Conversion therapy has been discredited and denounced as harmful by over 25 health and psychotherapy organisations in the UK, yet it still happens today (Picture: Getty) ‘You are an abomination to God! The evil demon of homosexuality is controlling you and we pray now for it to be banished!’ Gail jolted awake, drenched in sweat. Two weeks had passed since strangers surrounded her in a prayer circle in a bid to ‘cure’ her, yet every night she found herself back in that room. Tactics like this, which seek to change a person’s sexual orientation or transgender identity, are known today as conversion practices. They include so-called conversion therapy which has been discredited and denounced as harmful by over 25 health and psychotherapy organisations in the UK, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists. In June, the government published a draft bill to ban these ‘abhorrent’ practices in England and Wales, following the example of other countries like Canada, France and New Zealand. It aims to protect LGBT+ people from physical, sexual, economic and psychological harm. But it was too late for Gail Yorke, who back in 2006, handed over hundreds of pounds to register for a 10-day religious retreat near Lancaster.  A single mum of Christian faith, she had signed up hoping to find respite from her hectic daily life in Warrington.  The government recently published a draft bill to ban these ‘abhorrent’ practices in England and Wales (Picture: Getty Images) As the 37-year-old walked up the steps of the beautiful Victorian country house, Gail didn’t realise that beneath its welcoming facade the organisation was fundamentalist and severe. The tone quickly shifted from warm to ice cold when Gail tearfully confessed to a mentor about her sexuality. She had been reflecting on it during one of the talks and hoped she might receive a comforting response. Sat in a small room set up for ‘pastoral support’, the mentor silently handed Gail a tissue across the coffee table. Gail confided in her that she’d been wrestling with her sexuality since the age of 17. Suddenly, the woman vanished. A few moments later, she arrived back with some of the retreat leaders in tow. ‘I was crying and more and more people were brought into the room to pray for me. Before I knew it, they were standing over me and putting their hands on me. They said I shouldn’t be like this and started babbling about the demon of homosexuality.’ Gail experienced a form of conversion therapy after confessing to a religious mentor about her sexuality (Picture: Supplied) As the hubbub intensified, Gail felt as though the walls were closing in on her, so she fled down the corridor and up to her bedroom, bolting the door.  With two more days of the programme left, she threw her belongings into a bag and sped off down the estate’s winding driveway, fighting back tears. ‘I didn’t tell anyone I was going, I just went. I didn’t want anyone to talk me into staying. I thought I’d be met with empathy but all they were interested in was praying to release me from this ‘demon’.’ As weeks and months passed, her experience played on Gail’s mind. ‘Even when I stopped dreaming about it, I’d still find myself thinking about it throughout the days. ‘It would rear its head every so often and I’d go through times of crisis. I self-harmed for a long time.’ For years following the retreat, Gail attended services at a local evangelical church, as she believed that throwing herself into her faith might help her deal with the trauma. She would go to church with her grown-up son on a Sunday and on the surface look like she really enjoyed it but she would arrive home every week and cry. Gail enjoyed going to curch with her son, but would hide her ‘gay side’ from other members of the community (Picture: Supplied ‘I felt like I was leading two lives, suppressing my gay side while I was in church but it just kept coming back.’ Gail became so convinced that she needed to be ‘fixed’ that she emailed the now-defunct ‘ex-gay’ organisation Exodus International asking for help. However, it never arrived because Exodus had closed its doors in 2013. She later learned that the founder apologised for the harm they caused for decades and admitted that conversion practices do not work.  Looking back, she admits, ‘I think if I had gone on their discipleship course, it could well have caused me to take my own life.’ Reflecting on the public’s perception of the harms of conversion practices, Gail believes people still primarily associate it with men in the Alan Turing era of electric shock treatment and chemical castration. ‘I think it can also be seen as just a gay cis male issue but it’s not,’ she says. Gail says that most people assume only men fall victim to conversion therapy, but her experience shows that isn’t true (Picture: Supplied) In reality, conversion practices can target any identity and are contemporary rather than historical. New research by an LGBT+ helpline revealed that 68% cent of cases of conversion practices it analysed from 2022-2025 were current, recent or ongoing. Gail decided to start coming out to more people as she approached her 40th birthday. ‘It was like I suddenly had two heads,’ she remembers.  ‘You’re just confused and must change,’ one congregation member lectured her when she learned about Gail’s sexuality. ‘Instantly overnight I was taken off everything I did in the church, like the music group and welcome team, and banned from babysitting.’ It was a huge blow, especially as she had poured so much of her time and love into the church community she shared with her son. Sadly, Gail’s experience is far from unique. Metro spoke with four individuals who say they personally experienced or witnessed attempts to exorcise ‘gay demons’, including one man who received a settlement in 2025 following a traumatising church exorcism attempt. Augustine was warned that being gay was ‘evil’ and ‘debaucherous’ (Picture: Supplied) Augustine Tanner-Ihm tells Metro that in 2013 he found himself sitting in a dim room in Liverpool, being told prayer could ‘correct’ his sexuality. At the time, he was a 23-year-old visiting student from America on a religious gap year. He’d arrived in the UK, which he now calls home, with a spring in his step – until a church leader told Augustine he suspected him of being gay. He invited Augustine to a weekly support group ‘to help deal with same sex attraction’. Feeling like he couldn’t refuse, that Thursday evening he went along to the unassuming terraced house where it was held.  Sitting everyone down in a circle, the group leader warned the men and women who attended that being gay was ‘evil’ and ‘debaucherous’.  Augustine watched as attendees pinged their wrists with rubber bands, an aversion therapy technique to condition themselves when they felt attracted to a member of the same sex.  Augustine admits that his experience has left him still feeling shame if he has feelings for another man (Picture: Supplied) Soon he started to hit himself with a rubber band if he was at the gym or out on walk and felt a sexual attraction to another man, leaving a red indented ring around his wrist. Week after week, the leader told the group to pray and fast to achieve heterosexuality. Augustine would arrive at the house starving, having dutifully gone without eating all day, and the leader would lay hands on him and pray for him to be ‘healed’. Each meeting, there was an expectation that attendees would confess any homosexual thoughts or actions. People would hang their heads in shame and recount ‘lapses’ where they had had same-sex ideas, masturbated or watched gay pornography. ‘I felt loads of shame,’ Augustine reflects. ‘It sticks with me today. Without a doubt, I still feel shame if I ever have feelings for a guy.’ 'Conversion therapy is happening to someone today' Saba Ali, FRSA, Chair of Ban Conversion Practices Coalition tells Metro:    ‘The draft bill is a starting point, not a finish line. As a coalition we will keep working with communities, legal experts, parliamentarians and government to test how it is defined, and whether the thresholds for abuse and harm capture all documented forms.  ‘You will hear conversion practices called therapy. They are not therapy, and we should stop lending them the word. A conversion practice is a treatment, practice or service aimed at changing or suppressing who someone is, with the destination chosen before you walk into the room. It is happening to someone today. ‘We have waited eight years. We will keep up the pressure until this bill ends conversion practices for everyone, once and for all.’ As a theology graduate, Augustine didn’t agree with the teachings but felt trapped because his UK visa and housing were tied to the placement church.  Three months in, he hit his lowest point. He distinctly remembers looking up at the fireworks exploding in the sky on bonfire night, but instead of enjoying the festivities, he couldn’t shake a feeling of depression aching in his stomach. Augustine says it was in this moment when he contemplated taking his own life. Despite his harrowing experience that year, Augustine still managed to pursue and achieved his life’s dream by later becoming a church minister.  Augustine refused to turn his back on his faith (Picture: Supplied) ‘Conversion therapy absolutely made me doubt my faith, but what kept me going was looking at liberation theology,’  the 36-year-old explains. ‘The people that did this to me were not good, but God is good.’ However, he still carries the emotional scars. Augustine had planned to get married this summer, but unfortunately, the relationship ended six weeks beforehand, in part because of the trauma he experienced in 2013. ‘There’s been long term impacts on my mental health,’ he explains. ‘It affects me every day and makes relationships really difficult.’ Twenty years on from her ordeal, Gail says helping others through Open Table, a network of inclusive faith spaces, has become part of her own healing and now attends a church filled with people who are affirming of LGBT+ people.  Gail met her wife Tina at a LFBTQ+-friendly church, and married her there in 2024 (Picture: Supplied) It was within these walls that Gail married her wife Tina in 2024. ‘It was out of this world,’ she reflects. ‘This church valued me and loved me for who I was. It was just an amazing wedding day, perfect in every way. ‘I’m not 100% past what happened to me, but I’m certainly big enough and strong enough to hold my own now. ‘Everyone should be safe to be who they are. I’ll be me; you be you.’ The Galop helpline is available for LGBTQ+ people experiencing abuse or violence, such as hate crime, domestic abuse, sexual violence, so-called ‘conversion therapy’. Phone 0800 999 5428 or email help@galop.org.uk.