Dr Christian discusses new documentary ‘Cure Me, I’m Gay’

Although it’s been over 40 years since homosexuality was removed from the DSM list of mental illnesses, there are still people around the world – homophobic and not – who believe that being being gay can be cured. These so-called ‘cures’ are believed in by many, and are often carried out under the premise of moral goodness, but their very existence is a dangerous affront to modern medicine, and the gay communities of the 21st century.

As a gay man, and as a doctor, this is an issue which speaks very strongly to Christian Jessen, resident Attitude medical guru and star of TV’s Embarrassing Bodies. He has set out to try seven of these cures, from around the world; ranging from laughable colour therapy and frustrating rehab therapy, to terrifying and humiliating aversion therapy. Many will be surprised to learn that these ‘treatments’ didn’t die out decades ago, and nor are they only occurring in Africa or America’s bible belt. As Christian finds out, they’re also happening close to home, right now. I caught up with him in advance of the documentary airing on Channel 4 tomorrow night (March 18).

Before you tried the therapies, you were tested at a New York university to see how gay you were, and they told you it was pretty much 100%. Does that imply you could have fallen somewhere on a spectrum?
Yes absolutely – and you’ll notice [in the documentary] we focus a lot more heavily on men than we do on women, and there’s a very simple reason for that. Sexual orientation is a spectrum we all sit somewhere on, but women (and I quote directly from research scientists looking into this) are far more fluid in their sexual orientation – it changes according to circumstance and need. So it’s not uncommon to see a woman married for a number of years, have a horrendous break-up and a divorce, and actually then shack up with another woman. Men tend to be a little more black and white. But what was of interest was a lot of these ‘ex-gays’ were possibly bisexual, and suppressing the 40% gay side, or whatever. Unfortunately they never did the test to let us find out.

Why did you feel it was so important to explore these gay cures on TV?
The truth is I had a patient who came to see me with that request, with the title of the show ‘Cure Me I’m Gay’, a couple of years ago. I nearly fell off my chair in shock, and it just set off a whole stream of thoughts in my head. Who do I refer him to, even if I wanted to? Why do I feel so offended by someone asking this? Does it still happen? Is it possible? Should I be helping people out in this way? What are his circumstances that he wants to change? And when I looked into his background, it was perfectly easy to understand why he would not want to be gay. He was from one of those cultures where it was ‘be straight or die’ essentially. So it was a very reasonable request actually that he made to me, but very sad that someone should want to do this as well. And I handled it as well as I could but these things do stay with you, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

In the programme you visit a sort of ‘gay rehab’ in the US – where it’s almost comical in terms of the things they try to iron out of you.
Oh yeah, your gay traits, your gay clothes, your gay music – my Adele CD would you believe! It was just so ridiculous to me that anyone would take it so seriously that they’d found a serious therapeutic regime around it. It was very real, the people being sent off to be ‘de-gayed’. I mean, you can just go on Amazon and buy self help books – like exercises for men in recovery from same-sex attraction. It’s going strong unfortunately. What was good to see is that more and more therapeutic organisations are saying we should not be doing this, including some of the main Christian organisations.

I think of the six treatments you undergo, people will be most surprised by the aversion therapy – because it was carried out here in the UK, not that long ago.
Yeah, not that long ago. On the NHS, prescribed by people like me for people like me. That was one of the reasons you’ll see at the end that I was fairly distressed and upset. And it wasn’t just because I was vomiting. I was just thinking of the people who had been through this, and not just for a couple of hours but for a couple of days, and the sort of shame and the misery they would feel. And not only were some people made to do it but some people volunteered to do it. There’s a tape playing telling you how worthless you are, and you’re made to lie there in your own vomit because they inject you with this drug every two hours, and you don’t have a sink or a loo. This was a medically-proposed treatment. You just think, what were we thinking? Remember in those days, though, homosexualit was illegal.

How long ago was this aversion therapy carried out in the UK?
I’m not exactly sure when it began – certainly in the ’40s and ’50s, probably earlier I’d imagine – and it went on right through to the 70s. Only when homosexuality was taken off the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) as a psychiatric illness would it have been stopped.

Was there any evidence that the therapy ever worked?
None at all. Again, that is what is so extraordinary. The white-haired chap [in the programme], who is a professor of nursing, and used to do those therapies, he came back to recreate it for us, and he was very distressed – actually visibly shaken. And I know it sounds weird, but I found that incredibly comforting and encouraging that he was so devastated by watching it, because I knew that he felt true remorse at the end of it. He was completely reformed.

You say at the end of the documentary that “behind all of this lies the bias of religion… which is having far too much a say over science”. Why do you think religion feels the needs to try to ‘deal with’ homosexuality?
It’s just this blind unquestioned belief. If that’s what it says in the bible then that must be true – let alone the fact that you’re actually ignoring half the other nonsense in the bible conveniently because it doesn’t fit in with your life. It’s this blind belief that leads to most of the atrocities we’ve seen in the world today, I feel. Sometimes it is very well-meaning – I have to say not everyone doing [these cures] is bad by any stretch of the imagination, and I talked to a lot of pastors who were very nice and deeply concerned for the gay members of their flock, but couldn’t see that they could just pat them on the back and say: ‘Actually, you’re fine, of course you’re welcome here’. No, it had to involve change.

In the programme, you seem genuinely appalled when you visit Texas and speak to these two girls, aged 16 and 20, who say homosexuality is caused by demons.
Yeah, I got very despondent at that point. What’s so discouraging about that is you pin your hopes on the younger generation being slightly more enlightened and more accepting. I mean, I didn’t tell my grandparents I was gay because I didn’t really expect them to get it, because it was just a different generation. But those two young girls, what they came out with, that just upset me so much.

What do you hope will be the benefit of this show being broadcast?
I really hope for three things. I hope it shows people that these therapies are still out there, and they’re not necessarily a good thing and they certainly don’t work. I hope it raises awareness that there is no scientific evidence that you can change your sexual orientation. In fact, doing so can be quite damaging and people can function perfectly normally whatever their sexual orientation. Trying to enforce something as inherent as your orientation is shaming and damaging to the extreme. My final point – and I think it’s a very fair one – is that religion should never ever dictate over scientific evidence. I feel very strongly as a scientist about that. I also hope anyone considering undergoing these therapies may think twice and see that it is perfectly possible to be gay and religious, or gay and accepted, or gay and happy.

Undercover Doctor: Cure Me, I’m Gay airs tomorrow (March 18) at 10pm on Channel 4.