This book, which is a collection of writers' personal experiences with conversion therapy, is important and thought provoking. I think that a lot of people view conversion therapy as a thing of the past and also have a narrow view of what conversion therapy looks like. This book disproves those ideas. Each writer's experience is unique and heartbreaking. Some conversion practices were formal, some were informal. Sometimes they were forced into it by family or loved ones, but often they sought it out themselves due to internal and external pressures. It also points out that conversion therapy is still perfectly legal in many places.
One thing I loved about this book was that the stories were just glimpses into each writers experience. They offered no resolutions or happy endings. The recollection left the writer, and therefore the reader, in a heartbreaking moment. This forces the reader to truly confront the reality of what they've just read and makes the sit in the discomfort.
The main detractor of this book is its lack of diversity. Most of the writers are white, Christian, and North American. The collection recognizes this flaw and acknowledges it at the end. It states that submissions Muslims, people of color, those from the global south, two-spirited individuals were sought but none were submitted. I wish that instead of publishing the book without those experiences, they had put more work into encouraging a more diverse collection.

Thank you to NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for an advanced copy of this book.

This anthology collects short biographical texts from various authors, who have undergone conversion therapy and how it affected them, most often while it was happening, but sometimes also what they experienced afterwards.
The introduction gives an overview on conversion practices, its history and a few laws surrounding it. It also tells us which stories we can expect in this anthology and that they very often come from a religious background. Most of the authors come from a Christian background, but there is also one author featured who comes from an orthodox Jewish background and one, who describes his life as growing up in a cult. There are no trans women in this anthology (except once a trans man meets a person speaking at an event that formerly identified as a trans woman) and while I was glad to see some trans men and both afab and amab nonbinary people featured here, I do believe that that is another very big oversight. Especially since the pieces by amab nonbinary people in here focused on their attraction to men, I feel an inclusion of the conversion therapy practiced on trans women and transfeminine individuals for their femininity could have been interesting. It also doesn’t feature asexual people and how conversion therapy is used against them. While the afterword acknowledges that voices from different communities are lacking (particularly from the global south, Muslim, 2-spirit, non-religious, intersex, non-white), I just found it a bit weird that there was no acknowledgement of the trans women missing from this collection.
While I do overall think there should have been more diversity in voices here, I did enjoy the diversity of ages and times when people underwent conversion therapy, spanning from the 1980s to 2017. While most of them happened a while ago, I do understand that it may be hard for people, who have just recently gone through conversion therapy to talk about it.
The writing style was interesting and if you are looking for short biographical pieces from people who survived various forms of conversion practices (from self-inflicted attempts to teenagers forced into institutions, from ‘therapeutical’ attempts to exorcism) there is a lot presented here. All in all, I enjoyed reading it and despite my issues with the voices that I found to be lacking, this was a heartbreaking and touching read and one that I think is deeply necessary considering the fact that conservatives are desperately trying to make conversion therapy (particularly for trans kids) acceptable again.

