On Conversion Therapy: A Perspective
As long as the belief systems of those who treat gay people have not radically changed, there will always be someone “out there” who thinks that gay people would be much happier if they could only “change.”
Canada Bans “Conversion Therapy”
Following years of exhaustive advocacy and petitioning, delays and cruel setbacks, on December 7, 2021, Canada’s federal government voted to pass Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy), thereby criminalizing conversion therapy across the country.
“Please, Sir, Can You Stop the Torture?” (Or, When to Stop Begging)
Finally, what I find most troubling about discussing the whole idea of trying to outlaw what amounts to torture is that at the end of these interviews I often leave feeling like little orphan Oliver, in the musical, Oliver!, begging for one more measly bowl of soup. “Please, Sir? Please can you stop the torture?”
Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights
On December 8, 2020, I provided testimony before The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, one of the Committees of Canada's House of Commons responsible for researching Bill C-6, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy).
About the Ban in Lethbridge, Alberta (Canada)
Virtually every global health regulator has spoken out about the dangers of conversion therapy—countries all over the world have been consulted, survivors have shared their stories of abuse, voices from the graves of those who did not survive their own abuse have cried out, health and medical experts have now even written their recommendations, and The United Nations, in a final report I cite below, has urged all jurisdictions to ban conversion therapy. What more does anyone need to say to a city like Lethbridge before they take action?
Canada’s Proposed Ban on Conversion Therapy Falls Short
Conversion therapy itself is a lie that those who practice, perpetuate, and those who fall prey, forget, and so the aim with a ban should be to firmly and resolutely destabilize and eradicate orders of hatred and intolerance, not simply to pick and choose which kinds of bigotry may be less harmful than others or under what circumstances some people could reasonably “consent” to bigotry.
Darkness Lurks
Lately I’ve been watching a lot of horror movies on Netflix. Isolated, at times quarantined due to COVID-19, I have resisted all better judgment to the contrary and submerged myself in one film after another. And always very late at night. Call me crazy; or maybe there’s far more to it than that.
How to Make Chicken Goulash (“Paprikás Csirke”)
One of our “special” meals was Chicken Goulash, or Paprikás Csirke, my father would always say in his native Hungarian. It’s also the first meal I ate when I arrived into Budapest, Hungary, in 2004, a trip I will always cherish because it’s when and where I started to write my book, The Inheritance of Shame.
Religion as a Front for Tyranny
Religious-based organizations that enforce any kind of conversion treatment tyrannize people into conformity; legal bans of their treatments oppose this tyranny, not religion.
Map and Territory
Always one must look beyond words, or trans-linguistically, to find meaning
Harm of Hatred
It is one thing not to be infected, and as I've learned, it is another thing entirely not to feel the shame and fear of my youth.
How to Make Palaschintas (Hungarian Crepes)
As a child we always ate our palaschintas as a main course, even though it's more of a dessert item. Sometimes we'd start with homemade soup as an excuse to put something of nutritional substance in our stomachs first, but the soup was always just a reason to get to the main course: palaschintas.
How to Make Hungarian Goulash
Everyone has their favourite or most comforting childhood dish, and for me it's Hungarian goulash.
Speaking Only For Myself
More and more I find it harder and harder to hear my own thoughts, to be alone with myself, to discover what I, alone, believe, as opposed to which side or corner of the larger conversation I best belong. I’m not sure how to resolve this struggle for authenticity.
Pride and Prejudice
On June 17, 2018, CBC journalist Wendy Mesley interviewed me for her show, “The Weekly,” about gay conversion therapy in Canada. Within a day of that interview, a link to my segment appeared on several websites, including, of course, on CBC’s site for “The Weekly.” That is—until just the other day.
Vancouver, Canada, Bans Conversion Therapy
To be heard and recognized by our government officials is a deeply meaningful, and healing, experience.
“Anecdotal Accounts”
“Conversion therapy,” I’ve long believed, is a problem of ideology, not nationality.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Conversion therapy is nothing if not a war against a person’s sexuality or gender identity.
Good Times / Bad Times
“If you want to write enough, you can write . . . a lot of it is just plain will power, as long as you have the imagination to go along with it.”