“I woke up as gay as when I went to sleep, which meant that every day I was failing in the eyes of my church.”

Paul Martin is speaking of his time in the 1980s with an evangelical Christian group called Exodus International, when he witnessed pseudo-CBT and spiritual healing programs, prayer therapy with counsellors claiming to channel the Holy Spirit and even exorcisms to “cure” him of his sexuality.

“There was a sense of being defective, disordered and sinful, and no matter what I did I couldn’t change that,” he tells Australian Doctor.

Change is afoot — at least in Victoria, where earlier this month, Premier Daniel Andrews announced the state would ban conversion therapy.