Speaker 1: Good day everyone. This is Chuck here on a Saturday
Speaker 1: with a Selex episode about conversion therapy boo. And you
Speaker 1: know what, regardless of what you think about conversion therapy,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work. And so that's why this episode is
Speaker 1: titled how Conversion Therapy Doesn't Work from November twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering before you listen, what is conversion therapy?
Speaker 1: That's when parents try to make their LGTBQ. Let's just
Speaker 1: put it in that whole bucket. Child not that, and
Speaker 1: it's just not possible because that's who they are. So
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this episode, and if you don't
Speaker 1: keep it to.
Speaker 2: Yourself, welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 3: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's guest producer Josh Over There.
Speaker 3: Don't be confused, everybody, there are more than one Josh
Speaker 3: in the world. It's nice to hear you finally admit
Speaker 3: that it's taken a long time, a lot of therapy,
Speaker 3: a nice segue, it's like a short stuff. I'm like,
Speaker 3: let's get to it, let's get going.
Speaker 4: Well, I have a CoA to issue.
Speaker 3: Eh. You know what cracks me up as people who
Speaker 3: are still like, what does that mean? You figure it
Speaker 3: out and you can email eventually some people will.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So my CoA is just a personal CoA that I'm
Speaker 1: going to try and just disguise my disdain for this
Speaker 1: entire topic.
Speaker 4: Okay, but I might not do a great job about it.
Speaker 3: Well you've already shown your hands, all right, good, that's
Speaker 3: my CoA. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's too many
Speaker 3: stuff you should know listeners who are probably into this.
Speaker 4: Yeah what.
Speaker 1: But part of the problem is we'll see later in
Speaker 1: this episode, is part of the problem with conversion therapies
Speaker 1: coverage in the media, Oh yeah, is that it has
Speaker 1: largely been fairly even handed and described as like this
Speaker 1: controversial therapy and not said this scam and this junk
Speaker 1: science fraud igetrated by zelots super harmful.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, so that's where I that's where I am.
Speaker 3: You know. That stuck out to me too, that in
Speaker 3: the late nineties we'll talk about it, especially when it
Speaker 3: was treated even handily, and it made me think like
Speaker 3: we should do an episode on that, like the like
Speaker 3: should the media treat all sides of an issue equally,
Speaker 3: and if it does, does that just like perpetuate ignorance,
Speaker 3: or if it doesn't, does that like support fascism? Right,
Speaker 3: Like that's a hornet. I really think we should do
Speaker 3: it sometimes it is. That's a good good call, Thank you, Charles.
Speaker 3: I don't know how we I mean, I guess I
Speaker 3: could be researched. Yeah, surely somebody's done a think piece
Speaker 3: on it, and we can springboard off of you know,
Speaker 3: I think piece. That's right, that's what we do most
Speaker 3: of our research. I think piece.
Speaker 1: This is from one of our great writers, Julia Layton,
Speaker 1: and she put this a lot of this stuff together
Speaker 1: for us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she did a good job on this.
Speaker 4: So like the additional histories you found.
Speaker 3: Out though, Yeah, because this this so we we'll define
Speaker 3: it first and then we'll talk about some histories. But
Speaker 3: this stuff goes back way further than you would think.
Speaker 3: But what we're talking about today is called conversion therapy,
Speaker 3: reparative therapy ex gay therapy, where.
Speaker 4: Reporative therapy is trademarked by the way we should.
Speaker 3: Say, Well, you couldn't hear it, but under my breath,
Speaker 3: I said, yeah, more like ts it was. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was trademarked by a psychologist named Joseph Nicolosi, Yes, senior.
Speaker 3: So what conversion therapy is probably what we're gonna mostly
Speaker 3: call it though, what it's what it is is it's
Speaker 3: an alleged psychological theory and practice that is based on
Speaker 3: the idea that all people are born heterosexual, and because
Speaker 3: of certain.
Speaker 4: Certain events past traumas usually.
Speaker 3: Traumas typically, but also the family dynamics play a huge role,
Speaker 3: people who would otherwise are meant to be heterosexual can
Speaker 3: be accidentally steered into homosexuality.
Speaker 1: And therefore can be or purposefully steered back cured, yes,
Speaker 1: cured being gay, right back to the righteous land of heterosexuality.
