I survived conversion therapy. Now it's coming back in softer words

The numbers don't lie. The Trevor Project's new Project SPARK report found that the number of LGBTQ+ youth threatened with conversion therapy doubled in just one year, from 11 to 22 percent. Those who experienced it rose from 9 to 15 percent. At the same time, access to legitimate mental health care dropped sharply, from 80 percent of those seeking help being able to access it to only 60 percent a year later.

The report followed more than 1,600 LGBTQ+ young people across the United States for a full year. In that short span, anxiety rose from 57 to 68 percent. Depression climbed from 48 to 54 percent. Suicidal thoughts increased from 41 to 47 percent. These numbers are not abstract. They represent queer young people trying to survive in a world that still feels hostile to their becoming.

I know what that feels like.

When I was nineteen, I walked into a Christian therapist's office convinced I could make myself straight. No one forced me there. I went because I believed being accepted by my family and church community meant fixing what they said was broken in me. Conversion therapy promised that change was possible through the power of Jesus Christ. I spent eight years in conversion therapy. Those years included individual talk therapy, support groups, retreats, and annual trips to the Exodus Freedom Conference, the flagship event of the world's largest network of conversion ministries. They taught me to distrust myself, to see my sexuality as a defect, and to confuse obedience with healing.

After suffering a nervous breakdown and nearly taking my own life, I left my therapist's office for the last time fifteen years ago.

Three years later, in 2013, Exodus shut down and admitted that few people had ever truly changed their sexuality through its programs. I wish I could say the world learned from that reckoning. But conversion therapy's ideology didn't die when Exodus did. It evolved.

In 2023, The Trevor Project identified more than 1,300 active practitioners across 48 states. Many of those groups operate below the radar and carefully avoid calling what they do conversion therapy. Instead, they have given the same old ideology a modern rebrand.

In a course marketed to parents and pastors, the Changed Movement, one of the most visible modern conversion organizations, claims homosexuality stems from an "intimacy breakdown" or "relational problem" rooted in trauma and "delayed emotional development." They promise "lasting wholeness and freedom" through discipleship and prayer for those who choose to "leave" or "trade" their LGBTQ+ identity. They avoid the word change, even though it's in their name. But the message is the same: "Who you are is fundamentally broken, but with God's help you can be made whole."

It is conversion therapy dressed up as pastoral care. That is what makes it dangerous.

Trevor's findings confirm what survivors have said for years. Queer youth who have been threatened with or subjected to conversion efforts are twice as likely to have suicidal ideation. At the same time, Trevor found that more queer young people are reaching out for help. In one year, the number of LGBTQ+ youth turning to mental health professionals during suicidal crises doubled, from 32 to 64 percent. They are asking for help, but finding it is becoming increasingly difficult.

The recent decision by the Trump administration to remove federal funding for LGBTQ-specific suicide prevention programs, including those connected to the 988 crisis line, sends a devastating message. At the very moment queer youth are seeking care, their vital lifelines are being cut. Trevor's data make clear what happens when that support disappears, and too often, it ends in tragedy.

Still, there is hope. The same research shows that affirming families, supportive schools and faith communities, and access to competent mental health and gender-affirming care dramatically reduce suicide risk. When LGBTQ+ youth are supported and affirmed, their likelihood of thriving soars. For every measure of family support, the odds of suicidal ideation drop by more than half. Support doesn't just feel good. It saves lives.

That is what is at stake right now. Not ideology, but survival.

The Supreme Court's upcoming ruling in Chiles v. Salazar will determine whether states can continue enforcing bans on conversion therapy for minors. At the center of the case is a Colorado counselor who argues that restricting conversion therapy violates her free speech as a Christian. But this is not about speech or religious freedom. When a licensed therapist uses professional medical authority to tell a child they can or should change their sexuality, it causes irreparable harm. Every major medical and mental health organization in the country has condemned conversion practices as ineffective, unethical, and unsafe.

I was one of the lucky ones. I eventually found my way out. But leaving conversion therapy didn't mean I was free. I carried its lessons for years, burying shame beneath achievement and approval until addiction filled the void. The damage didn't end when the sessions did.

Recovery gave me back what religious shame had taken from me. Sobriety taught me to live honestly and how to belong without pretending. Writing and speaking about my experience now is not about reopening wounds from the past. It is about naming what nearly erased me, so no one else mistakes harm for help again.

The numbers in Trevor's report tell me that thousands of queer youth are still sitting in those same therapists' chairs, trying to pray themselves into becoming someone else's idea of goodness.

The language of conversion therapy may have changed, but the message hasn't. It is the same script rewritten in softer fonts. You're welcome, but only if you agree to disappear.

What stands out most in Trevor's data is not just the rising distress experienced by queer youth, but also how preventable it is. One accepting adult in the life of a queer young person can change everything. One affirming community can save a life. The data back up what I've learned in my own life: affirmation heals.

Today, I know what real healing looks like. It's laughter with friends and chosen family who love me exactly as I am. It's a faith community that affirms my sexuality. And it's peace that comes from being who I know I was created to be.

I know what it is like to mistake shame for love. I see how the promise of transformation can sound holy when you have been told your sexuality is sinful. But fundamental transformation happens when young people are allowed to be who they were created to be.

Affirmation isn't politics. It's how we keep each other alive.

We cannot claim to care about the mental health of young people while defending the conditions that destroy it. We cannot call self-denial therapy when the evidence shows it breeds despair. And we cannot keep pretending conversion therapy is an issue of free speech or religious liberty.

The truth is simple. LGBTQ+ youth don't need to be fixed. They need to be affirmed. They need adults and mental health professionals who see them not as problems to solve, but as lives worth celebrating and protecting.

The data now say what survivors have been saying all along. Conversion therapy doesn't heal, it harms. And harm, no matter how softly it speaks, should never be protected by law.

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pin_description="" caption="Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez stands proudly in a\u00a0"conversion therapy dropout" t-shirt at the US Supreme Court building in Washington, DC" photo_credit="Jeremy Varner (provided)"] Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez stands proudly in a "conversion therapy dropout" t-shirt at the US Supreme Court building in Washington, DCJeremy Varner (provided)

Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez spent nearly a decade in gay conversion therapy—all while working behind the scenes at some of the most influential Evangelical Christian megachurches. After embracing his identity as a gay Christian and stepping away from church work, he co-founded Church Clarity, an organization that helps queer people find affirming faith communities.

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