An App To Cure The Gay

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March 20, 2011

Apple has approved an iPhone app that encourages LGBT people to take part in “conversion therapy,” a practice that has been scientifically disproved and that can be quite dangerous to LGBT people, particularly young LGBT people, who are at high risk of suicide. What’s particularly disturbing is that Apple gave the app a high rating and “labeled it non-offensive.” Apple frequently does not approve apps that are considered abusive.

Says a reviewer at change.org, “This is a hate-based initiative … intending to brainwash and emotionally destroy gay and lesbian people by coercing them to hate themselves based on their natural sexual orientation.”

Yep. Here’s a petition calling on Apple to stop being evil reconsider.

BSKY

Seth Fischer

Seth Fischerâ€™s writing has twice been listed as notable in The Best American Essays and has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize by several publications, including Guernica. He was the founding Sunday editor at The Rumpus and is the current nonfiction editor at The Nervous Breakdown. He is a Dornsife PhD Fellow at USC and been awarded fellowships and residencies by Ucross, Lambda Literary, Jentel, Ragdale, and elsewhere, and he teaches at the UCLA-Extension Writerâ€™s Program and Antioch University, where he received his MFA.

One response

Samuel Sargent

March 20, 2011

Maybe someone should consider making a subversive version of this as a way to reach a troubled demographic. When someone downloads it and tries to use it, it instead gives them legitimate information. (Something similar could be done with an app for suicide risks and other groups.)