Speaker 3: And as you can imagine that this is a very
Speaker 3: popular with the fundamentalist Christian right. Sure, And I mean
Speaker 3: like that's not even like a guess like it overtly is.
Speaker 3: They've adopted and taken on X gay, the X gay movement,
Speaker 3: as as basically one of the what's it called an
Speaker 3: a tempole temp post, Sure, one of the planks in
Speaker 3: there in the Christian Rights Platform for Social Change.
Speaker 1: Oh, it is an if It was officially part of
Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen Republican Party platform.
Speaker 4: Even what that's right?
Speaker 1: Well, wait, the whole RNC yeah, which has been called
Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen platform, has been called by far the
Speaker 1: most anti LGTBQ platform in the nation's history.
Speaker 3: Wow, I mean yeah, If that's a plank in the
Speaker 3: party's platform, that's pretty significant. Like they don't throw just
Speaker 3: anything in there, No, they don't. So with the with
Speaker 3: with the X gay movement and conversion therapy, I saw
Speaker 3: it described at least back in the late nineties as
Speaker 3: a front in the culture war that's as strong and
Speaker 3: as significant as abortion. Like the the the Christian right
Speaker 3: in particular is has basically dedicated itself to stamping out
Speaker 3: gayness and by converting gay people to straightness. The problem
Speaker 3: is is there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that that
Speaker 3: is even possible.
Speaker 1: Right, And the problem is when you try and stamp
Speaker 1: out gayness, that creates a good beat that you can
Speaker 1: dance to.
Speaker 3: It makes that sound, and they're like no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: stop stamping exactly.
Speaker 4: I had actually I went to well, should I say this?
Speaker 4: I don't sure? Why not?
Speaker 1: Because this is the truth. I went to a church
Speaker 1: camp once when I was a youth.
Speaker 3: Well, I figured a story or two like.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 1: They talked about stomping your feet to the music or
Speaker 1: whatever they're playing, and they literally said, don't alternate feet
Speaker 1: because that's too close to dancing.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And these weren't, like, I mean, these were
Speaker 1: pretty mainstream Baptist church camps.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like I went to.
Speaker 3: Some snake handling thing.
Speaker 4: No, not at all.
Speaker 3: But I had a really good episode on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a good one. So anyway, stomp your feet, everybody,
Speaker 1: just don't altern.
Speaker 3: So you stomp them both at once, because that's.
Speaker 4: Not just stomp one foot just on your right foot.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, that's just jumping lightly. Okay. So
Speaker 3: that's what we're talking about is conversion therapy. And like
Speaker 3: I said, it became part of the Christian rights kind
Speaker 3: of philosophy and part of their culture war, their culture
Speaker 3: war they're fighting. But it goes back way further than
Speaker 3: that then. I think it was the late nineties when
Speaker 3: the right kind of adopted it. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 3: like into the nineteenth century, there were people who subscribed
Speaker 3: to this, but they were all psychologists. This is back
Speaker 3: at the time when you could be a ghost investigator
Speaker 3: and say I'm a psychologist. This is the times when
Speaker 3: you could say, you know, this cigar reminds you of
Speaker 3: your mother, you know what I'm saying, right, and you
Speaker 3: could be a psychologist. You could be a father of
Speaker 3: psychology at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you dug up a great article from history dot
Speaker 1: com called Gay Conversion Therapy is Disturbing nineteenth Century Origins
Speaker 1: by Aaron Blakemore and Mary Nice.
Speaker 3: Attribution check.
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, Well, Aaron wrote a great article and in
Speaker 1: it she talks about in eighteen ninety nine this hypnosis. Well,
Speaker 1: again in the days where you could be a hypnotist
Speaker 1: and be a legitimate scientist at the same time, get.
Speaker 3: In a stage shows, or's psychology.
Speaker 4: That's right, maybe where's the money?
Speaker 1: But he was German, of course, and he claimed to
Speaker 1: have turned a gay man straight after forty five hypnosis
Speaker 1: sessions and some other therapies. And that's sort of the
Speaker 1: first evidence of what we would later call conversion therapy
Speaker 1: starting up. Yeah, although I'm sure even before that people
Speaker 1: they probably didn't call it conversion therapy. But if you
Speaker 1: were an effeminate man, you were no doubt probably beaten
Speaker 1: by your parents and shunned by your community.
