South Africa ‘needs to talk about conversion therapy’

South Africa was the first country in the world to constitutionally protect people against discrimination because of their sexual orientation, as well as the first in Africa to legalise same-sex marriage. The LGBTQI+ community in South Africa, however, still experience a gap between the legislation and what they experience in real life. Lizaan Snyman reports.

South Africa is seen as one of the countries with the most progressive constitutions in the world with good LGBTQI+ legislation successes over the years. But although the constitution and other legislation protects the community against discrimination, various forms of violence, abuse and discrimination is rife. 

The South African Institute of Race Relations November 2017 Fast Facts report states that 4 out of 10 South African LGBTQI+ people know of someone who has been murdered for “being or suspected of being” part of the LGBTQI+ community. A report published by Hate Crimes Working Group (HCWG) in 2018, found that nearly two-thirds of the reported hate crimes between 2013 and 2017 were committed against heterosexual victims, while “35% of cases involved crimes perpetrated against lesbian or gay victims and a further 1% against bisexual victims”.

In 2020 alone many hate crimes have been reported, including the murder of KwaZulu-Natal LGBTQI+ gender activist Lindokuhle Cele, 23, who was stabbed 21 times, and Bulelani Majeke, 35, who was stabbed multiple times in the face with a broken bottle. In 2018, The Citizen and numerous other media publications covered the brutal torture, rape and murder of the Van Niekerk couple in Mooinooi in the North-West province. In 2017, Lerato Moloi, 27, was stabbed, raped and stoned. 

Some forms of violence and abuse the LGBTQI+ community face can fall under the term “conversion therapy”. There is, however, little information about conversion therapy in the South African context, and very little information on the history and background of this type of “treatment”. 

Conversion therapy, also commonly known as reparative therapy, is the umbrella term generally used to described the various activities and measures implemented to change, suppress, reduce or divert one’s gender identity or sexual orientation.

According to Steve Letsike, executive director of Access Chapter 2,  conversion therapy is not formally recognised in South Africa. “Looking at our own context (South Africa), there is limited research which captures the local activity categorising conversion therapy,” Letsike said. Access Chapter 2 is an NPO that works to promote human rights and empower women and the LGBTI+ community.

According to a Mamba online.com article, the religious, cultural or traditional context people  find themselves in will shape the practises or activities implemented during conversion therapy. This can range from severe physical violence to psychological abuse. 

“Conversion therapy is a violent model and it’s usually used to oppress the voice of the person or oppress the identity of the person that is involved,” Roché Kester, hate rime manager of OUT, said. “The measures are usually harsh and it’s almost as if people don’t have a choice, so in trying to preserve themselves holistically as a human being they submit to these torturous ways and just denounce their sexual orientation or gender identity because they do not want to experience the trauma of then having to further deal with the violence.”

OUT is a non-profit organisation based in Pretoria that works to build a healthy and empowered LGBT community in South Africa and internationally, while reducing hetrosexism and homophobia in society. 

Kester said, “There is a perception that if you identify as LGBTQAI+, that you can’t be religious and sometimes religion is being used as the mechanism to kind of try to persuade or sway LGBTQAI+ individuals to denounce their sexual orientation or their gender identity.”

Letsike said that the practices also come in formats such as cognitive therapy, which predominantly deals with the psychological element of an individual. “[It] undermines the idea of bodily integrity, self-determination and autonomy with the focus on changing irrational blocks against heterosexuality or even against the context of understanding the behaviour interventions undermining the context of identity.”

There are also behaviour interventions used with religious, cultural and psychological elements that include sexual assault and harassment, “corrective rape”, and people praying for LGBTQIA+ community. According to Letsike, there are traditional and cultural interventions like the “Ukuthwalwa” practice, which involves abducting young women and forcing them into marriage, as well as taking boys to the mountains in this passage to manhood. “These are some of the problematic common practices that are affecting LGBTQIA+ community one way or the other,” Letsike said. 