Most pieces feature homo- or transphobia language and so I didn’t include them in my trigger warnings for each piece, but you can find other trigger warnings and a short description of each piece here:
Sniffing the Gay Away by Gregory Elsasser-Chavez: A short description of an attempt at aversion therapy where the therapist told the participant to smell feces. What was most heartbreaking was the way the author attempted it so desperately hoping that this would cure him.
TW: fatphobia, disorder eating mention, unsanitary
Self-Destruction by D. Apple: A really interesting text about a queer kid growing up having attempted conversion therapy on herself, spiraling into an obsession with control and finally managing to break this apart in therapy. Very touching.
TW: depression, mention of drug-addiction, controlling behavior
Breathless by Peter Nunn: In this story a 15-year-old boy is taken to conversion therapy by his father. The real horror only begins after he has gotten out to live with his family again, now carrying self-loathing and hatred inside him.
TW: suicide attempt, depression
Psychological Striptease by Chaim J. Levin: In this short story the author faces conversion therapy in his orthodox Jewish community by a life coach. It was a quite interesting approach to story telling, but I would have liked this story to be a bit longer.
TW: sexual coercion
The Rage to Live by Jordan Sullivan: A young child growing up with sexual desires he believes to be sinful and wrong due to his conversative upbringing and a time skip to his later realization what those feelings where and attempts to fix himself after he has grown up. I also found the look into how damaging the idea that being gay or trans is something caused by faulty upbringing can be to familial relationships. Very heartbreaking, but I am so thankful that this one had a happy end.
TW: depression, suicide attempt
Away and Away by Nathan Xie: A short piece about conversion therapy in a cult and the way financial dependency keeps children trapped in abusive families.
The Script We’re Given by Lexie Bean: A short conversation between a child and a mother after the child has announced they want to get top surgery through an article on facebook. A more modern look at conversion practices, even though it didn’t come to actual therapy here, it very beautifully illustrated the way people on the outside often assume trans related surgeries are “rushed into”, when for the people themselves those are things, they have often thought about for a long time.
Something in the Soda by Megan Poirier: In this story the author’s attempts at conversion therapy began in 2013 during a service by ex-gay preachers. Reading about the whiplash of the author from finally finding a word to describe what she was feeling to being deeply drenched in shame and self-hatred was heartbreaking to read.
TW: eating disorders
The Calling by Kim Kemmis: A very interesting look into the life of a man, who preaches that conversion therapy works, through his unique perspective as a bisexual, married man and the way questions are raised for him during a trip to another conversion therapy event in America.
TW: sexual assault
The Boy Who Danced For God’s General by Jonathon Sawyer: A heartbreaking depiction of a young man who underwent a violent exorcism to rid him of gay demons. The public shaming involved in these rituals and the trauma presented here was quite tough to read.
TW: dissociation, physical assault
Into the Dark by Chris Csabs: A very upsetting look into the life of a man, who through attempts at conversion therapy, has become deeply detached from his own body. The descriptions of dissociation in here where really hard and heartbreaking to read.
TW: dissociation
Deliver Us From Evil by Rick Danielson: A man, who as a last attempt at ridding himself of his gay thoughts attempts an exorcism. Really interesting in it’s immediately knowledge that this doesn’t feel right.
Exodus of Shame by Syre Klenke: A young trans man is forced by his family to attend conversion therapy but soon finds himself unable to believe in any of the things they are teaching, as their narratives never work for him. This was a very interesting look at conversion therapy and how different levels of personal resilience and self-acceptance can mean a world of difference in if conversion therapy works on you or not.
TW: self-harm, csa
Behind Closet Doors by Colin Bland: A short story about a young person seeking conversion therapy for being attracted to men and being too feminine as a teenager in an attempt to avoid further bullying and harassment. The leading questions reported here where sickening including the way the therapist here insinuated that by coming out people would assume the teenager was abusing their younger brother.
TW: mentions of csa and incest
Convert by Gemma Hickey: In this story an activist showcases the way they overcame conversion practices in their youth and fought to get it banned as an adult. The mental pressure that conversion practices place on children is horrible and I am so happy to hear that they survived and managed to grow up to fight it.
TW: suicide attempt
Setting Captives Free by Tyler Krumland: The author reflects on his experiences signing up to an online conversion course and the way his assigned mentor there treated him. The psychological abuse described here was hard to read, but I did like that the author was able to look back at this now that the course has been discontinued. It is always good to hear about things changing.
Gay Christian Speed Dating by Lucas F. W. Wilson: In this story the author connects with another man during a group meeting for those trying to overcome same-sex attraction. It was kind of horrific to read about the way women are talked about in these circles as the only available sexual outlet for men (where masturbation alone is already vilified)

The decision to read this book came from my goal of reading more about conversion therapies. Whenever I read a queer book where the character went through this reality, I feel that I lack the knowledge to understand the depth of the subject. I think I started with a great book. It not only explains, demonstrates and exemplifies the origins, areas of greater activity or the various "treatments" but also talks about the consequences of such on the victim, and the way "conversion therapy" has changed over the years so that now it exists without being perceived by others since it has increasingly been known and abolished.

The book has an extremely personal facet. In addition to being informative, it allows victims of conversion therapies to tell their stories and their struggles, in the way they want to tell. Therefore, it reaches the reader much more easily and impactfully. These are the experiences and voices of people who have experienced what should never happen: trying to make the person cishetero, living a lie.

As many say, there is in fact a lack of more diverse voices: BIPOC, 2-spirit, etc., but the greater the minority situation, the greater the oppression and the greater the difficulty of finding survivors who want or can show their face, especially when many still live in dangerous places in relation to their queerness. It was something that the author clearly explained at the end of the book and I appreciate the care in referencing it, hoping that in the future more work will be done to include other voices.

I want to preface my review by identifying myself so anyone curious can understand what POV this is coming from: I am 34 years old, nonbinary and bisexual, and I was not raised in any organized religion but my environment is deeply protestant Christianity-heavy.

