A Virginia-based group that claims to be able to help men “minimize or eliminate” their sexual attraction to other men has been accused of unfair, deceptive and fraudulent practices in the latest legal challenge to the controversial practice of “gay-conversion therapy”.



People Can Change has been reported to the Federal Trade Commission and accused of breaking the prohibition on unfair and deceptive acts. The group holds weekend therapy sessions that it calls “Journey into Manhood” and other courses ranging in price from $75 to $875.

It claims to be able to help men achieve a “decrease in same-sex attraction feelings and/or behaviors”, and “feel more masculine”. It also offers services to women: one of the weekends on offer is called A Wife’s Healing Journey and is billed as being designed “especially for wives of men who struggle with sex addiction and/or same-sex attraction”.

A coalition of LGBT and human rights groups have launched the legal challenge, including the Human Rights Campaign, National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center. In their complaint, they accuse PCC of defrauding consumers into believing that being gay is tantamount to a mental illness or defect and cite numerous professional organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association which have debunked such theories.

In a statement to the Guardian, Rich Wyler, who founded PCC in 2000 and is its executive director, called the complaint an “act of hate and vicious bullying against our community of adult men – gay, bi-sexual, ex-gay and same-sex attracted men”. He added that “for our own religious or other deeply personal reasons, we choose to not identify as gay or live a gay life. That’s our First Amendment right to free speech and free assembly.”

In pressing their case to have PCC’s activities in effect shut down, the complainants can point to a case last year in which a similar gay conversion group, Jonah, was ordered to cease operating by a New Jersey judge having been found by a jury to have broken the state’s consumer fraud protection law. That trial established the concept that commercial entities that claim they can “cure” homosexuality are acting essentially as con artists.

Unless PCC is also ordered to suspend its services as a result of the new FTC complaint, it plans to stage events this year in California, Florida, Indiana, Texas and Utah. It has also held sessions in the UK, Poland and Israel.

On its website and in brochures it states that “we know change in sexual attractions is possible, at least to some degree”. It claims that in follow-up surveys, about three out of every four men who took part in Journey into Manhood reported “a decrease in homosexual feelings and behaviors”.

Practitioners of gay-conversion therapy are under attack from numerous directions. Last April, the White House announced its support for efforts to ban conversion therapy for under-18s. Four states and the District of Columbia have passed laws that ban licensed mental health providers from using the controversial technique on minors, and a further 20 have introduced similar legislation that is yet to be enacted.

• This article was amended on 25 February 2016. An earlier version said People Can Change had been “hauled before” the FTC, where “reported to” was meant.