Speaker 3: Right, I think one of the other things. It's kind
Speaker 3: of a hallmark of this long tradition of converting people
Speaker 3: from being gay to straight or trying to. Is this
Speaker 3: idea that there's something wrong with you if you're gay,
Speaker 3: and that that idea can actually become hung up on
Speaker 3: the individual, the gay person, so that they actually do
Speaker 3: seek out help in becoming straight. But the problem is
Speaker 3: in seeking that help, they're going to be frustrated, and
Speaker 3: they're ultimately probably going to be They're going to have
Speaker 3: feelings of shame, guilt, inadequacy that they're not capable of
Speaker 3: helping themselves. There's something wrong with them. Why can't they
Speaker 3: just be straight? Kind of thing. And then if you're
Speaker 3: a minor and your parents are forcing this on you,
Speaker 3: then that raises it a whole other can of worms
Speaker 3: of ethical dilemmas. Sure, but even from the outset there
Speaker 3: were probably people who sought out hypnotists and other psychologists
Speaker 3: for help. It wasn't just people walking around kidnapping gay
Speaker 3: people and taking them off the street and trying to.
Speaker 1: Convert them, right, It could have very well been some
Speaker 1: man that's like, wait a minute, I don't feel normal
Speaker 1: feelings because I'm looking at Joe out there in the
Speaker 1: field and things are happening, right, if you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Doc, And they're like, well, come on.
Speaker 3: In watching him swing that scythe and take his sweaty
Speaker 3: shirt off, wring it over his face, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Right, So just sit down and follow the wristwatch with
Speaker 1: your eyesight or I guess the pocket watch.
Speaker 4: That'd be a weird U technique move when moving. But
Speaker 4: from that same history dot Com article there.
Speaker 1: She she talks about some of the early attempts, like
Speaker 1: with electro convulsive therapy. Yeah, lobotomies. I think we even
Speaker 1: talked about some of the lobotomy's episode.
Speaker 3: And may we give you a lobotomy for anything?
Speaker 4: Oh? Sure?
Speaker 3: What about testicular transplantation?
Speaker 1: Right, because that was a theory from a doctor, an
Speaker 1: intercrinologist name Eugene Steinach, who thought that your testicles were
Speaker 1: the root of the problem.
Speaker 3: Well a lot of people did.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There was like you.
Speaker 1: Could have gay testicles literally and they would swap them
Speaker 1: out for straight ones.
Speaker 3: Right, And there's no I could not find any evidence
Speaker 3: one way or the other that any of these testicular
Speaker 3: transplants worked or were successful. I don't think they were,
Speaker 3: but I didn't see anything that said like all of
Speaker 3: those failed or whatever, but like what happened? They just
Speaker 3: shrivel up and fall off or something.
Speaker 1: So do you mean if it actually like medically took
Speaker 1: to the body or yeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 3: What I mean.
Speaker 4: Okay, saying like did it convert them? Did it work?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah?
Speaker 4: No, Yeah that's the answer.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I didn't know that you could in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties held a testical transplant successfully.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying, Like, I surely I mean at
Speaker 3: some point, and we must have talked about this in
Speaker 3: the Michael Daylan episode. We talked about that. I don't
Speaker 3: think it was but it wasn't a transplant. It was
Speaker 3: just a straight up removal an archaeactomy I believe castration. So,
Speaker 3: but at some point testicles have been transplanted onto a
Speaker 3: person successfully. When did that happen? Is my question.
Speaker 4: It probably did to a dog first.
Speaker 3: Right, But I mean think about it, like if it
Speaker 3: didn't work, well, sorry you're castrated now.
Speaker 4: Yeah they probably didn't say sorry though, no.
Speaker 3: But we took your gay testicles. The heterosexual testicles just
Speaker 3: didn't pan out, right, But now you don't have any
Speaker 3: testicles gay or otherwise.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: Some of the other awful techniques that they would use
Speaker 1: back in the day were chemicals that they might have
Speaker 1: to make you wretch and vomit when you look at,
Speaker 1: you know, pictures of people of the same sex.
Speaker 3: That's called covert sensitization.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or if you're cross dressing maybe same thing, sure,
Speaker 1: or look in a mirror and be disgusted with yourself
Speaker 1: and wretch and vomit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and very sadly, if you have, say like as
Speaker 3: someone you were in a relationship with that you love,
Speaker 3: they might show you a picture of that person and
Speaker 3: carry out aversive therapy or aversive conditioning. What's weird, As
Speaker 3: you said, these are these are things they used to
Speaker 3: carry out. From what I've seen, this stuff still goes
Speaker 3: on today, Yeah, some of it. So what we're talking
Speaker 3: about though, back in the nineteenth and most of the
Speaker 3: first half or so of the twentieth century, this was
Speaker 3: all like the domain of psychology, and then eventually gay
Speaker 3: psychologists and other straight psychologists too. We're basically like, this
Speaker 3: is wrong, yea, Like the science is not adding up,
Speaker 3: this is just this is just incorrect.
Speaker 4: Yeah. There were medical doctors too, though, wasn't just psychologists.
Speaker 3: Right, sure?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So eventually, in nineteen seventy three, the American Psychological Association said, hey,
Speaker 3: big news, We're no longer going to classify homosexuality as
Speaker 3: a mental disorder.
Speaker 1: Right, And a certain part of the population went, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 4: Why did it take this long?
Speaker 3: Right? Exactly? Yeah, But that was a big deal, and
Speaker 3: at that point a psychology mostly abandoned and the idea
Speaker 3: that being gay was a disorder of any kind, and
Speaker 3: therefore there was no point in researching how to cure
Speaker 3: someone of being gay, and so it turned its back
Speaker 3: on this whole history of conversion conversion. Yeah, but it
Speaker 3: didn't fully die away, and I believe starting in like
Speaker 3: the eighties, the Christian rights started to kind of pick
Speaker 3: up on it and kind of breathe new life into
Speaker 3: it again.
Speaker 1: That's right, I think we should take a break. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a robust and a half setup.
Speaker 3: Is that? Oh? I thought we were already into it.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: It wasn't just a setup. It was more you're right,
Speaker 4: we'll be right.
Speaker 5: Back, Josh shock.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's talk a little bit about because
Speaker 1: there's a couple of a couple of schools of thought here,
Speaker 1: and I hesitate to one to call the one more bonafide.
Speaker 1: But you know, there's conversion therapy that can happen at
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist office. And there's conversion therapy that can
Speaker 1: happen in you know, somebody's basement or the basement of
Speaker 1: a church.
Speaker 3: I was gonna sae basement too, Yeah, or a room.
Speaker 4: Didn't have to be a.
Speaker 3: Basement, I know, but a basement makes it seem sure,
Speaker 3: that's probably sinister.
Speaker 1: That's probably why I said it. So there are two
Speaker 1: sort of ways is that that can happen. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the first way, the patented
Speaker 1: way repaired to therapy trademark by Joseph Nicolosi.
Speaker 3: That guy doesn't even get the Italian accent, man, and
Speaker 3: I don't believe he.
Speaker 1: Doesn't, which we should say, by the way, in July
Speaker 1: this year, Amazon stopped carrying his works on their website.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they they considered them that they promoted fraud,
Speaker 3: that's right, which we'll get to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is interesting.
Speaker 3: But this guy is like a psychologist. Yeah, he's a
Speaker 3: trained psychologist who basically said I'm going to take everything
Speaker 3: I learned and direct it toward curing gay people of
Speaker 3: being gay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know much about do you know much
Speaker 1: about his religiosity?
Speaker 3: Or I think he was Jewish? Okay, I'm born in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: From what I understand, I read a really really great
Speaker 3: article not a think piece, but a memoir in the
Speaker 3: American Prospect from American Prospector from twenty twelve. Yah, it's
Speaker 3: different Their Gold by Gabriel Arana. Okay, it's called my
Speaker 3: so called ex gay Life. It's definitely worth reading. But
Speaker 3: it's a great look at conversion therapy, but also is
Speaker 3: like overlaid with his personal experience with it. Okay.
Speaker 1: At any rate, his contention was that, like we said,
Speaker 1: you develop homosexuality or homosexual feelings at least because of
Speaker 1: a result of environmental conditions, childhood traumas, and they call
Speaker 1: it same sex attraction SSSA, and that could stem, in
Speaker 1: his opinion, from a few different things desire for adventure,
Speaker 1: peer acceptance, loneliness or boredemer curiosity, approval or affection from males.