<i>Shame-Sex Attraction</i> did not end up being at all what I expected going in. The description suggested a frankly more tragic and torture-porn-esque collection of stories, but thankfully that is not at all what it was. Instead, what <i>Shame-Sex Attraction</i> did very well was give the views of those who largely were the ones seeking 'conversion'. This was not the horror stories of child abuse we are used to, and I think that is a very important selection of stories that need to be told.

That said, and why I only give this book 3*, this book doesn't really have as much of an impact on readers who do not have a religious background or familiarity with Evangelicalism. The author acknowledges even at the end that this book has shortcomings related to the sole focus being on religion, and like he does point out, often Christianity is behind conversion therapy at all.

It <i>is</i> a very significant selection of stories that are of adults making choices for their own religious reasons to try and 'become straight', and that <i>is</i> something I have never seen before, so overall I do recommend reading this book, in spite of my own lack of a feeling of connection because of the focus on religion.

I would last like to thank NetGalley and Lucas Wilson for providing this ARC for review.

this is a great little collection from people who have experience with conversion therapy and the way different religious institutions, family members, and even medical professionals try to inoculate queer people with self-hatred.

one of the first essays for me was one of the most insidious - a therapist suggests that a queer man think about the men he's attracted to while sniffing dog shit in order to condition himself into thinking that his same-sex attraction is disgusting. like, what?

and i think that's a good point that this collection makes. whenever i think of conversion therapy, i think of the campy, ridiculous joy of the movie but, i'm a cheerleader - a movie that teaches men to sling axes and women to vacuum, a movie that puts teenagers in flesh-toned body suits with strategically placed fig leaves a la adam & eve in a ridiculous demonstration of how boys belong with girls. and i think that it's easy to believe that that's what conversion therapy is - a sprawling house with laughable exercises that make a mockery of gender and sexuality in effort to untangle it.

conversion therapy is actually insidious, teaching kids from near infancy these binaristic concepts - your baby boy is a lady's man because he gassily smiles at his babysitter, your little girl must cross her legs to be "lady-like". this book talks about the homophobia that exists within modern medicine still and prevalently. this book talks about how people whose first memories involve being told to hate themselves for urges that they didn't ask for and can't suppress.

the only reason this wasn't a five star read for me is something that the book addresses - that it lacks the inclusive experiences of more trans people, 2-spirit people, people of color. there was a notation that stories from people with these experiences was sought, but ultimately not found. not sure how true i find that to be, but i appreciate that the glaring oversight was addressed in this collection.

At the end of the first essay, which left me wondering whether or not the writer was ever free of the monumentally vile therapeutic method assigned to him, I went back and reread the introduction. In discussing the collection, editor Lucas Wilson explains why the essays don't have satisfying narrative conclusions by saying that the intention is "to leave readers with the uncomfortable truths exposed by these stories." And that's exactly what happened. Some conclusions can be inferred by the contributor bios at the end of the book, but questions still remain, which is fitting, because at the end of the day, the question of <i>why does this happen</i> doesn't have one clean-cut answer.
This book is short, the essays are all bite-sized but pack a punch. Thank you to NG and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this.

This collection of essays is a heartbreaking & angering yet extremely important read, because not everyone has survived conversion therapy, and there are still remnants of the practice today.

Before you get into the personal experiences, the book explains what “conversion therapy” refers to, a brief history on the practice, and how it affects those that have experienced it. I appreciated that addition as well as the difference between religious trauma & moral injury.

One complaint I have is the lack of more diverse perspectives. The afterword actually recognizes that this has representational shortcomings. It does not include stories from two-spirit or intersex individuals, Muslims, & more. The editor says that the submissions asked for “were not received.” I think they could have waited until they had more representative submissions before they decided on a publication date. I would also like to have seen more perspectives of those who have more recently dealt with/escaped “conversion therapy” practices, since most of these essays seemed to be referring to experiences 15+ years ago.

Overall, this presents multiple survivor experiences & reminds us that there are still stories out there that deserve to be heard. There are also contributor biographies at the end, so you can look into the authors more and check out their works!

