How Indians are targeting LGBTQ+ community with 'conversion therapy'

In 2015, when 26-year-old make-up artist Yesu came out to his parents, they first thought it was a joke and laughed it away. But when Yesu repeated in all seriousness that he was gay, a quarrel broke out in the family. Over time, his parents accepted his sexual orientation after considerable efforts on Yesu’s part to educate them about gender identities.

“It took me months to make them understand and accept me. After all these attempts, my parents half-heartedly let me choose my way of life. But still they keep advising me to become ‘normal’,” says Yesu, who now lives with his partner in a separate house.

Yesu is still an exception in India. Most LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and people of other identities) people are unable to come out openly to their parents, let alone the public. “Most parents, irrespective of education, caste and religion, are not ready to accept their children as gay or lesbian. Perceived ‘honour’ plays a role here,” says Yesu.

June is celebrated as ‘Pride Month’ by the LGBTQ+ community every year. But they are still unable to get their rightful place. Yesu says that despite the Supreme Court decriminalising homosexuality, the community is largely stigmatised. “Only those who are financially stable can choose their own way of life. For others who are dependent on parents for education and finance, it is difficult to come out publicly, he says.

Pushed to the edge

This non-acceptance by family and society leads to ostracisation that has led to many taking their lives like in the case of N Jothi (23) and S Priya (20). The lesbian couple committed suicide in Namakkal in Tamil Nadu on May 16.

Jothi had separated from her husband unable to put up with daily quarrels and abuses. At a powerloom, she found a job and a friend in Priya, an unmarried girl. They eventually fell in love. When coworkers came to know about their relationship, the company fired them. The issue soon reached their respective houses. Priya’s parents immediately arranged her marriage with a man. Unable to resist the societal pressure, the two committed suicide at Jothi’s house.

While their lives ended that day, the couple continued to face persecution even in death. A regional media outlet in Tamil Nadu further victimised them and those like them by suggesting that “these kind of abnormalities” can be cured by “conversion therapy”.

Immediate backlash from LGBTQ rights activists forced them to take the article down and issue a public apology. This came only days after Anjana Hareesh, a 21-year-old bisexual college student from Kerala, committed suicide in Goa on May 12 after she was pushed into “conversion therapy” by her parents. In a Facebook video, she had revealed how she underwent inhuman treatment after she informed her family about her sexuality.

Old poison in a new bottle

Conversion therapy is becoming a new way of ‘treatment’ of LGBTQ+ people in India, where once families would their children to temples, mosques or churches or religious gurus and even try black magic or violence like beating the person with a whip, besides prayers.

Practised in the West for long, the method targets the psyche of the person more than the body. The 2018 film, Boy Erased, based on the eponymous memoir by Garrard Conley in 2016, reveals the details of such programmes. In the book, Conley has written about how he was treated in ‘Love In Action’ (LIA) gay conversion therapy programme, headquartered at Memphis, Tennessee. Its 12-point conversion therapy had unique forms of persecution, including electric shocks, being forced to watch gay porn, and even a mock funeral of a gay person.

“Though there are no special schools for such therapy, many psychiatrists practise conversion therapy under different names like personality development and counselling for education,” says Srijith Sundaram, an LGBTQ activist and theatre artist.

Christina Roni, who identifies as bisexual, says promoting such methods will only push young, confused and closeted LGBTQ people into closeting themselves further.

“I come from a middle class a family that has a really close-minded, homophobic and sexist mother and a somewhat-tolerant father. My partner and I fear that a fate similar to the couple who ended their lives and the Kerala girl Anjana awaits us,” she says.

Roni had initially planned on revealing the truth about her sexual orientation to her family during the lockdown, but now has her fears over the possibility of being forced into a pseudo-psychotherapy.

“I fear that my outcome will be more devastating and frustrating,” she says.

“I understand the parents’ dreams of seeing their child getting married. But the child’s happiness isn’t really taken into consideration. They are more worried about what society will say,” she observes.

According to Sundaram, most LGBTQ people who came out to their families faced increased attacks, both physically and mentally, during the lockdown.

Abuse in the name of treatment

The main idea behind such therapies is to make the person feel guilty.

“Earlier, gays, lesbians and transgenders were subjected to physical abuse in public places. But now they are abused on social media. Conventional media like newspapers, TV and cinema too make fun of the LGBTQ community. Those who dare to seek help often face more prejudices,” says Yesu, who is also a founder of Magizhvan, an organisation which provides counselling to LGBTQ+ people.

Some psychiatrists, he adds, instead of helping them offer conversion therapy. “These experts only end up exploiting them financially.”

Sundaram claims that the shock treatment, which was once used on rapists and paedophiles, continues to be used on queer people. “Whether it is traditional methods of conversion therapies such as beating, branding with hot iron or modern techniques like shock treatment, prescribing tablets etc., the violence level is the same, if not higher. Many who underwent such therapies have ended their lives,” he says.

Psychotherapist Magadelene Jeyarathnam, who runs an organisation to counsel LGBTQ+ people who have undergone conversion therapy, says there is no consensus on using such shock treatment even on persons who have mental illness.

But many psychiatrists use it on LGBTQ people. In some cases, people who undergo such therapies are abused sexually too, Sundaram tells The Federal.

He also says that at times, psychiatrists make sexual advances towards them. “The already-stigmatised people have no other way butto bear the brunt.”

Need law against conversion therapies

There is no study to prove that so-called conversion therapy or anything else can change the sexual orientation of a person.  In many countries, such practices have been stopped, and rightly so, says Jeyarathnam.

“It’s not only in Chennai. There are psychiatrists who follow such practices in Coimbatore, Madurai, Theni and Erode. The so-called therapy’s duration ranges from 10-20 sessions. Each session costs thousands of rupees for just 10 minutes.”  Conversion therapy has its effect both physiologically and psychologically, she adds.

“The brain gets damaged when you use ECT (Electro-convulsive therapy or shock treatment). Most people become reclusive thereafter. These have long-term effects and are irreversible.”

According to Jeyarathnam, LGBTQ people are also given high doses of anti-depression tablets. “This will affect the mental health of any person. This is a human rights violation. Unfortunately, they can’t complain to anyone. The law and police discount it as a part of medical treatment. They always rely on the doctor’s statement. Unless the therapy is banned by law, many more lives will be ruined,” she says.