(Picture description: Man sitting on a sofa in front of a rainbow colored wall, with his hand in front of his face. Caption: BAN "GAY HEALING" IN GERMANY)

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#queersneednohealing  

The Conversion Therapy, also called "Gay Healing" is an inhuman "form of therapy" for queer people to be "turned straight".

When I came out at 17, I knew for a long time that I was more attracted to men than to women. The process of saying "Mom or Dad, I'm gay." took me three years. I am very grateful that my family and friends support me and that my coming out has been mostly positive. But many of the coming outs are not that easy. Many are rejected by their parents, contacts with friends break off, their world is turned upside-down.

However, it gets even worse when parents entrust their children with so-called "gay-healers" who pretend to be able to cure children and adolescents of homosexuality, to turn them "normal". The methods for doing so are manifold and partially cause lifelong serious mental and physical harm that irreversibly and inevitably impacts the future of those affected by it. According to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Panorama, Tagesspiegel, Zeit and Bento, the methods range from nacked dances to drumbeats and ice-cold showers to talking therapies that are supposed to make the “affected person” aware that their sexual orientation is wrong. In extreme cases, the "patient" is shown videos of homosexual acts, causing physical pain. Thereby their own homosexuality should be associated with pain.

It's time to put an end to it.

In the European Union this “form of therapy” - among experts referred to as “reparative or reorientation therapy”- is currently only banned in Malta and in certain regions of Spain. The German government just recently rejected the ban in March 2017. However the German Medical Association as well as a large number of physicians and experts have been denunciating this form of therapy for years.

We call on the responsible Federal Minister of Health, Jens Spahn (CDU) and the responsible Federal Minister for Law and Consumer Protection, Katharina Barley (SPD) and every member of parliament as well as every member of the German Federal Parliament to take action against the psychological and mental assault by the so-called "Gay-healing"!

In a tolerant, progressive country like Germany, this practice should neither be exercised nor allowed!

Not only in Germany is Conversion Therapy still allowed. Other countries are also protesting against this inhumane practice. Together we can start a global movement:

• Canada
• France
• USA