A conversion camp is a program designed to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through a combination of psychological, behavioral, and often religious techniques. These camps typically target adolescents and young adults, frequently at the direction of parents or caregivers. Every major medical and mental health organization in the United States has concluded that these practices lack scientific support and carry significant risks of psychological harm.
What Happens at a Conversion Camp
Conversion camps operate under the premise that being LGBTQ is a condition that can and should be corrected. The specific methods vary, but they generally fall into a few categories: talk-based counseling sessions aimed at identifying and eliminating same-sex attraction, religious practices like prayer and scripture study framed as spiritual healing, and in some cases, aversion techniques that pair discomfort or shame with LGBTQ identity. Some programs are short intensive retreats lasting a weekend or a few weeks; others involve ongoing sessions over months or years.
The American Psychological Association uses the clinical terms “sexual orientation change efforts” (SOCE) and “gender identity change efforts” (GICE) to describe these practices. Regardless of the specific label, the goal is the same: to make someone heterosexual or cisgender, or at minimum to suppress any expression of their actual identity.
Who Gets Sent to These Programs
The vast majority of people who undergo conversion practices are minors sent by their families. Research from San Francisco State University’s Family Acceptance Project found that among LGBTQ young adults ages 21 to 25, more than half (53%) reported experiencing some form of sexual orientation change effort during adolescence. Of those, 21% said their parents or caregivers tried to change their orientation at home through rejecting behaviors, while 32% reported being taken to therapists or religious leaders for formal conversion interventions.
Parents serve as the primary gatekeepers. Because minors cannot consent to or refuse treatment on their own, parental authority is what drives most young people into these programs. An estimated 698,000 LGBTQ adults in the United States have undergone conversion therapy at some point in their lives, and roughly half of them, about 350,000, received it as adolescents.
Documented Mental Health Effects
The psychological damage from conversion practices is well documented. A 2024 Stanford Medicine study of 4,426 LGBTQ adults found that people who experienced efforts to change their sexual orientation reported elevated symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Those who experienced efforts to change their gender identity showed higher rates of depression. People subjected to both types of conversion practices had increased symptoms of both PTSD and suicidal thinking.
The long-term picture is equally serious. Research from the Williams Institute at UCLA found that LGBTQ people who underwent conversion therapy were nearly twice as likely to think about and attempt suicide compared to peers who had not been through such programs. The harms don’t stop at mental health: the Family Acceptance Project found that young adults who experienced conversion efforts during adolescence had lower educational attainment and lower weekly income, suggesting these practices disrupt development in ways that follow people well into adulthood.
Why Medical Organizations Oppose Them
The American Psychiatric Association opposes conversion therapies “based on the a priori assumption that diverse sexual orientations and gender identities are mental illnesses.” The American Psychological Association has presented extensive evidence that these practices “do not meet the criteria of a legitimate therapeutic treatment” and are “potentially harmful, discredited practices not supported by credible scientific evidence.” Both organizations, along with the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, instead support affirming approaches that help people understand and accept their identity rather than suppress it.
The core scientific problem is straightforward: sexual orientation and gender identity are not disorders, so there is nothing to treat. No credible evidence has ever demonstrated that these practices can reliably change someone’s orientation or identity. What the evidence does show, consistently, is harm.
Legal Status Across the United States
More than 20 U.S. states have enacted laws banning licensed mental health professionals from performing conversion therapy on minors. These bans apply to therapists, counselors, and other licensed practitioners, meaning a psychologist in one of these states cannot legally offer conversion therapy to anyone under 18.
However, these bans have a significant gap. More than half of the practitioners identified in investigations of ongoing conversion therapy operate through religious organizations. Religious-liberty protections largely exempt these practitioners from state-level bans, even though roughly 100 of them also hold licenses to provide mental health or medical care. Some have been sued for fraud, but the religious exemption remains the primary reason conversion camps and programs continue to operate in nearly every state. Between 4% and 34% of sexual and gender minority people in the United States are estimated to have experienced conversion practices, a wide range that reflects how difficult it is to track programs that often operate outside any formal regulatory oversight.