Speaker 1: And a lot of this is centered on men, although
Speaker 1: it's certainly women have been involved in.
Speaker 4: This as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But a lot of them. A lot of this
Speaker 1: over the years is making gay men straight.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I see what you mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's not exclusive to that.
Speaker 1: No, it's not general rebellion, which is pretty funny. And
Speaker 1: then sexual molestation by another male.
Speaker 3: And I think that is a very like I think
Speaker 3: that the idea that that leads to being gay is
Speaker 3: very widespread in culture, well beyond the Christian rioter people
Speaker 3: who believe in conversion therapy, the idea that if you're
Speaker 3: sexually abused by a man or somebody of your same sex,
Speaker 3: become Gayah, which is just wrong, but I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people still believe that. I know, that's what
Speaker 3: I thought when I was a kid.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. I mean it's not right.
Speaker 3: No, it's utterly wrong. But yeah.
Speaker 1: And the whole basis of Nickelosi's theory he takes back
Speaker 1: to a study from nineteen ninety two called Demography of
Speaker 1: Sexual Orientation and Adolescence. And this was an actual study
Speaker 1: from the Journal Pediatrics that looked at patterns of sexual
Speaker 1: orientation and high school students in Minnesota, And what they
Speaker 1: found out was that younger teens in Minnesota in this
Speaker 1: study were more likely to express sexual confusion about their
Speaker 1: orientation when they were younger, and as they grew older,
Speaker 1: they were less confused about their sexual identity and orientation. Right.
Speaker 3: It's a legit study, and I think that probably anyone
Speaker 3: who's ever been an early teenager and a late teenager
Speaker 3: can be like that sounds about right exactly, you know.
Speaker 1: But the extrapolation that Nicolosi did was what's the problem
Speaker 1: as right.
Speaker 3: So Nicolosi was saying, like, yes, that shows that like
Speaker 3: you're you're you're in a dangerous place earlier on, and
Speaker 3: that if a couple of things happen in a certain way,
Speaker 3: you can be veered off of this natural path toward
Speaker 3: heterosexuality into homosexuality.
Speaker 1: Right, and also more dangerously that means we got to
Speaker 1: get them while they're young.
Speaker 3: Right. So one of the other things that he's he
Speaker 3: really based his practice on was this family triad of
Speaker 3: a domineering, over attendant mother, a passive, detached father, and
Speaker 3: a sensitive child books in kind of in that was
Speaker 3: a good one in that that triangle like you would
Speaker 3: like almost certainly have a gay kid if somebody didn't intervene.
Speaker 3: So he decided like this was his career was intervening
Speaker 3: in that kind of stuff, but that in and of
Speaker 3: itself has never been proven to create gay kids. That like,
Speaker 3: whether you believe in conversion therapy or not, if you
Speaker 3: have a domineering mother and have some father and you're
Speaker 3: like a sensitive type who likes dolls, even doesn't mean
Speaker 3: you're going to turn gay. This is the basis of
Speaker 3: that though, is that yes, you will turn gay. And
Speaker 3: still to this day this idea is allowed to live
Speaker 3: because science is never fully satisfied the question like are
Speaker 3: we born gay? Do we develop being gay? And it
Speaker 3: looks like it's on a pretty strong track toward a
Speaker 3: genetic basis of homosexuality, but it's still nothing's definitive, and
Speaker 3: so people can say, well, maybe we do develop, you know,
Speaker 3: an adolescence, you know, being gay or whatever, because science
Speaker 3: is not filled this void cor yet.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the way Nicolosi will would write about this stuff
Speaker 1: and describe it as in a very sort of professional,
Speaker 1: innocuous type way where a casual reader might say, well,
Speaker 1: this seems totally valid and above board.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a Newsweek reader, yeah, or an OPRAH viewer.
Speaker 4: That's right. This is one of the things.
Speaker 1: I think This is from one of his books and
Speaker 1: This is how he describes a relationship to from patient
Speaker 1: to therapists. The client has come to the therapist seeking
Speaker 1: assistance to reduce something distressing to him, and the RT
Speaker 1: psychotherapist agrees to share his professional experience in education to
Speaker 1: help the client meet his own goal. His own goal,
Speaker 1: the therapist enters into a collaborative relationship, agreeing to work
Speaker 1: with the client to reduce his unwanted attractions and explore
Speaker 1: his heterosexual potential, which again, it seems very innocuous, And
Speaker 1: there are plenty of cases where a grown man of
Speaker 1: his or woman of their own.
