Livro cria polêmica na Espanha ao prometer 'curar' homossexualidade

in: http://www.sidneyrezende.com/noticia/156947+livro+cria+polemica+na+espanha+ao+prometer+curar+homossexualidade

O psicoterapeuta, Richard Cohen, teve seu livro "Comprender y sanar la homosexualidad" ("Compreender e curar a homossexualidade", em tradução literal) retirado da livraria virtual de uma grande loja de departamento espanhol após uma onda de protestos. Mas de acordo com a afirmação feita pela Federação Andaluza de Associações LGBT (lésbicas, gays, bissexuais e transexuais) os livros só foram retirados da internet, mas ainda permanece nas lojas do então grupo El Corte Inglés.

A empresa chegou a se desculpar nas redes sociais às pessoas que se sentiram "ofendidas" pela publicação. O livro foi escrito por Cohen, após ter dito que "curou" nos últimos quinze anos de profissão pessoas que se sentiam atrações pelo mesmo sexo. Psicoterapeuta também se baseou em experiência pessoal, após afirmar que chegou a ser homossexual e depois voltou ser heterossexual.

Em entrevista publicada no site da editora espanhola, disse que "se estamos decididos, contamos com o amor de Deus e o apoio de outras pessoas, a cura é possível".

Livro foi retirado após três horas de protestos, onde mais de quatro mil pessoas expressaram sua "indignação" pela distribuição da publicação. De acordo com a Federação Andaluza de Associações LGBT, a retirada do livro foi uma "vitória do ativismo".

Em comunicado, a organização diz que livro pode provocar "não só a desinformação radical sobre a classe LGBT".

Why are 200 lesbian torture clinics still operating in Ecuador?

in: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

In the country of Ecuador, nestled among tropical rainforests, sandy beaches, and cosmopolitan cities, there are more than 200 clinics where LGBT men and women are sent to be "cured" of their homosexuality. The clinics claim this "cure" is accomplished through "intense rehabilitation." But Ecuadorians are telling a different story -- that widespread physical torture and psychological abuse are part of the treatment.

Ecuadorian activists are using online advocacy platform Change.org to speak out against the 200 remaining torture clinics that exist throughout Ecuador. Activists launched a campaign on Change.org earlier this month and have already garnered support from over 80,000 people in 124 countries.

While these clinics operate under the guise of drug rehabilitation centers, the public is generally aware of their existence, and it is unfortunately not uncommon for conservative families to send their children to the clinics in an effort to reverse their homosexuality. What is not publicly known, however, is that these clinics practice torture and sexual abuse in order to cure homsexuality.

The silence is being broken as victims are beginning to speak out. In the past six months, numerous patients have escaped clinics and are coming forward to press charges and speak publicly about their experience. One such prominent voice is that of 24-year-old Paola Ziritti. Paola's parents knew they were sending her to a forced-confinement clinic, but they had no idea how awful it would be. Once Paola's mother realized what she'd done, she tried to get her daughter back, but the clinic said no. The process to free Paola took a year. "I spent two years in one such facility and for three months was shackled in handcuffs while guards threw water and urine on me," said Paola, who describes numerous accounts of physical and sexual abuse during her "rehabilitation." "Why is the clinic where I suffered still open?"

Ziritti was the first to speak out and also to file a formal complaint against the treatment centers. Since she went public with her story, it has encouraged others to do the same, and in September two other victims came forward. Fundación Causana hopes that these women's stories will encourage others to speak out.

But it is not just former victims who are speaking out. A coalition of leading Ecuadorian women's rights organizations, such as Fundación Causana, Taller de Comunicación Mujer, and Artikulación Esporádika, are standing up against these clinics. They launched a campaign on Change.org, demanding that the Ecuadorian government investigate reports of abuse. They say that the time has come to stop the torture of LGBT people under the guise of treatment, and for Ecuador to start respecting the basic human rights of all citizens, regardless of their sexual orientation.

