As thousands of people came together for the culmination of Moncton’s 20th annual Pride Week, one man is speaking out about the practice of gay conversion therapy.
“It’s toxic and it’s going to destroy the generations before us and after us if we don’t watch it,” said Mitchell Goodine.
“It’s something that our own generation should deserve, if nothing else, the respect that if I can say open-heartedly that gay conversion therapy is immoral and everyone else agrees, then why in the darn tootin’ mcgee is it not against the law.”
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Goodine grew up in a religious household in Tilley, N.B., and underwent several sessions of conversion therapy after he began to question his sexuality as a teenager.
He says the therapist told him he was “sinful, a blemish in God’s eyes, vomit from a dog” while suggesting that he ask God for help to get rid of his gay feelings.
“These are terms that can scar people. They can really do damage,” he said.
“It was traumatizing. It literally was. It’s taken me this long and even, I imagine, longer to get over it. It’s something that you don’t get over … you learn to live with it.”
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Some places in Canada have begun banning or limiting the practice, including Ontario and Nova Scotia, but no such legislation exists in New Brunswick.
River of Pride president Zivi Richard says the practice causes an immense amount of harm to young LGBTQ people.
“It definitely increases rates of suicide, depression, it increases the harm done to LGBT people instead of just celebrating who they are and letting them exist in all of their beauty,” she said.
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Goodine now lives in Fredericton and is continuing to advocate for an end to the practice, often using his drag persona Amour Love.
“I’ve got the legislative fish to fry. I’ve got to make sure that this is done and stopped and not only stopped but prosecutable by law,” he said.
“It can completely end lives. Sometimes these lives don’t even get to blossom. They don’t even get to see the true potential that they can be.”
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