You have sat down and written an outstanding article, but is your article just going to be collecting dust? Or maybe reach a couple of potential people only?
The answer of course is no. At ASomali Gay Community you can submit your articles and have them published on the website to reach the thousands of visitors eager to read interesting articles. Go on, give it a go.
The war on 'cures' for homosexuality
Posted by Administrator
Last year, in Britain, a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist tried to "cure" me of my homosexuality. What they didn't know was that I was working undercover investigating what happens during so-called conversion therapy. The results of my investigation, published last week in the Independent, have sparked a bushfire of anger and outrage.
It's hardly surprising. The psychotherapist told me I had been sexually abused by a member of my family (which I hadn't). The psychiatrist tried to induce arousal in me during a "therapy" session. He also claimed to have "resolved" his own sexuality while admitting that he still masturbates over gay pornography. Perhaps more scandalous was the discovery that the NHS was at times inadvertently funding such treatments.
The response has been overwhelming. Countless former victims of conversion therapy have contacted me, describing the years of suffering they endured during and since treatment – some of whom were forced into it by their families. Therapists have written in impotent frustration about how they are left to mop up the psychological mess left by conversion therapists. Many readers were simply astounded that this goes on in the comparatively secular UK.
Beyond the western countries, the response has been more troubling. Gay men and women have contacted me begging for help. Others have conveyed the growing climate of fear in Uganda. James Nsaba Buturo, the minister for ethics and integrity, said recently that under the proposed new anti-gay bill, therapy would be used on those convicted of homosexuality to help "attract errant people to acceptable sexual orientation". Enforced conversion therapy may not be as bad as the death sentence that was originally proposed in the bill, but it can certainly be a life sentence.
In light of all this I've set up a Facebook group called the Stop Conversion Therapy Taskforce (Scott). Hundreds joined within the first 24 hours, determined to do something.
Our first target is a conference of conversion therapists taking place on 19 February in Northern Ireland. Mario Bergner is the guest of honour. He wrote Setting Love In Order, a book in which he claims to have become heterosexual through prayer. He also says that he was in hospital with "eleven symptoms of Aids" before being visited by "the Spirit of the Lord", who made him better overnight, and so later tested negative for the virus.
Last April, as part of my investigation, I went to a similar conference in London for therapists and clergy wanting to learn how to "cure" their clients. I witnessed Joseph Nicolosi, the most notorious American conversion therapist, whose techniques are the basis of many of the practices in this country, treating a nervous young man in front of a live audience. I felt like I was watching a blood sport.
The belief system of conversion therapy, that gay people aren't just ungodly and wrong but are inherently damaged and that they can be "healed" or reprogrammed constitutes a fascistic, fundamentalist ideology. Mental health professionals who harbour such an agenda are a supremely dangerous proposition.
The work of Scott will therefore not stop at disrupting conferences. We want professional bodies such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy to add into their code of conduct specific stipulations condemning attempts to alter orientation (currently they have more general ones about not letting personal feelings about sexuality affect treatment).
We will also continue to expose individual therapists and report them to their professional bodies. It won't be easy. Many operate using euphemisms that cloud what they're really doing. They also defend their techniques vehemently, claiming: "We offer choice! We only treat those who come looking for it!" It's like a Venus flytrap blaming the hungry insect that wanders into its gaping mouth. But we are determined to root them out however long it takes. This won't be a battle. It's war.
If you want to know about this subject please click on this link: http://www.avert.org, It will lead you to AvertT which is an international HIV and AIDS charity based in the UK, working to AVERT HIV and AIDS worldwide.
