What is going on behind the doors of closed clinics for the "treatment" of homosexuals

"A few years ago, I heard from a friend of mine about closed clinics in which homosexuals are forcibly accustomed to conventional sexual behavior," says Ecuadorian photographer Paola Paredes about her project Until You Change. "Similar establishments exist not only in Ecuador, but also in other South American countries and even in Europe."

Paola interviewed former patients of such clinics for six months, and was also able to visit one of them. What she saw there caused consternation and genuine horror. The photos taken for the photo project show professional actors, but the scenes themselves are as close to reality as possible.

Source: Feature Shoot The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the official list of mental disorders in 1973.

Until then, as part of the so-called conversion therapy, such fully legalized methods as electroshock, chemical castration and even lobotomy were used. Despite the fact that the "treatment" of homosexuality is now banned in almost all Western countries, this practice persists.

As Paola says, in Ecuador, many parents who adhere to orthodox views (mostly rural residents), upon learning about their child's non-traditional sexual orientation, are outraged and are ready to go to extreme measures in order to eradicate it. Such services are offered by clinics that formally specialize in the treatment of alcoholics and drug addicts.

After talking with the girls who had to go through conversion therapy, the photographer found out what methods the "doctors" use. Electroshock, thank God, is not used, but there are enough horrors without it. Beatings, torture (including starvation), "corrective" rapes…

One day Paola managed to get into one of the clinics where lesbians are reeducated, under the guise of a relative of a potential client. "I was amazed that all the girls I saw were heavily made up. It turned out that they are required to apply makeup daily from the very morning. Allegedly, this forms the canonical female self-consciousness. In addition, they are all forced to memorize several pages of the Bible a day."

Paola was so carried away by this issue not by chance. The fact is that she prefers women herself. Her family took this news relatively calmly, but when the photographer walked through the corridors of the clinic, a frightening thought occurred to her: "In principle, I could have been in their place."

The photo project Until You Change is over, but Ecuador continues to collect information about all this nastiness. However, the more she plunges into the topic, the more her initial hope to make conversion therapy come to an end is exhausted.