conversion therapyn.
/kənˌvəːʃn ˈθɛrəpi/, /kənˌvəːʒn ˈθɛrəpi/, /kənˈvəːʃn ˌθɛrəpi/, /kənˈvəːʒn ˌθɛrəpi/, U.S. /kənˌvərʒən ˈθɛrəpi/, /kənˌvərʃən ˈθɛrəpi/, /kənˈvərʒən ˌθɛrəpi/, /kənˈvərʃən ˌθɛrəpi/ 1. Treatment to change a person's physical sexual characteristics using surgery, hormones, etc.Apparently an isolated use.
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1967 Jrnl. Sex Res. 3 154 This girl was a transsexual who had been changed into a female by conversion therapy.
2. Therapy or treatment intended or claimed to change or suppress a person's sexuality or gender identity, esp. to make a gay or bisexual person heterosexual, or to make a transgender person identify with their birth sex; the practice of attempting to change or suppress a person's sexuality or gender identity in this way. Also: a form of this therapy or an instance of this practice.Now usually repudiated as pseudoscientific, approaches to altering a person's sexuality or gender identity include psychoanalysis, religious and spiritual rituals or counselling, modification of the subject's behaviour esp. using aversion therapy, and (in the past) medical and surgical treatments—or two or more of these used in combination.
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1973 B. M. Dank in D. Spiegel & P. Keith-Spiegel Outsiders USA xiii. 291/1 Evidence of successful conversion therapies have not been produced.
1995 Rockland (N.Y.) Jrnl.-News 30 May c3/1 It has further been suggested that people who seek conversion therapy may be doing so because of the social bias that makes gay men and lesbians believe it is wrong for them to be homosexual.
2015 Daily Tel. (Austral.) (Nexis) 8 Mar. (Mag.) 14 A 17-year-old transgender kid..who was forced into conversion therapy, a brutal ‘solution’ to gender dysphoria that uses counselling, and sometimes hormone therapy, to try to ‘repair’ the patient—i.e. persuade them into accepting the gender they were assigned at birth.
2021 Jerusalem Post (Nexis) 19 Mar. 16 The platform also states that the party will ban conversion therapy for minors and advance education for tolerance.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, December 2021).
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n.1967