Current Event Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/us/gay-conversion-therapy-faces-tests-in-courts.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&ref=homosexuality.
Conversion therapy….this is something that was supposed to
go out with the demolishing of most of the archaic mental institutions in the
1970s. This is apparently not so. In November of last year four gay men sued a
counseling group for promises of conversion from gay to straight. Instead, they
received treatment that was deplorable. This issue is very important to us as a
group because it helps prove the fact that through all these years
discrimination is not dead. While one would believe that homosexuals were made
that way, others would have you believe that it was the environment that they
were born in. This counseling group believes in the nurture argument. It was
the parent who made the child the way they were. Mom was overbearing and Dad
was weak. It must be their fault.
As we have been discussing in class this week (and reading
in class this week), there are these social constructions and politics that
initially set up our standards. In this case the institution is very literal.
Counseling groups are considered to be the equivalent of past mental
institutions. Gibson Meems in his “Towards Liberation” discusses the
institutions of the past. He calls these psychiatrists “The Gays are Sick
Shrinks.” While it has been known for a long time that certain people believe
that homosexuals are suffering from a mental disorder, this is further proof
that people are not done being prejudice. With the Genderbread Person hand-out
we were given this week, we are taught that gender is a little dash of this and
a little dash of that. These people who believe that homosexuality is a
weakness do not believe this. To them if you do not fit into the sexual norm
and don’t perform your duties based on your sexual organ downstairs then you
are sick. There is something wrong with you.
Again, it all goes back to the cycle of oppression. If we
grow up seeing what is “normal” and what is “abnormal” then this could affect
the way we see those that we have put in the second group. These institutions
whom we are supposed to go to help (science, medicine, and psychiatry) are
telling those that fit outside the box that they are not fit for society so
there must be something wrong with them. Children grow up seeing this and
eventually they understand when they fit in and they don’t. Unfortunately some
of us take that and become these people who create conversion therapy. Not only
are they making these people feel as if they are something bad, but they are
also telling them to whip pictures of their mothers while they are naked. To me
this just sounds like humiliation. This goes right back to others forcing
others to fit their ideal of the person whom they believe must fit in society.
Conversion therapy is wrong. Although fictionalized, I was
watching a TV show called “American Horror Story” in which one of the lead
characters is a strong woman who happens to be a lesbian. She is in a mental
institution and is given conversion therapy. It was very sad to watch and
gruesome. I looked it up and found that these were real things they did back in
the 60s. It made me so sad. Then I found out that in a different form it was
becoming available today only today they can get sued. Back then they would not
have been able to sue anyone. They would have been considered aliens. This
belief of homosexuals as mental patients needs to stop (especially through humiliation).
There is nothing to convert. You might as well tell me that I need to grow a
penis. Not going to happen. Neither is converting a homosexual to a heterosexual.
Why can’t people just let other people lead their lives? We could learn a lot
by not trying to change people but to accept them for who they are. No matter
what social constructions are in front of us, there are different intimacies,
sexualities, and families. This should never be forgotten.
-Rachael Belcher
No comments:
Post a Comment