Since the campaign was launched a little over a week ago, it has gained international attention and widespread support. Over 80,000 supporters from 124 countries have signed their name to the Change.org petition, calling Ecuadorian Minister of Health Dr. David Chirboga Allnut to investigate and close the clinics.

Fundación Causana's leading advocate, Karen Barba, is speaking up about the clinics. "The Ecuadoran government must stop turning a blind eye and wake up to the horrific reality of these torture clinics," says Barba. "There are estimates of 200 clinics or more still in business. That means that there are likely hundreds of thousands of women and men being tortured and sexually abused on a daily basis. The perpetrators of these clinics are not only getting away with obscene human rights abuses; they are actually profiting off them. We are inspired to see over 80,000 people support the campaign on Change.org, and we will not stop until each and every clinics has been closed."

Fundación Causana believes that we are making progress. What used to be a dark secret has now become a rallying cry for an international call to action. Ecuador has demonstrated its sensitivity to international pressure and has already closed 30 torture clinics. With the backing of 80,000 people on Change.org, Fundación Causana has international support in calling for the closure of all remaining clinics. The international LGBT community is waiting for Ecuador to protect LGBT rights at home and, in doing so, take a positive step forward for LGBT rights worldwide.

Support Fundación Causana, Taller de Comunicación Mujer, and Artikulación Esporádika and add you voice to the growing number of people worldwide calling on Ecuador to investigate and close all remaining torture clinics.

Ecuadorian Clinics Torture LGBT to “Cure” Them

via: http://www.care2.com/causes/ecuadorian-clinics-torture-lgbt-to-cure-them.html

Ecuadorian authorities have so far this year closed 27 ‘ex-gay’ clinics which claimed to “cure” homosexuality following allegations of torture and abuse by former ‘patients.’

For a decade, lesbian groups have been calling for government action on the physical and psychological torture inflicted on lesbians to try to “cure” them.

At age 24, Paola Ziritti says she suffered “forcible confinement” in a clinic which her parents were led to believe would “de-homosexualize” their daughter. There, for 18 months, she suffered battering, sexual abuse, deprivation of all kinds, constant insults and being chained. Guards threw urine and ice water on her. She spent nearly three months in chains before her mother realized what she had done and freed her, Ziritti told Têtu magazine.

It took more than six months of genuine psychological treatment for her to begin to recover.

Ziritti is the first lesbian to agree to file a complaint against these “treatments” performed in clinics that hide behind the drug addiction services they supposedly provide.

Tatiana Velasquez, of the lesbian organization Taller de Comunicación Mujer, says there are 207 clinics of this type in Ecuador. 27 have been closed by authorities following Ziritti’s testimony.

Nicolás Jara, Minister in charge of Public Health said:

“It would be very important that [victims] would denounce the cases in order to close down all [illegal clinics].”

Activists are demanding that the Ecuadorian government launch a serious investigation into illegal and degrading practices and the closure of all these centers.

Last month, two more lesbians managed to escape from two clinics and file complaints.

According to the network of local LGBT organizations, clinics have also locked up gay men, transgenders and cross-dressers but on a smaller scale, “probably because they manage to leave the family earlier than girls,” says Velasquez.

Velasquez says that the evidence they have collected shows a pattern: women were raped or threatened with rape, handcuffed, deprived of food and forced to dress like prostitutes.

Ziritti says that the closure of the first clinics by the government is good, but it is not enough. “Why is the one where I suffered still open?” she said, adding that she has been threatened since her testimony went on television in Ecuador.

Velasquez says that because of Ziritti’s courage in publicly speaking out, more abused victims are coming forward. Another former client was 19 years old when he was forcibly taken by his father to a different clinic, where he was beaten, deprived of food and had buckets of cold water thrown on him.

