First Openly Gay Prince Speaks Out on Mission to End Conversion Therapy: ‘I Have to Keep Fighting’ – PEOPLE

Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil of India is speaking out against gay conversion therapy, opening up about his own subjection to electroshock treatments and other practices in an effort to find a “cure” for his sexuality.

The 56-year-old prince, who came out in 2006 and is believed to be the world’s first openly gay royal, is fighting for a ban on the practice of conversion therapy in India, where homosexuality was illegal until 2018.

When Prince Manvendra told his parents that he was gay in 2002, “They thought it was impossible that I could be gay because my cultural upbringing had been so rich. They had no idea that there’s no connection between someone’s sexuality and their upbringing,” he recently told Insider.

His parents, the Maharaja and Maharani of Rajpipla, took him to medical practitioners and spiritual guides in an effort to change his sexuality.

“They approached doctors to operate on my brain to make me straight and subjected me to electroshock treatments,” he recounted.

The treatments left him feeling depressed and suicidal.

Prince Manvendra said it’s “important” for people like him with a platform to speak out against the practice of conversion therapy and continue to campaign for its end.

“Now we have to fight for issues like same-sex marriage, right to inheritance, right to adoption. It’s a never-ending cycle,” he said. “I have to keep fighting.”

Manvendra, who married his husband in 2013 after a failed arranged marriage with a woman, recalled how his country reacted when he came out as gay, including his parents publicly disowning him.

“The day I came out, my effigies were burnt,” he said. “There were a lot of protests, people took to the streets and shouted slogans saying that I brought shame and humiliation to the royal family and to the culture of India. There were death threats and demands that I be stripped off of my title.”

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Despite the backlash, Prince Manvendra continued to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. In 2018, The prince came up with the idea of transforming his ancestral home into a support hub to financially and socially empower the community.

“My decision to convert my royal establishment into an LGBTQA community center came up from my own life’s experience when I was disowned by family,” he said, according to the BBC. “This is precisely what happens to any other LGBT person in India. People still face a lot of pressure from their families when they come out, being forced to marry, or thrown out of their homes. They often have nowhere to go, no means to support themselves.”