Garrard Conley woke up today to learn that the Supreme Court issued an 8-1 ruling limiting states’ ability to ban conversion therapy for minors, framing the practice as protected speech.
He wasn’t okay.
when The boy was erased Conley’s account of being forced into conversion therapy was published in 2016, sounding like something from another era. Conley, the son of a Baptist minister in Arkansas, was 19 when he received an ultimatum: attend a church-run program aimed at “curing” his homosexuality or lose his family.
What followed, as he recounts in his memoirs, was a system built on confession, control and psychological pressure. He underwent “therapeutic” sessions for six months that required him to fabricate a sexual history; Bible verses set as punishment. For Love in Action, the program he eventually joined, he attended exercises that mapped “sins” through family trees or asked participants to shout out imagined versions of their parents. Teenagers are grouped with adults who deal with everything from marriage issues to more extreme behavior — including pedophilia — all under the principle of “every sin is equal.”
His book was later adapted into a feature film in 2018, directed by and starring Joel Edgerton, who played the psychotherapist who oversaw his “conversion.” Lucas Hedges played a fictionalized version of Conley, while Nicole Kidman played his mother.
At the same time, Conley became one of the most prominent chroniclers of the harms of conversion therapy, and his advocacy helped promote legislative prohibition in much of the country. Hollywood Reporter I spoke to Conley shortly after the court issued its landmark decision.
It takes us back to the beginning. What was love in action?
So in 2004, after revealing it to my parents, my father gave me an ultimatum: I either attend the program or lose touch with my family, friends, and community. I was 19 — legally an adult — but this kind of thinking was something I grew up with in church.
Conversion therapy doesn’t always seem like an easy way out. Before I started Love in Action, I spent six months in one-on-one therapy with someone associated with the program. He asked me to disclose any sexual fantasies I was having, in as much detail as possible. His response was always disgust. He would give me a collection of Bible verses to memorize for the next session. After a while, it seemed like I had to make things up, because he was always suspicious — and always suggested I was sleeping with men in public bathrooms. These were not the things I had in mind at the time.
Then I went to the program itself.
Love in Action had a scheduled two-week program called “The Source.” But they wanted you to stay longer. They were encouraging my parents to put my college fees toward conversion therapy instead and made me drop out.
The program used a 12-step model based on the Alcoholics Anonymous program to extricate people from what they called the “sin of homosexuality.” We had what were called “rap sessions.” We are placed with people who deal with bestiality, pedophilia, marriage issues, and gender confusion, all under the idea that all sin is equal in the eyes of God.
The man who ran the camp, John Smead — who would become famous years later and was now married to a husband — whose credentials, when my mother finally thought to ask, were that he was a marriage counselor and worked with Alcoholics Anonymous.
There was also an arts and crafts element.
There was. We did what are called genograms – something that real therapists use, a kind of family tree that shows patterns of trauma across generations. But in our version, next to your family members, you’d write things like “AB” for abortion, dollar sign for gambling, and “H” for homosexuality. It was meant to show how the sins of the fathers were responsible for why we are there.
One day, we were asked to make masks. We are asked to show what we have to the outside world, and then the ugly part on the inside.
It seems like RuPaul’s Drag Race challenge.
(He laughs.) I agree? Every time I talk about this, it’s so ridiculous now with this distance. I truly believe that if people weren’t so completely destroyed by it, they could have been excellent drag queens. You definitely learn to think on your feet.
What is the breaking point for you?
There was something called a deck chair. You have been asked to sit across from an empty chair and imagine your father in it, telling him how much he hurt you, and how much you hated him. The assumption, based on some very watered-down Freud, was that I was gay because my father was very distant and my mother very close. They were obsessed with the amount of male touch you received growing up. In any other context, it would have been great. Not in this one.
I read it in 1984 in high school. And I remember thinking, “They’re asking me to hate my father. This is a Christian institution. They want me to hate him so I can heal.” So when they asked me to do this exercise in front of everyone, I said, “I don’t hate it. I’m really confused about why I’m here and I don’t know why they’re making me do this stupid exercise.” They said, “You’ve been lying all the time. You haven’t applied yourself.”
I got so angry that I went out and demanded my belongings back. They take everything when you arrive, your phone, your wallet, to look for what they call “fake photos.” “I need my phone back,” I said. “Except in case of emergency,” they said. “It’s an emergency,” I said. I took the phone into the hallway and called my mother.
Tell me about this morning.
I thought I was ready to rule. I have read all the documents. I was involved. But when I saw it in print, I was actually offended. It was as if I was being told that all the work – all of it – was somehow unnecessary.
I called my mom and told her. She hadn’t watched the news yet. “I’m so crazy,” she said. Then she said something I couldn’t have phrased it better myself: “What happened to you He was letter. And the words He does Harm – especially from people you trust.
The ruling was 8-1, including two of the three liberal justices.
This hurts more. When I read the decision, I felt like I was reading a strange language. Not because it’s difficult, but because I can’t follow logic. They frame this as a speech issue rather than an issue of medical regulation. What that tells me, reading between the lines, is that they treat LGBT identity as an idea up for debate, not as a scientific fact. For this reason, they are willing to call this issue a belief issue.
I was careful about the word “torture.”
I’m careful because I’m not saying that every conversation in which someone explores their sexuality constitutes torture. But what I was subjected to was torture. And I think when someone – especially a licensed professional – tells you over and over again that what you’re experiencing isn’t true, that’s something different. The door closes in a person’s face. It does not give them options. He tells them that there is only one way to be a healthy human being.