Speaker 4: Volition goes and seeks this out right.
Speaker 1: But what they don't say is what happens many times
Speaker 1: is a parent forces their young child to do this.
Speaker 3: That's a big one. Yeah, it's a big one. In
Speaker 3: this that American Prospect magazine, the author was like in
Speaker 3: his early teens when he went to Nickelosi's therapy. But
Speaker 3: he said, everybody else in the group is in their
Speaker 3: like forties or fifties, So it's definitely both. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But there's something here that's really important because, like you said,
Speaker 3: if you just read this stuff, it does sound innocuous.
Speaker 3: It's all very much based on things like cognitive behavioral
Speaker 3: therapy like stuff that works, which means that this works
Speaker 3: in a weird, twisted way, which we'll talk about, but
Speaker 3: not in the way it's ultimately meant to. It works
Speaker 3: in a bent way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, do you.
Speaker 3: Want me to explain now? I feel like I should.
Speaker 4: I take issue with the word works at all.
Speaker 1: There are situations where it might prevent someone from acting
Speaker 1: on a homosexual impulse, That's what I mean. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that does change the nature of their sexuality.
Speaker 3: No, no, right, And ultimately preventing someone or training someone
Speaker 3: to not act on their sexuality is damaging in and
Speaker 3: of itself and causes all sorts of other problems.
Speaker 1: But maybe good enough for a really religious family, right
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well that's what I read is that over time,
Speaker 3: as the Christian right adopted the idea of you know,
Speaker 3: championing the ex gay movement, that part of that was
Speaker 3: accepting gay people who refrain from gay sex. So if
Speaker 3: you were like, I'm gay, I'm never going to be straight.
Speaker 3: I tried, but I don't have sex with men, but
Speaker 3: I won't come in with and welcome in church. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So what I was saying, though, is with with Nicolosi's thing,
Speaker 3: there's something fundamentally wrong with it, and that if somebody
Speaker 3: came to you and said, I'm tired of being white
Speaker 3: or black or hispanic. I can't stand it. You wouldn't say, oh, well,
Speaker 3: let's figure out how to make you not black or
Speaker 3: white or hispanic or straight. Let's figure out how to
Speaker 3: change you. They would say. Any therapist worth their salt
Speaker 3: would say, well, no, there's a lot of great things
Speaker 3: about being white or black, or hispanic or straight, and
Speaker 3: let's focus on that so that you can own your identity.
Speaker 3: The conversion therapy does the opposite, says, yes, let's figure
Speaker 3: out how to get the gay out of you. Let's
Speaker 3: change your identity because this group of society has said
Speaker 3: that it's unacceptable. That's right, and that is an extraordinarily
Speaker 3: damaging position to come from. And that is the basis
Speaker 3: of conversion therapy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as we'll see later on, the AMA's official
Speaker 1: stance is that it is and we'll read the quote
Speaker 1: later that it is a damaging prospect right and creates real.
Speaker 3: Harm an American Prospector magazine.
Speaker 1: So this approach by Nicolosi has four steps to it.
Speaker 1: The first one is interesting because it's the disclosure of
Speaker 1: the therapist's personal, professional, philosophical, and religious views on homosexuality,
Speaker 1: which includes Nicolosi says, the gay affirmative therapist also discloses
Speaker 1: his philosophical views to the client. But from a gay
Speaker 1: affirmative perspective, does he just put that in there to
Speaker 1: like cover his baces. No, it's true though, because you
Speaker 1: wouldn't send your son or daughter to a gay affirmative
Speaker 1: therapist to convert.
Speaker 3: Them into right. You know, I think this is what
Speaker 3: he's saying. You've been to therapy before, right, sure? Have
Speaker 3: you ever noticed that when you first your first session,
Speaker 3: the therapist tells you a lot about themselves and what
Speaker 3: they think about mental health or life or whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm always like, wait a minute, what about
Speaker 4: my projects?
