Holyrood conversion therapy ban would have saved me from years of abuse, says survivor

Banning conversion therapy as recommended by Holyrood would have saved me from years of controlling abuse, a survivor of the practice has said.

Blair Anderson, from North Lanarkshire, is a survivor of the practice, having faced years of abuse and attempted corrective prayer from his mother after coming out as gay at 13.

The 23-year-old grew up in a household where the teachings of the Bible were interpreted literally, meaning being gay was “not an option” and the idea of going to hell was a very real threat of eternal torture.

For years he was told living relatives would die as punishment for him being gay, as well as being subject to coercive control, cutting him off from the rest of the world and from help.

Blair Anderson. Picture: John Devlin

Blair’s story comes the same week Holyrood’s equalities committee recommended a comprehensive ban for the practice despite claims from religious organisations and pressure groups that such a move would ban prayer and therapy.

Such a ban is part of the SNP and Green’s shared policy programme for their cooperation agreement in Holyrood, meaning a ban is likely to be brought into law by the end of 2026.

Speaking about his experience as a teenager subject to conversion therapy, Blair’s story is harrowing.

"It was made very very clear that being gay was banned,” he said, “there was no two ways about it”.

He added: “It was all informal, it was all just at the hands of my mum.

"The day after I came out and retracted it, she gave me a Bible which had a list of all the quotes and verses in the Bible about how being gay was an abomination and how it was going to lead to an eternity in hell.

"This continued for years, she would take me to one side, she would make sure that I was ‘complying’ and continued to give me these biblical teachings and prayer books.

"She would isolate me from others and make sure that we were on our own so we could pray together for me to not be gay.

This brand of coercive control extended to the family’s fundamentalist Christian faith, where hell and heaven were considered real places and the Bible read literally.

Blair said any attempt at finding help was impossible as his mother controlled access to healthcare and even suggested relatives would die if he continued being gay, leaving him “constantly suicidal” as he grew up as he was told his mental illness was symptom of his sexuality.

He said: “She made it impossible for me to do anything, I was completely under her control because I had every reason to assume that if I did come out to someone else it would just be worse, I would still be going through conversion therapy but I would have added punishment for having tried to escape.

"I was being told that if I continued I was going to hell while her and all the rest of my family would be in heaven and watching me in hell for eternity.

"She would be talking about my dead relatives who would be judging me and saying that if the news got out or if I continued to be gay, living relatives would die because of it as punishment.”

He added: “When my mum says go to hell, that is a literal place and it is literally torture for the rest of eternity.

"The weight those words carry when used in that sort of setting compared to the setting most people use them in, I don’t think most people don’t have that experience and cannot conceive of how intense that can be.

Among the committee’s recommendations included a ban on conversion therapy for trans people and consideration for a distinct reporting mechanism for children undergoing the abuse, something Blair described as potentially “transformational”.

He said that a ban would also provide an important symbolic piece of hope for those suffering from conversion therapy.

He said: “Having legislation that says what conversion therapy is, this is what someone going through it is able to do about it, and conversion therapy is wrong and needs to banned...being able to know that what is happening to you is wrong and there are people who have gone through it before and got out of it would be enormously supportive.

Blair was also scathing of the moves to water down a similar ban in England and Wales, and criticised the Equalities and Human Rights Commission for suggesting people can consent to conversion therapy.

He said that a ban such as the one recommended by Holyrood could have saved him from years of abuse, but that Westminster’s plans would have likely left him at the mercy of years of conversion therapy masquerading as supposedly “consensual” prayer sessions.

“You can’t consent to a situation where you have no alternative,” he said.

"Yes I went along with it for five years because the alternative was homelessness, losing my family, or suicide. I didn’t have an alternative.

“Lots of people going through conversion therapy are forced into a very very narrow path and it looks like there is only one way out and that’s going through conversion therapy.

"Westminster’s conversion therapy ban would not have stopped me going through conversion therapy.”

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