NSW LGBTQA Conversion Practices Ban: Launch of the new civil complaints scheme

New South Wales Parliament House

3 April 2025

Hosted by Anti-Discrimination New South Wales

Anthony Venn-Brown OAM

TRANSRIPT:

I’m Anthony Venn-Brown, and I’m a homosexual. For half of my life, I never would have dared make such a public declaration. I’m also a survivor.

Born in 1951, I grew up in a time when most lawmakers, medical professionals, and the community viewed homosexuals as deviants, perverts, and sociopaths. The newly appointed police commissioner, Colin Delaney, described the “growing cancer” of perversion as one of the police force’s top priorities and requested the help of the community to wipe it out. These were incredibly challenging years, particularly for gay men, who lived in constant fear of exposure, blackmail, rejection from family, job loss, and imprisonment or institutionalisation. In this climate, therapists promised freedom.

Medical practitioners, well-intentioned yet misguided, believed they could “cure” homosexuality. The treatments were barbaric: lobotomies, electroconvulsive therapy, aversion therapy, and chemical castration, some of which took place in Sydney. Their theories were nothing more than that, and their decades-long efforts to change sexual orientation were failures.

Then, in 1973, after protests from the gay community, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. This should have marked the end of the struggle, but instead, it marked the beginning of a new wave of ignorance and devastation.

Particularly Charismatic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal Christians, fuelled by misinterpretations of half a dozen Bible texts, began the push to “heal” homosexuality. This “change is possible” movement spread in Australia, with three prominent organisations based in Sydney. Churches and religious leaders referred individuals who were deemed “sexually and relationally broken” to these and other global organisations. Thousands of us, fearing rejection from our faith communities and eternal damnation, submitted ourselves to these harmful practices.

In 2000, I founded a Yahoo group to connect and support conversion “therapy” survivors. It quickly grew to 400 members. Over the next two decades, through another support group I started and emails from readers of my autobiography, I heard the heartbreaking stories of thousands of survivors. Most emails commenced with the words “your story is my story,” telling me things they had never told a soul before.

I spent many hours weeping, reading one horrendous story after another from a person who’d reached out, detailing their tragic experiences in their churches and Christian families. Their experiences were often the same: wasted years, long-term effects from internalised homophobia, depression, suicidal thoughts, failed heterosexual marriages, and varying degrees of PTSD.

And I learnt about the greatest tragedy of all – the suicides. How many lives lost can never be calculated.

One survivor wrote to me:

“I’ve always been taught that God hates me. Between 14 and 30, I tried to change through ‘ex-gay’ programs. During my years in the conversion “therapy” movement I made many friends, but of the 40 people, only six are still alive. One died naturally, the rest by suicide.”

Behind closed doors, harmful practices have continued for decades. But with awareness campaigns and brave survivors sharing their stories, these abuses have now been exposed.

Today, some religious communities in NSW still tell young people they must change their sexuality or not embrace their true gender identity. They will submit to prayer, counselling, or exorcisms.

For many, the imposed shame and internal torment will drive them to privately seek help through online programs for “unwanted same-sex attraction.”

The outcomes of these practices are tragically predictable. That’s why the legislation and program being launched today are so vital.

Some will argue that the legislation infringes on religious freedom or parental rights. But it’s not anti-religion. This is about ending the well-documented harm and protecting vulnerable LGBTQA people.

LGBTQA people today are out and proud, loved by their families, contributing to society, and, in some cases, part of faith communities. To treat them as unacceptable or in need of “fixing” is not only against the values of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but it is also a violation of their fundamental human right to equality.

When I founded that yahoo group 25 years ago, never in my wildest dreams, did I imagine that the experience I suffered for months in 1972 in a residential program in The Shire and because of a sense of shame had kept secret, would become illegal. But here we are.

A new law won’t instantly change minds. We still have much work to do to overcome ignorance and misinformation. As I always say,

“Religious organisations and individuals aren’t the enemy. The real enemy is ignorance. Change comes from focusing our energies transforming the latter instead of attacking the former”.

The program launched today by the NSW government is a step in the right direction. It will help create a safer environment where LGBTQA people and families can thrive, and most importantly, it WILL save lives.

Read the Anti-Discrimination NSW pages here: