When Augustine Tanner-Ihm first moved to the UK from Chicago at the age of 23, he had long realised he was attracted to men.
At the age of 14, he first realised he might not be straight, after attending a Christian summer camp. The time he spent there also led him to discover Christianity.
He had wrestled with his sexuality 'every single day' as he grew up in poverty in a predominately black community with religious Jehovah's Witness parents.
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So when he moved to the North West in 2013, and joined a local church in Liverpool as an intern, he told members that he was 'struggling with his sexuality' in order to seek help and advice.
"They were like, 'oh, that’s fine. We have a group for people that struggle with their sexuality', and when I got there, I realised it was conversion therapy," Augustine said, speaking to the PA news agency 10 years on.
He met with 10 to 15 other people, between 'university age to about 60,' who were also 'struggling with their sexuality' once a week for around seven or eight months.
"They met at someone’s house and they met once a week with a range of people – people who were single, people who got married to people of the opposite sex – and very much the goal was for you to be able to marry the opposite sex."
Augustine described the meetings as 'kind of like a support group,' adding: "People talked about different ways of dealing with things. People talked about their own struggles and talked about total deliverance that God can give. [There was] a lot of prayer. Quite intense prayer.
"They put it in my schedule, that I was going to go, but then after a while, I realised it was expected for me to go."
Conversion therapy is the practice of attempting to convert a non-heterosexual person to heterosexuality using methods like psychoanalysis and religious counselling, and has been condemned by LGBT+ charities like Stonewall.
A Government survey published in 2017 found 7% of UK LGBT people had been offered the therapy. The Government has committed to banning conversion therapy but it has not yet banned the practice.
Mr Tanner-Ihm described the highly emotional conversion therapy meetings as 'oppressive' and said he was particularly vulnerable as he was 'an intern from another country and [his] visa was in their control.'
After repeatedly questioning some of the points made during the conversion therapy sessions, Mr Tanner-Ihm said he was perceived as a 'troublemaker.' He returned to the US when his visa expired and lived there for over a year, before moving back to the UK.
Now 33, he lives in Manchester and works as a priest for three churches where he can 'just be myself.' "As a survivor and a minister, I think it's best that [conversion therapy is] banned for all people in the UK," he said.
He said his attitude towards his sexuality has changed 'massively', adding as he undertakes his duties as a priest, "I can just be myself. It’s really quite lovely."
Although Mr Tanner-Ihm’s feelings about his sexuality have transformed and societal attitudes towards homosexuality have drastically changed, the minister still feels the effects of conversion therapy.
He said: "It has caused a lot of pain and suffering, and I continue to deal with the ramifications of conversion therapy."
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