This was a harrowing and deeply personal read, with essays from survivors of (mostly religious) conversion practices. Each of these stories had such emotion, resilience & heartbreak in them - at points I had to out this book down to give myself a break before continuing to read. With the continued discussion about conversion therapy being banned in the UK, I think this is very timely and I hope many more people read this insight in to how conversion practices result in ongoing trauma symptoms.
What I will say is that this book didn't feel very diverse. This is addressed in the afterword - there was a lack of non-Christian conversion therapy stories and most of the experiences seemed to be at least a decade old. I did find some of the stories blurred in to one for me because of this.
My favourite essays were The Script We're Given by Lexie Bean, written as a script, and Something I The Soda by Megan Poirier, which used second person prose.

This collection was thought provoking and emotional. If you are interested in seeing conversion through the eyes of those who have gone through it, this is a great collection. I would recommend this to anyone who needs to love themselves.

*** Multi-voice testimony of the despicable practice of conversion therapy ***

The book's title, "Shame-Sex Attraction", plays with the term "same-sex attraction". This is the bigoted newspeak used to name homosexuality in some backward religious and other radical circles. It is also, in a nutshell, the essence of the gaslighting and brainwashing applied to the psyches of mostly young adult and underage subjects of "conversion therapy."

This anthology offers in unique testimonies of survivors nuanced and complex insights into a mostly hidden world of physical and psychical violence, based on an utterly unscientific doctrine. You maybe have read or watched books or movies like "The miseducation of Cameron Post" or "But I am a cheerleader!" which gave rather polished or even silly pictures of so called conversion camps. If these alerted the wider public to the problem, the essays in this book create insights into a wider spectrum of the practice that runs from subtle to brutal and leaves deep, long-term scars in the psyches of the people subjected to it.

Everybody should read this book!

(based on an ARC from NetGalley)

A deep and meaningful read that everyone should take the time of day to get through. The stories are relatively short so I was able to get through multiple at a time. I found myself angry but also sympathetic when reading though I do not personally have experience with religious trauma, I think this resonates with many and should be shared. Each memoir was impactful in their own way. I also appreciate that the author acknowledges the flaws within the book such as lack of diversity between the 18 stories. Overall, I definitely recommend to try this out.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for access to an ARC for exchange for an honest review!

Reading this collection of short stories was such a heartbreaking but important experience. I truly think that everyone should read this book at one point or another because it highlights such a dark but important topic that has, and still affects the LGBTQIA2S+ community today.

These are the stories of just a small number of individuals affected, but they all, in their own way, outline how much of a toll it takes on your relationships, your self-esteem, and your psyche. Quite a few of these stories brought me to tears. Each of them is crafted so beautifully, I commend these authors for their writing and their willingness to share their stories with us.

There is a lack of diversity in the collection of these stories, which is acknowledged at the end of the book, which I do appreciate. I also enjoyed the short biographies of all the contributors. It was nice to get a bit more information on the individuals I had read about. All in all, this was a great read, and I hope many people get the chance to experience this book.

Thank you, NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers, for the ARC.

"Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors' Stories of Conversion Therapy" compiled by Lucas W. Wilson.

Special thanks to Net Galley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for permitting me to read this work prior to its release as an .epub.

The accounts of conversion therapy, rejection from loved ones and self-loathing are deeply difficult to read. Though skewed towards white queer people (a fact the author acknowledges), I'm sure many queer people of different races and faiths would be able to identify with the struggle to be accepted by your family and community, and the desperate efforts/sacrifices someone would make to be considered "normal". This non-fiction work evokes a lot of introspection and sympathy- two things that will serve us well in the years ahead.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book made me anxious and angry at the same time. I could only read almost half of it because I felt it having a detrimental affect on my mental health. I am gay and catholic so I went through similar by my mum. I just don’t understand why people believe that our sexuality can be changed by going to therapy. It’s more about their issues and beliefs. I don’t understand how people can go though this and not left damaged for life. Furthermore, how these people can think this sort of treatment “pray away the gay” actually works, We are who we are not who we sleep with. It’s a hard thing to admit to yourself that you are gay so the fact that is not understood it’s their issues and not the family’s.

This was such a good yet painful read. I constantly see people talk about the dangers (or, if they are of a certain persuasion, the benefits) of conversion therapy but I very rarely hear the stories of people who actually experienced it.

This was a collection of 18 essays of different individual’s experiences with conversion therapy. This “therapy” takes place in pastor’s offices, camps, clinics, at home, or even within their own heads. Survivors work through their “same-sex attraction” and “gender confusion” with talk therapy, aversion therapy, different online programs, electroshock therapy, celibacy, having relationships with individuals who help “prove” they are cured, and even exorcisms.

