Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the nonprofits.
Speaker 2: You know many of us have regrets, but do any
Speaker 2: of your regrets include sending your child to gay conversion therapy?
Speaker 2: Steven has that story. Steven, please take it the gay away.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Helen. There have never been, and there never
Speaker 3: will be, perfect parents, not even you, Mary. Connie Hoying
Speaker 3: is no exception. The difference is most parents don't bring
Speaker 3: their sons to conversion therapy, to a conversion therapy session
Speaker 3: and then write a book about it. Connie's son, Scott Hoying,
Speaker 3: is a singer in the a cappella group The Pentatonics,
Speaker 3: and her new memoir recounts Scott's coming out, the day
Speaker 3: that she brought her to an XAA counselor, and the
Speaker 3: regret that they both experienced afterwards. The story is from
Speaker 3: LGBTQ Nation by Connie Hoying on May fifth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: So being me, I'm going to shake things up. So Cindy.
Speaker 2: As reading your notes, and you spoke very powerfully about
Speaker 2: like outdated and context, the dependence of gender issues and roles.
Speaker 2: So given that, why do you think in religious like
Speaker 2: communities cling like so freaking tight to like gender norms
Speaker 2: and sexual behaviors that have to fit a sort of
Speaker 2: like cis straight mold even though like the evidence shows otherwise,
Speaker 2: Like what's your Also that also causes.
Speaker 4: Harm, like what is your kind of like feelings about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, my feelings are.
Speaker 5: I don't know that they're very strong. But the depth
Speaker 5: of the religious people's hypocrisy, it's always extremely staring to me.
Speaker 5: I just can't get over it. How they shift homosexuality
Speaker 5: as being a lifestyle as they say it, allowing them
Speaker 5: to criticize it as much as possible. That just drives
Speaker 5: me crazy because it shows how outdated their warview is,
Speaker 5: and that on two fronts. First, there's the idea that
Speaker 5: your sexual orientation is defined while your fitus, and that
Speaker 5: doesn't change. You're either capable of feigning in love with men, women,
Speaker 5: or anything in between, or you're not. Then there's sexual behavior,
Speaker 5: which is usually aligned to your orientation, but can be
Speaker 5: different depending on your environment, like living in a country
Speaker 5: where asexuality is panished by death, for example, like it's
Speaker 5: the case in sixty four countries today. That's one of
Speaker 5: the case that would make you differ from your orientation.
Speaker 5: And then the second view is that there's an almost
Speaker 5: worship of general roles in Christianity and also in Islam
Speaker 5: so strong, I would say, uh. And Christians believe it
Speaker 5: to be timeless and universal, which is nonsense because two
Speaker 5: hundred years ago men used to work to wear weeks
Speaker 5: and high heels. For centuries long, hair was a sign
Speaker 5: of strength and power in men. Its general rules have
Speaker 5: been evolving for for as long as we've been humans.
Speaker 5: And the fact that the the the region, the region,
Speaker 5: and the communities around Christianity just don't want to to
Speaker 5: understand this or even admit it. It's like I said,
Speaker 5: it draws me crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's kind of you know, goes back to
Speaker 2: the article that we were talking about earlier this week
Speaker 2: about like how self regulating structures kind of you know,
Speaker 2: end up being perpetrators of abuse. And this kind of
Speaker 2: feeds into that, where this idea that if your child
Speaker 2: is queer, that they we just send them to this
Speaker 2: camp or the social stubic therapy and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the behavior made stuff, but you didn't stop your child
Speaker 2: from like being queer. You just made their life much
Speaker 2: much harder. So good for you parents. Yay so eja
Speaker 2: uh person of.
Speaker 4: Many many different lights and colors.
Speaker 2: So you described conversion therapy accurately as torture.
Speaker 1: So if we accept that, why.
Speaker 2: Isn't it being uh treated us as such like Australia
Speaker 2: has completely for example, has completely banded, is considered abuse.
Speaker 1: They will not allow it.
