Gaëlle, Jean-Michel, Benoît and other victims warn about “conversion therapy”, still topical in France. A medieval practice, which tries to repackage LGBTQI + people.
“It is a group or a person who steals your ‘I’ and your ability to discern things from you, in the name of an ideology”. Here is how Jean-Michel Dunand, 56, victim of “conversion therapy”, describes to aufeminin these pseudo-treatments supposed to “cure” homosexuality and / or transidentity. A destructive process and “infinitely perverse, explains Jean-Michel, since you are made to believe that you are responsible for what happens to you. And just because there isn’t a plethora of testimonies doesn’t mean that victims don’t exist. ” Because yes, in the 21st century, these “therapies” do exist, with the aim of “putting back on the right path” people whose gender identity and / or sexual orientation would be “unnatural”. And France, like other European countries, is not spared by these initiatives worthy of the Middle Ages.
Different “therapies”, but a real and only trauma
Three types of “conversion therapy” exist: religious (the three major religions are concerned), medical and societal. “When very religious and observant families learn that their child is gay, they first take him to see a GP to discuss it, explained to us in August 2020 the deputy LREM of the second constituency of the Allier Laurence Vanceunebrock, which carries a bill prohibiting “conversion therapy”. Following this meeting, the parents ask for treatment against the homosexuality of their son or daughter. Some doctors, overwhelmed by the question, refer them to psychologists. But most often relatives insist heavily. A spiral can set in with unscrupulous caregivers. (…) For example, we have seen injections of hormones to virilize young gay boys. There are also hypnosis sessions where they are made to hear certain things or sessions of ‘force-feeding’ porn videos to disgust them of their own sexuality. The worst are the seismotherapy appointments (Editor’s note: electroshock). “
In another register, there are religious “therapies”. The parents are still the first vectors here. The latter take members of their families to see certain religious leaders. Under spiritual influence, weakened and in a traumatic denial, Jean-Michel Dunand, author of the book “Free, from shame to the light”, took a long time to say he was a victim. He who has gone through many trials in a Catholic family climate (not fundamentalist) where the norm is heterosexuality: groups of healing prayers, then prayers of deliverance and finally exorcisms to free him from the demon of homosexuality. “It is a ceremony with holy water where the priest addresses the demon who possesses your being”, explains Jean-Michel Dunand. “Obscurantism in all religions exists and it is developing. Behind these ‘conversion therapies’, there are fundamentalist reinterpretations of so-called sacred texts,” he says. These different violent experiences are anchored in his memory: screams and convulsions. It was only in front of the gates of the psychiatric hospital where his community had taken him that he fled, finding “his common sense”. But the damage was done and in the rest of his life our interlocutor lost self-confidence and experienced relationship difficulties. Remember that not all religious authorities institute these “therapies” and many denounce them. However, concerning the Catholic Church, no global reaction has taken place to stop these practices.
In 2015, a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called for the prohibition of “conversion therapy”, in the face of “unethical practices, devoid of scientific basis, ineffective and, for some of them, constituting torture.”, relayed by the Law proposition. But France has remained deaf to it.
Appeals to the government
In a column published in The world in November 2020, the French-speaking collective of survivors of “conversion therapies”, “Nothing to heal”, had injected a reminder to the government in order to support the law proposal of Laurence Vanceunebrock, who for three years has been constantly pushed back. Except that nothing has changed. Today, figures like Marie Papillon, Hoshi, Tristan Lopin and Eddy De Pretto are lending a hand to the collective in viral videos to establish a date for the consideration of the bill.
To read also: “Therapies of conversion”: Laurence Vanceunebrock fights to put an end to these practices aiming to modify the sexual orientation
MP Laurence Vanceunebrock told us “A real fear, because the number of ‘internships’ is increasing every year. Since the 1990s and 2000s, these ‘therapies’ are in full development. It is therefore important to legislate.” Because a legal vacuum hovers around these practices: “There are offenses that revolve around these ‘therapies’: willful violence, abuse of weakness, harassment… But the problem is that they are not prohibited. There are no figures which represent these ‘conversions’ because the offense does not exist. And we know that everything works by statistics in France, so how to write these last without offenses in the Penal Code? “, she specified. On Tuesday, May 11, 2021, Elizabeth II announced the ban on “conversion therapy” in England and Wales. While in France, on the same day, Minister Élisabeth Moreno announced that Bill 4021 to ban “conversion therapy” will not be studied in the National Assembly because, according to her, the existing legislative arsenal may already fight against this violence. This news has outraged activists from associations like Le coin des LGBT +, which refutes this argument.
Will LGBTQ + causes in politics always take a back seat in our society?
Celine Peschard
Journalist who loves the versatility that his profession can offer. Specialized in the historical field, social subjects and auteur films, against a background of electronic music. University curriculum based on …