Shame-Sex Attraction is a truly heartbreaking collection of real survivors’ stories. It shows how religion and familial bonds can be used to our own detriment and the detriment of those around us.

I struggle to rate memoirs/autobiography type books because this is someone’s story and I don’t want to feel like I’m rating their own life based on how much I liked it. Most of the stories here were older, I would have liked to see some more from “our day.” Reading experiences from the 1970’s-2000’s was enlightening to be sure, but seeing some with the perspective of today would have also been impactful.

I loved that the author, Lucas Wilson, acknowledged the shortcomings of this book, namely that the majority of these stories had religious contexts, chiefly Christian, and didn’t have stories from other groups that would have made it more well rounded.

As someone who loves happily ever afters I also would have liked to have a bit more of an “ending” to some of these stories. I understand that not everyone has a happy ending and sometimes it’s just a conclusion, but some of these essays were so open ended I was left chomping at the bit for more. The introduction described the authors of these essays as not only survivors, but *thriving* survivors. In my state of eternal optimism I would have liked to have more. The end of the book does have the authors’ biographies to show a little “where are they now” but I selfishly want more haha

Shame-Sex Attraction is a phenomenal book that sheds light on real survivor’s stories and experiences with different forms of conversion therapy, it’s a tough read that I don’t know if I would recommend it to everyone, but I definitely think many should read it.

"In every telling, shame claims the staring role"

This was heartbreaking and so informative. I really think everyone should read if not all then at least one of these mini-essays at some point, honestly they were devastating to read especially knowing that these are only a handful of stories from people who suffered the same.

It's especially heartbreaking that so many people actually did want to change, they really believed the way they felt was worn and my heart aches to know that some of them only accepted the way they are decades later. And the fact that despite being banned (conversion therapy) it still exists to some degree honestly its heartbreaking.

I love that the title is a play on words its very fitting with the content in the book I really hope people read this book and learn from it in some capacity.

Thank you NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for the Arc.

This important collection was difficult to get through but it's an important work. We need to spread awareness about how horrid these practices are.

There are so many important voices in this book that I don't believe mine needs to be involved so I'm simply going to let this eye-opening book speak for itself. There are so many quotes and extracts I could pull to try to explain the pain and self-doubt each one of these people and countless others went through and continue to, but then I would just want to write it all out.

This collection of eighteen essays shines a much-needed light on the past and present acts of Conversion Therapy/Practices. "...because no one believed me when I told them that conversion therapy still existed. Conversion therapy is the psudo-medical practice of attempting to change a person's sexual orientation and gender identity to heterosexual or cisgender."

Such practices pushed young vulnerable people to harm themselves "I lay on the concrete floor of our basement because the book said that demons could come out (during an exorcism) as a slimy substance and I didn't want to ruin the carpet in my bedroom"
"Burning yourself by heating up a quarter with a lighter and pressing into your skin is an easy way to correct yourself after impure thoughts"

Thankfully many of these practices have been banned but some still persist. I do not pretend to know even the surface of what these people have gone through but I found this book to be a start in challenging my own naivety.
So I leave you with this last quote from G Hickey (they/them), a human rights advocate and author of one of the essays. Their parting words at the 2021 Bill C-4 press conference in Canada:
"To young people everywhere, you can beat the statistics as well as the odds, just like I did. You have a fundamental human right to be who you are. Once you learn how to love yourself, the rest is history. Take it from me.
And to the ones who have not lived to see this day, we honour your memory today and every day."

Wow. This was powerful. You really get a much needed look at the reality of conversation Therapy, as a lot of people only know the basics of what it is. It's really educational to see all of the different ways that it can take, and how it affects the individuals willingly or unwillingly participating.

Shame-Sex Attraction is a collection of essays from survivors of conversion practices. As a collection of essays from different authors, each author takes a different approach in how they recount their own history with conversion practices. The authors come from different religious, geographic, and ethnic backgrounds demonstrating the far-reaching nature of conversion practices. That being said, the afterword acknowledges the limitations of this collection related to representation of the broad spectrum of conversion practices globally and especially in non-religious contexts which is only present in one author’s essay.

Overall, I would recommend this book to others. It gives a different perspective on what conversion practices can beyond what’s typically thought of when someone thinks of “conversion therapy.” Like the author wrote in the introduction, recognizing what these practices are is essential to stopping them. I also found that the lack of a neat bow on the essays drives home the reality of it all. Life chapters aren’t always wrapped up in a digestible, easy to summarize fashion and it’s constantly ongoing which is inspiring in itself.