"It drives me crazy": a homosexual offers his testimony of his conversion therapy

Peter Price was 18 years old when he suffered a conversion therapy, which had to reverse his homobaduality. After three days of severe treatment, his badual orientation has not changed, although his aftermath remains.

This 72-year-old radio host, who lives in Liverpool, is outraged that British law does not prohibit this practice, despite the fact that this week Theresa May's government announced a $ 4.5 million plan. 39 euros ($ 5.29 million) to "improve the lives of LGBT people" (bad, gay, bi and transgender).

After several years away from this traumatic experience, Price gives his testimony, hoping that no other homobadual will suffer from this "torture".

In 1964 Peter Price agreed to visit Diva Hospital, a psychiatric clinic in Chester near Liverpool. He wanted to calm his mother's fears: "I was desperate when I announced that he was gay."

Homobaduality was considered a crime in the United Kingdom in the 1960s.

"We went to see a doctor, who told us that there was a cure," remembers Price. It was a five-day treatment, an "aversion therapy", which subjects the patient to badual stimulation with an unpleasant experience.

Locked in a room without a window, he had to follow the same ritual, one hour after the other. On a radio tape listened to the history of badual acts, looked at pictures of men in swimsuits and then made injections that caused diarrhea and vomiting.

"I was lying on my excrement, it was horrible," he laments. "The idea was to provoke a feeling of disgust when we think of another man."

After continuing therapy for three days without interruption, Price wanted to leave the hospital. "I was going crazy, I was not interested in treatment, I just wanted to get out of there."

Despite the psychiatrist's insistence on supervising operations, he managed to escape before reaching the final phase of the therapy: an electric shock. They had to give him an electric shock whenever he became badually excited.

"After that, he decided to change his life and to guess who he was," he confesses.

He never managed to explain this bad experience to his mother. He had to wait for the media case of a group of soldiers expelled from the British army for homobaduality, who were readmitted after a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) of 1999 , which has placed conversion therapies in the public debate. United Kingdom

– "Fifty years late" –

"This case has had an impact on my state of mind that I can not explain," admits the radio presenter.

"My life was satisfying, my professional career was successful, but there were also terrible periods of depression, very dark thoughts because of it (conversion therapy)."

The British government's new plan aims to end conversion therapies, described by Prime Minister Theresa May as "abject practices".

"They are fifty years behind," says Price. "I have gone ahead, because I am a strong person, but how many will suffer in silence, how many will not have overcome it?"

According to a 2017 study by the Government Equality Office, with the testimony of 108,000 homobaduals, bi or transbaduals, 7% of the members of the British LGBT community received conversion therapy, and 2% reported that have suffered.

In 51% of cases, religious groups practice these therapies, while health professionals interpret them between 19% and 16% of cases