After he had gay sex for the first time, church leaders asked Benson to renounce Baal (an Old Testament god of the Phoenicians) and exorcise the spirit of sodomy. They made the 17-year-old delete his queer contacts.

They drew a cross on his phone with consecrated oil. This was at a large evangelical-style modern-looking church near Melbourne in 2006.

"The devil won't have a chance with you now," they told Benson.

He cycled back home with his school bag on his back, and that was the last time he went to gay conversion therapy. For the last four years, Benson had been receiving one-on-one counselling twice a week to 'fix' what he was told was his 'broken' sexuality. He had been told this was necessary to live a 'wholesome life'.

"It was hurt-healed narrative. Lost and found. Broken and fixed," he told Hack.

It was about maintaining purity and sexual wholeness.

Stories like this are part of a landmark report released today into the nature, extent and impact of gay conversion therapy in Australia. Produced by the Human Rights Law Centre, Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria, and La Trobe University, the report has found conversion practices are not receding, but are entering the mainstream within particular Christian churches.

This report provides the first academic research on the LGBT conversion movements in Australia.

At least 10 organisations in Australia and New Zealand currently advertise the provision of conversion therapies, according to the report.

This is despite overwhelming clinical evidence that practices aimed at reorientation of LGBT people do not work and are both harmful and unethical. In 2014, nine ex-leaders of the 'Gay Conversion Therapy Movement' offered a public apology for the damage their movement had caused.

However, other members of the movement continue to practice in secret, according to La Trobe University's Dr Timothy Jones, an author of the report.

Of the organisations that are devoted to conversion therapy, many of them closed down over the past 10 years, but many have just gone a bit undercover.

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Whatsapp An Atlanta billboard.

"They don't advertise doing LGBT conversion therapy, they don't call themselves ex-gay.

"They talk about courses in sexual purity, sexual wholeness, counselling for sexual brokenness and relationships."

"They're the same organisations, the same people doing the same things."

It's called 'unwanted same-sex attraction'

When Benson hopped on his bike every Wednesday and cycled to the local church, he didn't think he was attending gay conversion therapy. He never even thought of refusing. He had been brought up to equate heterosexuality with living a wholesome life. He was told his homosexual feelings came from problems with his upbringing.

"They said my mother was too close to me and my father was distant. That made me a more feminine boy," he told Hack.

"They said the reason I'm attracted to men is I'm looking for the intimacy I never received from my father, from other men."

"I was confusing intimacy with sex, and using sex to get to intimacy."

"But God is the father, he's the ultimate dad. He can be your brother, he can be everything."

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Whatsapp Examples of modern gay conversion therapy books.

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This quasi-psychological approach is typical of current gay conversion therapy practices, according to Dr Jones. He said he has found examples of registered clinical practitioners in various codes conducting conversion therapy contrary to the ethical standards of their profession. All Australian health authorities, including the Christian Counsellors Association of Australia, now "strongly oppose any form of mental health practice that treats homosexuality as a disorder, or seeks to change a person's sexual orientation".

Conversion practices are not explicitly prohibited under legislation in Australia. However, existing laws and regulations governing registered medical professionals and healthcare services provide important protections.

In Victoria, since 2016, the Health Complaints Commissioner has had the power to investigate and respond to complaints of gay conversion therapy. It is currently conducting an inquiry into conversion practices in Victoria.

Such inquiries are important, but they also tend to come too late, according to Dr Jones. Complaints are typically made years after the therapy stops, if ever, once the subject has gained some perspective on what they went through.

"The trauma that conversion therapy occasions for people doesn't put them in a position to be able to make complaints within an appropriate time," Dr Jones said.

Benson, who grew up in a very Christian family and went to a private Christian school, told Hack a young person like himself was unlikely to hear about the Commissioner and approach them to complain about medical malpractice.

In his case, school, church and family supported the conversion therapy.

"There was no voice of dissent," he said.

Is this still happening? 'Yes. 100 per cent.'

The breaking point came in his final year of school. He figured he was being condemned for something he had never done - gay sex. The shame was getting worse. So he jumped on an online dating site and hooked up with someone.

"I was so sick and tired about talking about it."

"I thought let's get it out of the way, hey let's go and try it."

Soon after that, he came out. But coming out didn't bring any relief. Instead, he just felt really guilty. He felt like he'd given up on being "wholesome". He was depressed, and he thought this was because he wasn't living his 'true life'.

It took years for him to realise the cause was the therapy.

"I felt like I'm lazy, I'm slack," he said.

"I haven't been disciplined enough. I'm going to accept a counterfeit version of life.

"It was like, imagine you've inherited $30 million and you come in and say look I've lost the money. You had so much support here and you still f***ed up."

It's not God's fault, it's my fault.

Earlier this year, one of his cousins came out as lesbian. Benson says his mother and aunts immediately suggested conversion therapy.

"This is still going on," he said. "100 per cent."

'This is not an attack on the churches'

The report on LGBT conversion in Australia includes anonymous interviews with 15 people who went through conversion therapy. One was going through therapy up until 2016.

"We need stronger laws signalling it's harmful, inappropriate and unethical," Dr Jones said.

The report was released only days after part of the Ruddock review into religious freedoms was leaked to the media. It recommended new laws to codify the existing right of schools to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation as well as gender identity.

'I was the secretly gay captain of a private Christian school' A review of religious freedoms has recommended new laws to allow schools to kick out openly LGBTI students.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison refused to rule out the proposal, and a member of his party, Liberal MP Alex Hawke, expressed support.

In response, some church leaders and headmasters of private Christian schools have taken a stand against the proposal, saying it is harmful to children.

Dr Jones said he was anxious about releasing the conversion therapy report, which has already been delayed by the same-sex marriage plebiscite, at this time.

"The media is pitting churches against gay people," he said.

"The point of the report is not to attack the churches but to make religious communities aware that some communities are doing practices causing long-lasting harm.

"We want to help them stop doing that."

"Religious communities want to care for their members ... and I think they're not aware enough of how wrong these kinds of practices are."

Benson, however, took a slightly less conciliatory line. Since leaving therapy he has also left the church that was once at the centre of his life.

"Why is the church so determined to practice its ways, to protect its education system, because gay people could corrode that?" he said.

"If the church is so powerful and wonderful and majestic why is it so scared of a young gay person?"