LGBTQ+ People in Psychedelics, Alex Belser, PhD

Alex Belser holding Queering Psychedelics at a Chacruna event

The Work

From oppression to liberation

Sexual and gender minorities carry a disproportionate burden of depression, anxiety, and trauma, not because of who they are, but because of what they live through. Yet for decades, LGBTQIA+ people were excluded from psychedelic research, or worse, made its subjects in attempts to "cure" them.

With colleagues, I've tried to help the field face that history and do better: co-editing Queering Psychedelics (Synergetic Press, 2022), studying how to assess sexual orientation and gender identity in clinical trials, working on Chacruna Institute's Women, Gender Diversity, and Sexual Minorities Working Group, and offering affirming group ketamine therapy for queer folx.

I also serve as Senior Advisor for Strategy and Programs to Healing Hearts, Changing Minds, a foundation funding LGBTQ+ psychedelic research and practice, psychedelic end-of-life care, and work translating peak experiences into durable prosocial action.

The Consensus Statement

In 2024, I served as lead author of the Consensus Statement Condemning Psychedelic Conversion Therapy and Suggestions for Addressing Ongoing Harms Against LGBTQIA+ People in Psychedelic Research and Therapy, endorsed by more than fifty scientists, clinicians, and scholars.

The statement documents a painful history. In a 1966 interview, Timothy Leary claimed LSD was "a specific cure for homosexuality." Mid-century psychedelic therapy sometimes pathologized queer lives and presented "conversion" as a clinical success. The statement names these practices as harmful, calls for accountability, and offers concrete suggestions for research and therapy today.

Read & sign the statement See the signatories

The open letter exchange with Dr. Stan Grof

The consensus statement examined, among other histories, passages in the published work of Dr. Stanislav Grof, a pioneer of LSD psychotherapy, that classified homosexuality as pathology and described clients' shifts toward heterosexuality as therapeutic success.

January 2025
Dr. Grof's first open letter Published on MAPS.org, Dr. Grof apologized for "passages of my earlier writings" that described homosexuality as a mental disorder, writing: "If these writings caused confusion or pain to readers, I am left with deep regret and I apologize with a full heart." Read both letters at MAPS →
March 2025
Our open letter reply With Jeffrey Guss, Andrea Ens, Bill Brennan, and Dee Dee Goldpaugh, I co-authored "An Open Letter Reply to Dr. Stan Grof," co-published by the OPEN Foundation and Chacruna Institute. We thanked Dr. Grof for his apology while documenting, verbatim, the archival writings and published case narratives we believe constitute a form of conversion therapy, and asked the field to take fuller accountability.
July 2025
Dr. Grof's second open letter In a follow-up published on MAPS.org, Dr. Grof took "full responsibility for the harm my writings have caused" and supported removing pathologizing language from future reprints of his books, while rejecting the characterization of his clinical work as conversion therapy.

This conversation is ongoing, and it matters: how a field tells its history shapes who feels safe inside it.

Queer and gender-expansive people have always been experts in transformation.

From KAP for Queer Folx, group ketamine-assisted psychotherapy

Related research, writing & talks

Belser, A. B., & Keating, A. (2022). A queer vision for psychedelic research: Past reckonings, current reforms, and future transformations.Chapter in Queering Psychedelics · PDF
McKernan, S., & Belser, A. B. (2022). Best practices for assessing sexual orientation and gender identity in psychedelic clinical trials.Chapter in Queering Psychedelics · PDF
Belser, A. B., Cavnar, C., & Labate, B. C. (2022). Introduction to Queering Psychedelics.Chapter in Queering Psychedelics · PDF
Ioverno, S., Belser, A. B., et al. (2016). The protective role of gay-straight alliances.Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity

▶A Queer Critique of the "Mystical Experience" (2019) ▶Queering Psychedelics, Queerly Beloved (2023) ♪The Dark History of Conversion Therapy, Psychedelics Today ✦VICE: Psychedelics are for queer folks, too ✦DoubleBlind: Researchers changing the field ✦Rolling Stone: Ketamine & the queer scene ♪NPR Code Switch (2024)

Affirming care, in practice

From research to the therapy room: identity-centered ketamine groups and individual psychotherapy in New York City.

KAP for Queer Folx Queering Psychedelics, the book