An example of severe physical violence people or even people suspected of being part of the community face is that of Raymond Buys, 15, who attended a camp in 2011 that purported to turn “boys into men”. Two months into the three-month course Buys was rushed to the hospital. He had brain damage, a broken arm with bruises and cigarette burns covering his body, he was also malnourished and dehydrated. Two weeks later Buys died  in the hospital due to the injuries he sustained.

A BA Communication student at NWU, who asked not to be identified, was subjected to “pray the gay away” therapy in her matric year. She was heavily involved in the particular church’s activities and was in the band, choir and intercession group. “I was spending a lot of time there but was never honest about my sexual orientation. I wasn’t really hiding it, I just never brought it up,” she said 

The problems started when the student, who was still new in town (Bethlehem), came out to one of her friends who was also a member of the  church. The friend told her mother. The mother, a teacher at the school she attended, approached her and told her that her sexual orientation was an issue for them as a church and that they would like to help her. 

She agreed, “It was a thing of if I wanted to continue to serve in the church and be a part of the family, it had to be done.”

Over a span of about three months, the student had four sessions with the main pastor’s wife and then she also had an accountability partner, before she decided that this was not something she wanted to do.

In this period the student was only allowed to attend church and had to withdraw from all other church activities she was involved in such as prayer group, the band and even a cell group. 

“It was awful because they made it feel as though it was a disease that the rest of their Christian followers will catch,” she said, “They isolated me from my whole support structure and made me believe that if I don’t change my sexual orientation, then my support structure was going to fall away.”

The therapy itself entailed “drastic emotional manipulation”, a lot of prayers, and lies in terms of information presented to the student. “So they would tell me that I would not be able to go to heaven or serve God in the way that I am at the moment. And so they would make me repent for being gay,” she said.

This experience left its mark on the 22-year-old. In a religious context,  it had a huge impact on her faith because she was a new Christian. It took her a long time to get over the image she had of “God standing with a whip and trying to beat everything out of you that He does not like”.

She also lost the friends she made because the church or their parents instructed them to avoid her in any way they could, which made her feel extremely alone and isolated. “It traumatised me in a way that I have a lot of trust issues,” she said. 

One of the biggest impacts the conversion therapy itself had on the student was on her self-worth and self-image. “It broke me down a lot and it took really long for me to just accept myself again.”

Most medical and psychological associations and institutes across the world have condemned these practices, including the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA). According to a Human Rights Campaign article, the main reason for condemning these practices is that they are not grounded in any science or medicine, and there is also no proof that any of these methods work. Instead, it can cause or increase harm at physical, emotional and psychological levels. This can lead to depression, guilt, helplessness, shame, social withdrawal, suicidal thoughts, stress, disappointment, and self-blame. 

The practice and advertising of conversion therapy aimed at minors is banned in five countries, namely Malta, Ecuador, Brazil, Taiwan and Germany. South Africa, however still has no specific laws regulating or dealing with any acts which can be categorised as conversion or reparative therapy. 

For South Africa to make strides towards banning or regulating these practices, Letsike said, “We first need to open up debates to agree from a local context what conversion therapy means in the South African context and describe it using South African languages. Once we are able to contextualise and localise it, then we are able to pinpoint the activities that continue to oppress and try to convert individuals.”

One should also understand and take into consideration that since South Africa is a multi-cultural and a multi-lingual nation, the narratives of conversion therapy will differ given one’s location as the communities’ and provinces’ traditional and cultural practices vary. 

When these activities and practices are finally banned in South Africa, according to Letsike, it will allow “individuals to freely express themselves and where there’s respect for body integrity, body autonomy and self-determination, irrespective of where they are”. 

“Banning conversion therapy will also assist us as civil society working on the protection and promotion of human rights of LGBTQIA+ persons, to focus on delivering inclusive services and also it will assist us in dealing directly with the cultural and religious toxic behaviours that we find.” 

• If you are experiencing any of the issues raised in this article and need to speak to someone, NWU offers free counselling services, and you can also talk to OUT.
• This news report was updated on 28 August 2023.