Supporting Conversion Therapy Survivors After Chiles v. Salazar: SOGIECE, Clinical Care, and Community Response – An Interview with Samuel Nieves

Supporting Conversion Therapy Survivors After Chiles v. Salazar: SOGIECE, Clinical Care, and Community Response - An Interview with Samuel Nieves

Samuel Nieves of the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network on supporting conversion therapy survivors, recognizing SOGIECE, and clinical care after Chiles v. Salazar.

Curt and Katie welcome back Samuel Nieves, a conversion therapy survivor and board member of the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network, for a follow-up to their earlier conversation and to the host-led discussion of the Chiles v. Salazar decision. Rather than re-litigating the legal details, they focus on the clinical and human aftermath for survivors.

Sam shares what he saw the day the ruling came down, how to recognize a conversion therapy survivor on your caseload (including memory loss and shifting narratives), why validation has to come before strengths work, and how to lead with curiosity instead of challenge. He explains SOGIECE, sexual orientation and gender identity or expression change efforts, and why naming it can be the validation that lets a survivor finally call their experience what it was.

The conversation also sits with why reducing these practices to "speech" misses the harm, what licensing boards and clinicians owe survivors, and how survivors and the advocates who serve them stay in the work through firm boundaries and intentional queer joy. This is a grounded, affirming episode for any clinician working with LGBTQ+ clients.

In this episode, we discuss:

- How to recognize a conversion therapy survivor on your caseload

- Why validation has to come before strengths-based work

- How to lead with curiosity instead of challenge with traumatized clients

- What SOGIECE is and why naming it can be profoundly validating

- Why framing conversion therapy as "speech" misses the real harm

- What licensing boards and the profession owe survivors

- How survivors and advocates sustain themselves through boundaries and queer joy

Timestamps:

- 02:00 - Who Sam is and the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network

- 03:14 - The day the Chiles v. Salazar decision came down

- 06:26 - Validation before strengths with survivors

- 09:04 - What well-meaning therapists can miss

- 11:10 - The public "permission" and its harm to survivors

- 18:40 - Why "it's just speech" misses the harm

- 22:10 - SOGIECE, allies, and survivor organizations

- 27:45 - What the profession owes survivors

- 32:21 - Solution-focused therapy, ACT, and queer joy

- 35:01 - How Sam sustains himself in the work

Guest Bio:

Samuel Nieves (he/they) is a board member of the Conversion Therapy Survivor Network, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit supporting survivors of conversion therapy and SOGIECE worldwide. Trained as a marriage and family therapist, Sam advocates online as "CantPrayMeAway" and helps facilitate the organization's weekly survivor support group.

Full show notes and transcript: mtsgpodcast.com

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