What’s it like to have “gay conversion therapy”?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2019

⏱️ 21 minutes

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Summary

A recent government survey found that 5% of gay people in the UK had been offered conversion therapy in order to “cure” them, and that 2% had undergone it. It’s a small percentage, but it’s still pretty shocking that the practice happens here at all. For a documentary for Radio 1 and 1Xtra, James Barr and Dan Hudson from the “A Gay and A NonGay” podcast travelled to Northern Ireland to find out more about life for LGBTQ+ people there. As part of the trip James had a taster of what it’s like to have gay conversion therapy, and they and producer Phoebe Keane sit down with Beyond Today to explore what it’s like, the devestating impact it can have, and why it’s still happening. Their documentary series “From Gay to Non Gay?” is available now on BBC Sounds. Producer: Harriet Noble Mixed by Nicolas Raufast Editor: John Shields

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello.
0:06.6	Hello, this is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4 with me, Tina Dehealy.
0:11.9	Every weekday we ask one big question about one big story.
0:17.0	Today, what's it like to have so-called gay conversion therapy?
0:27.0	Gay conversion therapy. Gay conversion therapy, where attempts are made to turn gay people straight, may seem like
0:38.9	something consigned to a less liberal past or extreme evangelical communities in the United States.
0:45.8	But, albeit in small numbers, it's still happening now in the UK.
0:51.9	Our producer Harriet Noble has been looking into this, haven't you, Harriet?
0:55.3	Yes, so a few months ago we got an email from our colleagues at Radio 1 and 1 Extra saying they were
1:00.8	planning a documentary where they'd go to Northern Ireland and
1:04.3	experienced so-called gay conversion therapy. Is it more prevalent there? It happens all
1:11.0	over the UK but Northern Ireland is a less tolerant society for gay people at the moment.
1:17.0	For instance, same-sex marriage isn't legal there yet, whereas it is in the rest of the UK,
1:22.0	though MPs have recently voted to change this.
1:26.6	This project all came about because of a couple of guys called James Barr and Dan Hudson. They present a podcast called A Gay and a Non-gay.
1:36.3	I'm James, I'm gay. I'm Dan, I'm non-gay.
1:40.4	And their listeners had asked them to go to Northern Ireland to look at life for gay people there and particularly these attempts to cure cure in
1:48.7	Heavy Vertic Commerce yes to cure people of being gay.
1:54.4	So they teamed up with BBC producer Phoebe Keene,
1:57.3	and they went.
1:58.2	And just after they got back, they sat down with me
	...

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