Ziritti says that a group of young gays and lesbians stopped her on the street to thank her; their parents were going to send them to the same clinics, but now understand the danger. They told Ziritti that she had saved them from hell, she says.

• View a Spanish language video that reviews the actions of the association Taller de Comunicación Mujer.

To help:

As an individual, you can send a Spanish language request to close the centers drafted by CLADEM; all the email addresses of the Presidency and the ministries of Justice and of Health are online.

As an organization, you can support the three associations that are leading the fight to close these centers:

Taller de Comunicación Mujer (San Ignacio N27-127 y González Suárez. Quito – Ecuador, Tel: (5932) 255 3542; Email: cpmujer@tcmujer.org)

Artikulacion Esporadika

Asociación Causana

They are also involved in drafting a complaint before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and protecting the women who will testify.

http://www.care2.com/causes/ecuadorian-clinics-torture-lgbt-to-cure-them.html#ixzz1afrOIkP7

Victim of gay conversion therapy describes how he was tortured aged 12

via: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046324/Victim-gay-conversion-therapy-describes-tortured-aged-12.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

'Tiny needles were stuck into my fingers and I was electrocuted': Victim of Baptist gay conversion therapy describes how he was tortured at 12

• Beaten repeatedly by his father after innocently telling him, aged 12, that he was attracted to his friend
• Told he had AIDS, that he was the only gay person in the country and the government would kill him if they found out
• Hands burned and frozen with ice while he was shown images of men hugging
• Electrocuted for a month while shown explicit pictures of men
• Has since been excommunicated by his family and warned by his father that he will shoot him if he ever comes home
• 
  

At just 12 years of age, Samuel Brinton had no idea he was not supposed to be attracted to other boys.

So when he told his father, a Southern Baptist missionary from Iowa, that friends had found a Playboy magazine - and that he didn't get excited like they did because he only felt that way about his best friend, Dale - he could never have predicted the torture that was to follow.

After being knocked out cold by his father, so hard that he had to be rushed to the Emergency Room, Samuel was repeatedly beaten up before being subjected to months of excruciating aversion therapy.

Reflective: Samuel described in detail the horrors he experienced in conversion therapy as a young boy

He was initially told he had AIDS and that he was the only gay person left in the country - because the government had killed all the rest of them and would come after him too if they found out he was alive.

Freezing ice cubes were placed in his hands while he was shown pictures of men hugging - so that he would associate pain with intimacy between men.

He was then repeatedly burned when shown similar images but untouched when images of men and women together were shown.

After being excommunicated by his family almost a decade later, Samuel has spoken about the ordeal he suffered as a child at the hands of his Southern Baptist community.

Eventually, he was subjected to what was called the 'Month of Hell'. Tiny needles were stuck into his small fingers and he was electrocuted repeatedly while shown explicit pictures of men.

Samuel was interviewed as part of a series of gay, lesbian bisexual and transgender stories from across America found by a group called I'm From Driftwood.

The forum's founder and executive director Nathan Manske travelled the country with two colleagues to discover the many untold stories of struggles faced by gay teens in small towns and cities.

Samuel, who now studies at Kansas State University, described in detail the abuse he suffered as a result of the innocent admission he made to his father when he was a child.

He speaks of being hospitalised by his father six times before the therapy even began, before describing in detail the 'treatment' to which he was subjected.

'The Month of Hell consisted of tiny needles being stuck into my fingers and then pictures of explicit acts between men would be shown and I'd be electrocuted,' he said.

After months of torture he considered suicide, climbing onto the roof of the three-storey building where he lived.

His mother's attempt to lure him down consisted of her saying: 'I'll love you again if you just change.'

Fighter: Samuel was raised in a Southern Baptist community and was not accepted for being gay

Story: Samuel has told of his ordeal to help others who may be going through similar experiences with parents who don't accept their sexuality

'It's not the thing to say to someone standing on the edge of a building,' Samuel said.

