Love & Hip-Hop NY's Jonathan Fernandez Opens Up About Traumatic Conversion Therapy

Celebrity make-up artist, Jonathan Fernandez, the newest star of Season 8 of Love & Hip-Hop New York, recently opened up on the show about the traumatic Gay Conversion Therapy he was subjected to at the age of 10 years old. Having grown up in New York City in a religious Dominican family, Fernandez’s mother sent him to the Dominican Republic in 1995 to undergo the controversial, yet legal, conversion therapy for six months. Bullied all throughout his childhood for not fitting into the “normal” gender stereotypes, his mother believed the treatment would help him address his feminine qualities, and ultimately keep him safe from his abusers.

“I went through a series of psychotherapy and hormone therapy to address my more feminine behaviour,” says Fernandez about his treatment. “Part of the treatment consisted of electronic stimulation that was hooked up to my body through pads with wires connected to a machine. The therapist would then give me light shocks if I answered questions incorrectly, or in a way that they disapproved of. I have had physical and emotional scars that I live with to this day.”

Commonly believed to be a pseudoscientific practice of aiming to change an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, Conversion Therapy has surprisingly been around since the 1920s, including experiments dating back to Sigmund Freud. According to the Human Rights Campaign, one of the largest LGBTQ civil rights advocacy groups in the US, conversion therapy can lead to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness and suicide. THE HRC also states that such practices have been rejected by mainstream medical and mental health organizations, however, due to the continued discrimination against LGBTQ people, some practitioners continue to conduct conversion therapy throughout the globe. Despite his traumatic past, Fernandez is determined to shed light on the reality of Conversion Therapy and the risks to its participants.

In addition to sharing his story on this season of LHHNY, Jonathan Fernandez has also appeared on the first three seasons of the hit television series K.Michelle: My Life, which had an average viewership of 1.8M viewers. A self-taught make-up artist, beginning at the age of 15, Fernandez has worked with such artists as Kanye West, Cindi Lauper, Missy Elliott, Martha Stewart, Da Brat, Roberta Flack, Angie Martinez, K. Michelle and more. He has also done make-up work for NY Fashion Week including shows for Oscar de la Renta, Dolce & Gabbana, Carolina Herrera, The Blonds, and Heatherette. Fernandez is set to launch his own make-up line called ByJonathan in March, and will see the premiere of his full line on this season of Love & Hip-Hop.