'I was forced to attend meetings for people struggling with their sexuality after joining my local church'

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."

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