He eventually came down and convinced his parents he had, in fact, changed - a façade that he maintained until leaving home for university, and one which brought an end to his brutal therapy.

After coming to terms with his sexuality away from home, Samuel returned to come out to them once again.

He told his mother and after she told his father he returned to find all his belongings outside the front door.

He has since been warned by his father that he will kill him if he ever comes back.

'I've tried to call them multiple times,' he said. 'I try to keep calling. I want contact.

'The last time [my dad told me] he would shoot me if I ever tried to walk in the door again.'

Watch the video

Psychologists Who Believe Homosexuality Is a Mental Illness Should Lose Their Licenses

in: http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/psychologists_who_believe_homosexuality_is_a_mental_illness_should_lose_their_licenses

Last year, British gay rights activist Patrick Strudwick went undercover to expose a network of psychologists and mental health practitioners in Britain who practice what's known as "conversion therapy," the much-debunked and unethical practice of trying to cure patients of their sexual orientation. His findings were incredible: Strudwick documented that a number of British therapists, influenced by texts from Joseph Nicolosi (the founder of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality -- NARTH), not only worked with gay patients to turn them straight, but benefited from taxpayer money to help them do so.

One psychologist in Strudwick's research, Lesley Pilkington, was particularly aggressive with her support for the idea that homosexuality was a mental disorder in need of curing. Strudwick went undercover as a patient wrestling with his sexual orientation, and he turned to Pilkington for counseling. Her advice?

That homosexuality is an addiction and an anti-religious phenomenon.

"We say everybody is heterosexual, but some people have a homosexual problem. Nobody is born gay. It is in the upbringing," Pilkington told the Sunday Telegraph.

Ah, but therein lies a bit of a problem for Pilkington. That's because her position that homosexuality is a problem rightly runs counter to ethical standards and codes of conduct put forward by the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy (BACP). This week, the BACP will determine whether or not to strip her of her psychotherapy credentials.

They should.

Pilkington is entitled to hold whatever religious beliefs and principles she wants. But by championing and practicing the destructive concept of "conversion therapy," she's violating in very clear terms the mission statement and objectives put forward by the BACP for its accredited psychologists.

The BACP's vision is to work "toward an emotionally healthy society," and one of its core principles is to "promote equality of opportunity." Counselors who view homosexuality as morally bankrupt and in need of conversion, however, contradict both of these platforms.

That's a fact not lost on Strudwick, who noted this weekend that every major psychological and mental health organization has condemned the practice of "conversion therapy" as harmful.

"Every major mental health organization in Britain and America is opposed to attempts to change someone’s sexuality... because there is good evidence not only that it doesn’t work but that it is harmful," Strudwick said. "If a black person goes to a [psychologist] and says, 'I want skin bleaching treatment,' that does not put the onus on the practitioner to deliver the demands of the patient. It puts the onus on the healthcare practitioner to behave responsibly."

The point Strudwick is trying to make is pretty simple. Mental health practitioners -- at least those officially sanctioned and licensed by a governing board like the BACP -- have an obligation to treat their patients in a responsible manner that doesn't lead to harm. Pilkington's support of "conversion therapy," however, fails this test. She views homosexuality as a disorder, and suggests that LGBT people can change. That's a dangerous position to take, and one the BACP shouldn't reward.

Interestingly enough, Pilkington notes in the Sunday Telegraph that she has a gay son. How does she view him?

"'He (my son) is heterosexual. He just has a homosexual problem," she said.

Huh. Something tells me the one with the problem is Pilkington, and not her son, and not Strudwick. It's time to get the BACP to take note, and pledge to discipline psychotherapists who think it's healthy to try and "cure" gay people of their sexual orientation.

in: http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/psychologists_who_believe_homosexuality_is_a_mental_illness_should_lose_their_licenses

_________________

Petition:

Tell the British Association of Counseling and Psychotherapy: Don't Legitimize "Ex-Gay Therapy"