SNL’s Bowen Yang Describes ‘Crazy’ Experience with Gay Conversion Therapy

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SNL’s Bowen Yang Describes ‘Crazy’ Experience with Gay Conversion Therapy

SNL cast member Bowen Yang was profiled bu The New York Times‘ Maureen Dowd over the weekend and revealed that he is a survivor of gay conversion therapy.

Yang said his parents sent him to the ‘gay cure’ doctor in Colorado Springs after discovering a chat he had on AOL which revealed that he was gay.

Said Yang: “The first few sessions were talk therapy, which I liked, and then it veers off into this place of, ‘Let’s go through a sensory description of how you were feeling when you’ve been attracted to men.’ And then the counselor would go through the circular reasoning thing of, ‘Well, weren’t you feeling uncomfortable a little bit when you saw that boy you liked?’ And I was like, ‘Not really.’ He goes, ‘How did your chest feel?’ And I was like, ‘Maybe I was slouching a little bit.’ And he goes, ‘See? That all stems from shame.’ It was just crazy. Explain the gay away with pseudoscience.”

Yang said that his relationship with his parents eventually got better, but only after attending NYU, and finally put his foot down: “I had this second coming out with them while I was in college and went through this whole flare-up again with them, where they couldn’t accept it. And then eventually, I just got to this place of standing firm and being like, ‘This is sort of a fixed point, you guys. I can’t really do anything about this. So either you meet me here or you don’t meet me.’”

Read the full interview HERE.

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