George’s story
After conversion therapy, I hid my sexuality for twenty years
I became a Christian at 17, through my friend’s church youth group. My conversion therapy experiences started soon after – one day, I was presented with a check list of sins I may have committed that I would need to repent of. Homosexuality was on that list, and I said that I was gay. I was told that God would never make me gay. Instead, it was the work of demons, and was likely a result of an early life experience.
They told me that prayer would make me straight again, as God had made me.
I agreed, feeling like I had no choice. After all, I loved God, being gay was wrong and it could be cured. They called in the pastor from another church since this was his ‘speciality’. I was naïve. I had no clue this was actually conversion therapy or what it would entail. It involved the laying on of hands and intensive prayer, the casting out of demons, being forced to describe my homosexual experiences and to repent publicly.
When I say I was prayed for, I’m not talking about a quick ‘Our Father’ type prayer. It was lengthy, it was loud, it was two adults shouting and pushing down on my head, forcing me to my knees. I remember being especially afraid of the pastor, who had really piercing eyes. It went on and on and they wouldn’t stop until I said I felt a change. I hadn’t been diagnosed back then, but I now know I am autistic, and the experience was totally overwhelming for me.
There was an expectation that this type of prayer would work, and that it was just a matter of time and repeated prayer sessions until it did. There were 'top up' sessions at events where I would be told that I had spirits that had returned and needed casting out.
The pastor regularly 'saw demons' in me.
The church’s demands that I change myself also extended outside the prayer sessions. I had to change my name because, I was told, George was a ‘masculine’ name. Keeping it would encourage gender confusion in my life and make me more likely to want to be with women. So I became Georgie. I hated it. I used it at church but in my personal life I was George. I still hate it when people call me Georgie – it brings back awful memories from that time. I was forced to embrace the feminine and reject the masculine in the way that I dressed, behaved, even in the friends I had. I was also made to cut ties with my first-ever girlfriend.
Afterwards, I went into total denial about my sexuality and embraced the idea that I had been 'cured'. But at the same time, my mental health bombed, my self-harm increased dramatically, and I was depressed. In 2009 I tried to kill myself. Despite never having slept with a man before conversion therapy, and sex outside of marriage being a sin, by the time I married five years later I had slept with five men. I wanted to prove to myself that I was straight, and I thought it was better to be seen as promiscuous than gay. Plus, self-destructive behaviour was a huge part of my life at that time – and the relationships I had were far from healthy.
When I was 22, I married a gentle, funny man who I still consider to be my best friend. We have four children together. Throughout our marriage I was battling against my sexuality. Sexual intimacy was difficult and has left its scars, despite him being an amazing person. He had no idea that I was forcing myself because I love him, not because I desired him.
The lasting impact of conversion therapy is undeniable. It has taken a lot of years for me to work out who I am, and to embrace that and accept it. It was only last year, aged 38, that I finally accepted that I am gay. In order to accept the person I have always been, I have now broken a good man's heart, turned over my children's world, set off a bomb in my life and been through a huge mental health crash. I am devastated by the pain that’s been caused.
Since coming out six months ago, I have really struggled to talk to God. I was being told that God loved me unconditionally, but also that I had to change.
It gave me so much guilt around anything to do with my sexuality.
Even today, when I know that I am loved for who I am, that guilt is still so hard to shake.
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.