AUSTIN, Texas -- Mike Hendrix is speaking out.
- Mike Hendrix underwent conversion therapy as a child
- Recounted ordeal as abuse
- Texas lawmakers considering ban on conversion therapy
“I don’t want a single kid in Texas to go through what I had to go through, what I experienced as a child,” Hendrix said.
After being molested by a pastor as a young boy, Hendrix told his parents about the incident.
He says they responded by believing he was possessed by a demon of homosexuality and sent him to conversion therapy.
“You start to feel worthless. You start to feel damaged and broken,” Hendrix said. “[I was] beaten. Holding bricks with my hands out. Being exposed to pictures of HIV and AIDS victims who were passing away.”
Seven years later he was done with the therapy and turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain.
“You believe that you are so broken and there is no way that you can make your parents happy. There is no way you can change. And you find yourself laying in a bath tub ready to take your life.”
He says the passing of House Bill 517 would be a healing moment and another step in his recovery.
“Now that I love myself I can spread that love and put that out there and help other people overcome what I have had to experience.”
The Texas House Public Health Committee is set to hear a proposed ban on conversion therapy. It calls for an end to counseling aimed at changing a minor's sexual orientation. The bill is expted to face opposition, however.
The American Psychiatric Association has weighed in numerous times on the subject of conversion therapy:
“No credible evidence exists that any mental health intervention can reliably and safely change sexual orientation; nor, from a mental health perspective does sexual orientation need to be changed.”