Saturday Night Live’s Bowen Yang has publicly discussed the damaging experience of being subjected to gay conversion therapy as a teenager. In a clip from Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist, the actor opened up about the long-lasting effects of the therapy, stating it was “very painful and detrimental.”
Yang explained to Geist that his parents’ decision to send him to conversion therapy came after they found what he described as “lewd conversations” on AOL Instant Messenger when he was 17, inadvertently revealing his sexuality. He recounted their reaction at the time: “They were like, ‘Oh, we didn’t realise this is what we were dealing with. Where we come from, this doesn’t happen.’ That was their concept of it. And so I give them a lot of grace for that – because they had no context.”
Faced with an ultimatum, Yang chose to attend conversion therapy in exchange for the opportunity to study at New York University alongside his sister. “Part of the ultimatum was, ‘If you go to [conversion] therapy, then you can go to school at NYU where your sister is,'” Yang told Geist, as reported by People. He added, with a touch of irony, that his parents “did not realize it’s one of the gayest schools in the country.”
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Reflecting on his decision, Yang admitted, “I just knew I had to live there. So I kind of played along – I humoured them, and I humoured myself – into seeing what it was. Not knowing that it was ultimately very painful and detrimental. And there was a lot of healing that happened after that.”
Yang also touched upon his journey of self-discovery, noting, “Identity is this really fickle thing; it’s not something that you arrive at until much later in life, I think… I didn’t really get a grasp on who I was until like, two years ago.”
His willingness to speak out adds to a growing chorus of LGBTQ+ individuals who are challenging the practice of conversion therapy, which is defined by the Human Rights Campaign as “a range of dangerous and discredited practices that falsely claim to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.” The organisation highlights the potential for such therapies to cause significant harm, including depression, anxiety, and increased risk of suicide.
While conversion therapy has been banned for minors in 19 US states, including Colorado where Yang underwent the treatment, it remains a concern for LGBTQ+ advocates. Despite his difficult experience, Yang told People in a previous interview that he now has a “healthy place” with his parents.