Speaker 2: You can't even do it like as part of like
Speaker 2: your church, like you cannot do this form of therapy.
Speaker 2: So that being said, recognizing that, you know, calling a
Speaker 2: spade a spade, why do you think that it is
Speaker 2: still being perpetuated and perpetrated and why are we kind
Speaker 2: of a lot of people just like kind of letting
Speaker 2: you continue to happen.
Speaker 6: So I feel one of the big reasons that it
Speaker 6: is not prosecuted as torture, which I usually go with
Speaker 6: the definition that's an article one of the Unions conventioning
Speaker 6: as torture and other cool inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Speaker 6: The reason that a lot of people I feel don't
Speaker 6: prosecute it is the people who did it are still alive.
Speaker 6: Like this is not a thing that is vehemently in
Speaker 6: the past. There are people who I grew up with
Speaker 6: who went through it. There are people who I know
Speaker 6: who have went through it. The people are very much
Speaker 6: still alive.
Speaker 3: So the fact that.
Speaker 6: If you were to prosecute this as torture, there would
Speaker 6: be a big push to retroactively, to retroactively prosecute. And
Speaker 6: given that this would be a crime that wouldn't have
Speaker 6: a very short statute of limitations, it would be it
Speaker 6: would mean a lot of people who would, you know,
Speaker 6: perhaps say that they they're against it, but they really
Speaker 6: weren't back in the day. It would mean they're going
Speaker 6: away for considerable time, which is i'd say justified. But
Speaker 6: there would have to be a lot of reform so
Speaker 6: that to go in place.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean kind of pick you off with that.
Speaker 2: The leader of the Exodus movement, which was a gay
Speaker 2: conversion program that was done in the eighties and nineties
Speaker 2: up into the two thousands in the United States, he
Speaker 2: later came out as gay and he was a perpetrator
Speaker 2: conversion of therapy.
Speaker 1: And he's now and like.
Speaker 2: She was credited, he is now you know, walking his walk,
Speaker 2: and he is he is he's actively fighting his conversion therapy.
Speaker 2: He knows the harm that he did because of religious indoctrination,
Speaker 2: you know, and the self hatred that he kind of
Speaker 2: projected outwards.
Speaker 1: So you know, good on him for that.
Speaker 2: But that being said, like Stephen, you pointed out that
Speaker 2: you know a lot of these kids and families are
Speaker 2: being cohersed and to doing these you know, conversion therapies.
Speaker 1: So how how do you make like.
Speaker 2: A lawmaker and go, hey, maybe maybe don't do this thing.
Speaker 2: How do you get them to kind of understand that
Speaker 2: you can have a spiritual faith but also that has
Speaker 2: to stop when we're looking at abuse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, Like coersion is the right word. Like
Speaker 3: I remember, like the when I was m seeing our
Speaker 3: local pride event and I called out our local federal
Speaker 3: member of Parliament because he was one of the few
Speaker 3: a handful of MPs who would not back a bill
Speaker 3: that would ban conversion therapy. And I called him out
Speaker 3: for that and that harmful stance that he was taken.
Speaker 3: And he wasn't there obviously, of course, but he responded
Speaker 3: in our local newspapers saying, well, no one is being
Speaker 3: forced to take coercion therapy. Nobody has a gun to
Speaker 3: their head, which is just the just such an absurd
Speaker 3: stance to take, because yeah, it's all about the coercion
Speaker 3: and the fact that and especially like let me tell you,
Speaker 3: this material is like right in my wheelhouse, Like there
Speaker 3: isn't Like almost every week I'm talking about the intersect
Speaker 3: of queer and faith over on my channel. So I'm
Speaker 3: constantly constantly dealing with these people who think that X
Speaker 3: gay ministries are something that are beneficial because it's like
Speaker 3: especially it is especially insidious for and like I can
Speaker 3: only speak to this experience as a gay man right
Speaker 3: who had put himself through his own conversion. Growing up
Speaker 3: queer in the in a heteronormative world is so difficult
Speaker 3: because you see everyone around you and you want to
Speaker 3: be the same as everyone around you, and you can't
Speaker 3: be the same as everyone around you, so it is
Speaker 3: really challenging to That's why validation is so incredibly important.
