Peter Gajdics (pronounced “Guy-ditch”) is an award-winning writer whose essays, short memoir and poetry have appeared in Quillette, Huffington Post, X-tra, Maclean's, Advocate, New York Tyrant, The Gay and Lesbian Review / Worldwide, Cosmonauts Avenue, and Opium, among others. He is a recipient of several grants from Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council, a fellowship from The Summer Literary Seminars, and an alumni of Lambda Literary Foundation’s “Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices.” Peter's first book, “The Inheritance of Shame: A Memoir,” was published in 2017 and documents his six-year journey through and eventual recovery from a form of "conversion therapy" in British Columbia, Canada; the legal battle with his former psychiatrist; his complicated family history; and his attempts to reclaim his life—and, most especially, his truth. Peter lives and writes in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Presentation would include an overview of my 2017 book “The Inheritance of Shame: A Memoir,” about my six-year journey through and eventual recovery from a form of “conversion therapy” in British Columbia, as well as over two decades of advocacy to help ban these discredited forms of “treatments” at all levels of government (municipal, provincial, federal), culminating in the final December 2021 passing of federal Bill C-4, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy), which has criminalized “conversion therapy” across Canada. Finally, presentation would summarize several “lessons learned” as a result of personal experience in this "therapy," and a “call to action” about how others can resist expressions of societal homophobia that contribute to continued practices of “conversion therapy.”
