'Conversion therapy' often takes place in a religious context but conversion practises can also be carried out by therapists, counsellors, doctors or psychiatrists. Jayne Ozanne shares her experience
‘Conversion therapy’ often takes place in a religious context but conversion practises can also be carried out by therapists, counsellors, doctors or psychiatrists. Jayne Ozanne shares her experience
In 2018, former Prime Minister Theresa May promised that the government would ban this practice. Five years later, campaigners are still fighting for its criminalisation. Here, Jayne Ozanne, a conversion therapy survivor, campaigner and director of the Ozanne Foundation, shares her experience.community in Guernsey. As a child, I didn’t know women could be gay. It wasn’t talked about at school.
I didn’t dare to tell a soul. If I did admit it, I believed I would be seen as “unsound” or “unsafe”. This is what I call my “silent hell” phase. Conversion therapy isn’t always an intensive programme or anything particularly dramatic. Conversion therapy can simply involve religious leaders joining you in prayer, perhaps once a week for an hour, in order to ‘pray the gay away’. In my community, there was a genuine belief there must have been a reason I was gay. Something must have happened to me. Perhaps it was an abusive relationship with a parent or with a friend. They wanted to look for the key that could heal me.
By my late twenties, I was a senior evangelical on the Archbishop’s Council. I was speaking in meetings around the world, and inviting all sorts of senior evangelicals to pray with me and for me. Eventually, I looked for more extreme healing. At this point, my Church didn’t know what to do with me. They had turned their back on me. None of their prayers seemed to be working. It is the fear of rejection by their church, family and friends that keeps so many people caught in this hell. I was an adult going through this but the research shows that over half of the survivors are children. Two-thirds are young adults under 24. These people are trapped in their environment.
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