Speaker 3: You're seeking validation in spite of being different from this
Speaker 3: hetero normative world. So when a young Christian is seeking
Speaker 3: out that validation and the straight men in his church say, yes,
Speaker 3: of course, of course you can have validation. So long
Speaker 3: as you do this, so long as you're straight enough, yes,
Speaker 3: then we will validate you. And you're abusing the trust
Speaker 3: of that child, of that miner, of that teenager. And
Speaker 3: when you abuse the trust of a child, you abuse
Speaker 3: the child. And so that's how they get coerced into
Speaker 3: these situations because this carot is being dangled in front
Speaker 3: of them, and they'll if there are anything like me,
Speaker 3: like so many people who have survived this xcay conversion therapy,
Speaker 3: then they'll do whatever it takes to try to line
Speaker 3: up with what the heteronormative patriarchal church wants it to be.
Speaker 3: How do we get lawmakers to appreciate that? Well, I
Speaker 3: don't know if we can make them. Either you have
Speaker 3: the decency to see that for yourselves, or you have
Speaker 3: the or you prefer to you see things through your
Speaker 3: your patriarchal view and ignore the fact that not that
Speaker 3: this is harmful, Like, how do we do it other
Speaker 3: than through our votes? Right?
Speaker 2: Well, seeing that I live in the bad I live
Speaker 2: in the bad place. That's not happening anytime soon because
Speaker 2: they keep you know, rolling back queer rights so great
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 4: I love living under LA fascists and it's fantastic anyway.
Speaker 2: That being said, Uh, that's my opinion. You don't you
Speaker 2: have to take it. Just my opinion. But that being said,
Speaker 2: as one of three queer people on this panel, I
Speaker 2: can definitely tell that not only as someone that had
Speaker 2: to untangle their own internal bigotry and their own internal
Speaker 2: sexism against the messaging you get from religion, you're still
Speaker 2: experiencing in the culture.
Speaker 1: So, Sidney, you're.
Speaker 2: A queer person, how do you personally navigate like conversations
Speaker 2: with people when they kind of weaponize that bakertry when
Speaker 2: you're you have like facts on your side over here
Speaker 2: and historical information, and then over here you got a
Speaker 2: person that is, like, you know, like everybody should be
Speaker 2: sitting straight just deal with it because God said so.
Speaker 2: So how do you how do you think people should
Speaker 2: be navigating those conversations?
Speaker 5: Well, you can't deal with the conversion therapy discussion before
Speaker 5: you deal with the uh the false ideas behind almost sexuality,
Speaker 5: because the first one is derived from the latter. You
Speaker 5: can't have conversion therapy unless you have a religious belief
Speaker 5: that homosexuality is wrong. So you need to fight this first.
Speaker 5: You need to show evidence that that homossexuality is innate
Speaker 5: and not learned. And so there are also many so
Speaker 5: many ways to show it, like uh, I don't know,
Speaker 5: ask ask a person or ask a uh heterosexual person
Speaker 5: if they would be able to feel in love, to
Speaker 5: fall in love with someone of their gender and see
Speaker 5: them squirm, and and and how do you think it's
Speaker 5: it's working for me? If if you can't and I can,
Speaker 5: then there's fundamentally something different between you and me. And
Speaker 5: and that's that's the first that comes to my mind.
Speaker 5: But again, until we we remove all the the advantages
Speaker 5: and benefits that religion has in society, we will not
Speaker 5: get rid of this. Luckily, some countries have started to
Speaker 5: to ban and forbid conventional therapy like uh, Stevens said.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: Several countries in in Europe, like including Portugal, Cyprus, UH, Iceland, Friends, Uh, Greece.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: All those countries have legislated on this. So it can
Speaker 5: happen by peer pressure, I mean in terms of countries,
Speaker 5: but it will take time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And and unfortunately, for some reason, we keep trying to
Speaker 2: take things back over and over again.
