed to it, why was it legal for them to torture me?
I still remember clearly the pain of those shocks and the tears that ran down my face.
During the appointments, I was taken to a dark room and strapped to a wooden chair. Doctors gave me painful electric shocks while images of women were projected on the wall in the front of me. I still remember clearly the pain of those shocks and the tears that ran down my face. The doctors were convinced that, if I learnt to associate my gender with physical pain, I’d stop having those feelings.
After that, I really tried to commit myself to living a ‘normal’ life. I got married, had two children and became a teacher. From the outside, everything looked wonderful – I even became one of the youngest head teachers in Lancashire. But, whenever I remembered the treatment I’d had, I would start physically shaking. In that sense you could say that the therapy ‘worked’, in that it affected my body. But, in terms of my mind, and my thoughts, it only made me hate myself more.
The treatment didn’t stop, or even decrease, my feelings of dysphoria.
The treatment didn’t stop, or even decrease, my feelings of dysphoria. I struggled with it for decades – it was only in the early 90s that I started taking hormones. This meant that my body on the outside finally started to align more with how I felt on the inside. Even still, I didn’t feel I could tell anybody at work about my identity. And while my family were accepting and kind, they didn’t fully understand. They loved the version of me they’d always known, but that person didn’t feel like who I really was.
It was only when I retired early – aged 55 – that I felt I could live openly as myself. And while things got so much better, the memories of aversion therapy still haunted me. 40 years later, I’d still have flashbacks from my aversion therapy sessions.
I didn’t need or deserve that treatment; I deserved and needed acceptance.
Nothing can take away the harm inflicted on me in the past, but we can make it better for the present and future. Conversion ‘therapy’ is barbaric and does not work. I didn’t need or deserve that treatment; I deserved and needed acceptance. I now have that, despite the damage that was inflicted on me.
Today, I don’t have any dark secrets. I don’t have to hide who I am. But I still carry the pain and scars of not being accepted, of feeling ‘evil’ and ‘wrong’ for so many years. I had hoped that, by 2021, nobody would be being offered, or forced into, so-called conversion ‘therapy’. But, until we have a legislative ban from our government, LGBTQ+ people will remain at risk.
Take action to ban conversion therapy.
If you have been a victim of so-called conversion therapies, or are worried you’re at risk, please give the National Conversion Therapy Helpline a call or email.
Galop's expert LGBT+ team are here to support.
The National Conversion Therapy Helpline is open 10:00-16:00, Monday to Friday on 0800 130 3335, or you can email CThelp@galop.org.uk.