TAMPA, Fla. — To know Gabe Alves-Tomko is to know not everything is always as it seems.
“I grew up with the sense that something is wrong,” he said. “There was this constant battle that I was either going to have to change.”
Alves-Tomko grew up in a conservative Christian home. He was married to a woman for seven years. They share two children. He is also gay.
“I thought that going through these milestones in my life that it would make a big change and it didn’t,” he said. “It was the opposite, it got worse.”
One year into his marriage, he decided to see a therapist. He says his church support groups steered him toward what he would come to know as conversion therapy.
“They treated all of us like we were drug addicts,” Alves-Tomko said of the talk therapy he endured.
“It really made me feel like if I didn’t change I was going to destroy everybody—they even would tell me that, ‘You’re going to destroy your kids’ life, you’re going to destroy your family if you don’t change, if you don’t surrender.’”
It’s therapy, he says, he is still struggling to overcome.
Alves-Tomko is one of an estimated 698,000 LGBTQ adults between the ages of 18 and 59 in the U.S. who report receiving the widely discredited treatment, according to research by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Of those adults, nearly half say they received the treatment as adolescents.
Young people who have endured the therapy were more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who did not, according to a survey conducted by the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth support and resource organization.
Treatment can range from typical talk methods to extreme electroshock.
RELATED: Woman who endured 'conversion therapy' warns about ruling that lets practice continue in Tampa
In a major move this month, the American Medical Association—the nation’s top medical group—voted to support state and federal efforts to ban the practice.
“It is clear to the AMA that the conversion therapy needs to end in the United States given the risk of deliberate harm to LGBTQ people,” said AMA Board Member William E. Kobler, M.D. in a statement. “Conversion therapy has no foundation as scientifically valid medical care and lacks credible evidence to support its efficacy or safety.”
Since medical licensing happens at the state level, the directive means the AMA will develop legislation that can be distributed to state-level organizations. Work will also happen simultaneously at the federal level.
So far, 18 states have already banned the practice for minors. State lawmakers in Tallahassee are trying to do the same.
Bans in communities like Tampa remain caught in courts over arguments about whether they infringe on parents’ rights to choose healthcare for their children. The city is appealing a recent decision.
“To say it’s a health issue that, ‘You have a problem, you have a disease.’ It’s absurd,” Alves-Tomko said.
“I don’t think people realize the extent of it and how much harm it causes in peoples’ lives.”
The Christian-based Liberty Counsel has challenged local bans, like the one in Tampa, claiming it’s a violation of free speech.
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