Speaker 1: I do want to apologize, e J.
Speaker 2: I did not realize you were also queer your I know,
Speaker 2: Stephen and sending a little bit better.
Speaker 1: So I am sorry. So everybody is queer.
Speaker 5: I don't blame you.
Speaker 6: I look I look very straight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry. That was I shouldn't have assumed like
Speaker 2: I said, I did. I did a stereotype, so Joze.
Speaker 1: So now that I'm talking to you, it's right.
Speaker 2: So so in your notes you kind of made like
Speaker 2: the really great point of putting queer people together. We
Speaker 2: won't putting queer periods. You'll fix them. It often makes
Speaker 2: them stronger, which is true. Like you get about your
Speaker 2: queer people together, You're not going to make it straight.
Speaker 1: It's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: So, so that being said, I've never been through conversion therapy.
Speaker 1: I have no freaking clue what it's like.
Speaker 2: I'm I have to imagine from the stories I've heard
Speaker 2: of people then through conversion therapy, it is very very Steve, it's.
Speaker 1: Not and Wieland's ryebrows at me.
Speaker 2: So I'll go to you minute, Stephen, So I wanted
Speaker 2: to get your why do you think it's so aggressive?
Speaker 2: And then we can talk to Stephen about his experience
Speaker 2: going through conversion therapy.
Speaker 1: I bet it was so much fun, so it stuck.
Speaker 6: So I've not been to any conversion therapy because it's
Speaker 6: illegal here, but I have been to a lovely little
Speaker 6: work around, which is you know, the Bible says be straight.
Speaker 6: This isn't conversion therapy, but go on and it's horrible.
Speaker 6: Although what tends to happen, at least from my experience,
Speaker 6: isn't that you get a bunch of people who want
Speaker 6: to be straight. It's that you get a bunch of
Speaker 6: people who are you know, everyone is queer, and after
Speaker 6: a couple of days you kind of go, huh, if
Speaker 6: we're all ourselves, this feels actually quite nice.
Speaker 1: You know what this is?
Speaker 6: Maybe we should just always do this And it tends
Speaker 6: to backfire horribly, which I don't know how the camps
Speaker 6: don't see coming because most of the people who run
Speaker 6: them are either very repressive or so far in the
Speaker 6: closet they're having tea with Aslan, so you think they
Speaker 6: would see it coming, but they don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah you would, and like kind of if you guys
Speaker 2: have ever seen the movie but I'm a cheerleader, where
Speaker 2: you put a bunch of queer kids together, relationships are
Speaker 2: going to start to form. If you put a bunch
Speaker 2: of queer kids in a camp and they're left to
Speaker 2: their own devices. Teenagers be teenagers exactly. So Steven, you
Speaker 2: were raising your eyebrows, please sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like it is it is, like, yeah, again, like
Speaker 3: I was reading the books and I was certainly seeing
Speaker 3: the counselors who are trying to help me be straight,
Speaker 3: just like God says that he wants. And it's just
Speaker 3: it's it's so yeah, okay, yeah, I guess it's kind
Speaker 3: of traumatizing, isn't it to yeah, to to be told
Speaker 3: that you are not right and to believe them that
Speaker 3: you are not right, and to pour everything you can
Speaker 3: into being right. It's it is. It is why I
Speaker 3: am doing what I'm doing online now so that if
Speaker 3: there is any a younger version of me out there
Speaker 3: who needs to hear that he she They don't need
Speaker 3: to change. They are fine just the way they are.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting that in this book that Connie here
Speaker 3: has written about her son, it's not that he went
Speaker 3: to conversion therapy and then they realized that it was wrong.
Speaker 3: It was that The story is they were on a
Speaker 3: long drive and he came out to her, and then
Speaker 3: she was like, oh, well, I love you just as
Speaker 3: you are, but maybe don't come out while you're still
Speaker 3: like a senior in Texas. Maybe wait till you go
Speaker 3: to university in California and then come out. It might
Speaker 3: be better for you, and he's like, okay, And then
Speaker 3: he found out about a counselor who was gay but
Speaker 3: wasn't gay anymore, and so his mom booked him an
Speaker 3: appointment for that, and then like as they drew closer,
Speaker 3: he got cold feet, and she's like, oh, well, let's
Speaker 3: at least hear him out. Maybe he has something useful.
Speaker 3: Because this was the early two thousand, so ex gay
Speaker 3: ministry didn't have the reputation that it does now in
Speaker 3: many circles. So then she kind of coerced him into
Speaker 3: attending the session and that's where she learned what conversion
Speaker 3: therapy was all about. And Scott, he wasn't having any
Speaker 3: of it. He stood up for himself and he said, hey,
Speaker 3: if God made me this way, then I don't need
Speaker 3: to reject it. And then that was that was it
Speaker 3: for their time. They left and they were sad and
Speaker 3: they were shaken, but he wasn't. He wasn't impacted by
Speaker 3: it the same way that so many of us are
Speaker 3: when we are so desperate for that validation. And I
Speaker 3: just I'm so curious, like who was this book written for?
Speaker 3: Like this is a memoir of Scott's entire life. I
Speaker 3: guess he's in his twenties thirties now, I guess so,
Speaker 3: and is written by his mom, but the foreword by him.
Speaker 3: But like it is it written for? Is it a
Speaker 3: cautionary tale for moms who don't have the wherewithal to
Speaker 3: know what conversion therapy is? Or is it written for
Speaker 3: other you know, cis gay white boys who were more
Speaker 3: traumatized by conversion therapy? Or is it written for gay
Speaker 3: men who didn't know that Scott has recently launched his
Speaker 3: solo career and maybe they would like to know a
Speaker 3: little bit more about him and maybe by his album.
Speaker 3: I don't know who this book is for, but if you,
Speaker 3: if you want to, if you, if anybody, if anybody,
Speaker 3: if anybody, needs to have a better understanding of what
Speaker 3: exactly is involved in conversion therapy and hear that first
Speaker 3: hand account an amazing book slash movie called Boy Erased. Well,
Speaker 3: it's besides the documentary Prey Away Boy Race was written
Speaker 3: by someone who went through it firsthand and struggled with
Speaker 3: trying to live up to his minister father's footsteps and
Speaker 3: his struggle and the torture that he endured at the
Speaker 3: hands of these of these straight men who are just
Speaker 3: trying to reconcile their faith with these gay boys in
Speaker 3: front of them the best way they know how, and
Speaker 3: they still get a failing grade on it.
Speaker 1: So Sinny found words.
Speaker 5: But then just to forbid them and making those two
Speaker 5: forbid them. It's it's it's a barbaric uh to practice.
Speaker 5: It's like, what's the name the trepanation, the thing that
Speaker 5: was made to uh two people like five hundred years ago.
Speaker 5: It's it's yeah, it's it's barbaric, it's stupid, it doesn't work,
Speaker 5: and it hurts people. Just get rid of it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's simple.
Speaker 6: Ideas, just that I'm in complete agreement. The sooner that
Speaker 6: we finally get this practice off the planet for not
Speaker 6: only just gay, bisexual, but also trans individuals, especially youth,
Speaker 6: it will be so much better for the world because
Speaker 6: then we can finally start tackling issues that we should
Speaker 6: really be focusing on, because we shouldn't have to tell
Speaker 6: people the torturing kids is.
Speaker 2: Wrong theme on this show that were constantly talking about,
Speaker 2: don't torture children. If you want to learn more about
Speaker 2: non torturing children and why it's bad, please click on
Speaker 2: a video. I also like subscribe and real people we'll
Speaker 2: see you next time.