Speaker 3: I sat we were talking about may I'm get in
Speaker 3: charge for this. I don't care about your family, right,
Speaker 3: That's what he's saying that they do. But because this
Speaker 3: is about being gay, that's what they're going to talk about,
Speaker 3: is their views or whatever. Interesting They're going to share
Speaker 3: their opinions of it, and that they think that there's
Speaker 3: problems with it.
Speaker 1: You know what my line is at the therapist when
Speaker 1: they do all that stuff like great, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: At the end, I'm like, you want to start the clock.
Speaker 3: Now, right? Nice? Either that or I can pro rite.
Speaker 1: Number two of the four steps is encouragement of the
Speaker 1: client's inquiry, so basically asking the client the questions examining
Speaker 1: their feelings to try and discover what lies beneath. Number three,
Speaker 1: resolution of past trauma if it is, in fact one
Speaker 1: of the reasons they suspect this person has gone down
Speaker 1: the road to homosexuality, and then education regarding features of homosexuality,
Speaker 1: which includes everything from what motivates you to do this
Speaker 1: to you know that if you are gay, then this
Speaker 1: lifestyle ends in a very very bad way.
Speaker 3: For you, right that There's a lot of physical harm,
Speaker 3: social harm.
Speaker 4: Emotional harm.
Speaker 3: Yeah right. So what's weird though, is like, I can't
Speaker 3: Nicolosi is like a tough person to paint with just
Speaker 3: one brush. Even though I totally disagree with what he
Speaker 3: dedicated dedicated his career to, he doesn't seem, at least
Speaker 3: from what I've read, including that American Prospect article from
Speaker 3: somebody who was a patient of his for years, he
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to have been like any sort of evil
Speaker 3: man or anything like that. I don't know if he
Speaker 3: just thought like this was a real thing and he
Speaker 3: was really helping me or what. But for example, there's
Speaker 3: this one quote from Gabriel Ariana who said that he
Speaker 3: had been like experimenting with sexual encounters with other men
Speaker 3: as a teenager. And he said that he'd been meeting
Speaker 3: men off of the internet, and he told Nicolosi like,
Speaker 3: he's like, I trusted the guy enough to share this
Speaker 3: in therapy, and he said that Nicolosi told he said,
Speaker 3: he told me to be careful meeting men off the internet,
Speaker 3: but that I shouldn't dwell on it or feel guilty.
Speaker 3: He said, my sexual behavior was of secondary importance. If
Speaker 3: I understood myself and worked on my relationships with men,
Speaker 3: the attractions would take care of themselves. I just had
Speaker 3: to be patient, Which is I mean, that's a pretty
Speaker 3: great thing for a therapist to tell a patient, right,
Speaker 3: don't dwell on it, you know, don't feel guilty, just
Speaker 3: you know, except it, move on and learn from it
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 4: But then the second part, right, that's where it goes downhill.
Speaker 3: Yes, And so the thing is, though with conversion therapy,
Speaker 3: in most cases, Nicolosi is like he's almost a shining
Speaker 3: example in a weird way, whereas other people associated with
Speaker 3: it are. It's very easy to paint them with just
Speaker 3: one brush. Yeah, you know, so we.
Speaker 1: Should talk a little bit about the argument against, a
Speaker 1: little bit more about the argument against, which includes a
Speaker 1: little bit more history. You know, we talked about the
Speaker 1: earliest stages of conversion therapy in the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: but it really kind of picked up steam in the
Speaker 1: United States and the nighteen sixties when the Civil Rights movement,
Speaker 1: you know, when gay people started coming out of the
Speaker 1: closet more, presenting themselves more in public, gay bars, popping up,
Speaker 1: things like.
Speaker 4: That Stonewall Stonewall, of course.
Speaker 1: Which you know, anytime something like that is becoming a
Speaker 1: little more accepted in the mainstream, there's going to be
Speaker 1: another side that really roots down and digs in. And
Speaker 1: that's sort of how the modern gay conversion therapy movement
Speaker 1: was born, was out of homosexuality becoming more accepted.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I read a really interesting journal article from two
Speaker 3: thousand and seven by Robinson and Spivey. It was in
Speaker 3: Gender and Society, the journal, and they basically they looked
Speaker 3: into the X gay movement, not necessarily the psychology community's
Speaker 3: basis of it, but the later on the adoption of
Speaker 3: it by the Christian right. And they explained why the
Speaker 3: Christian right would be interested in that, And they were
Speaker 3: interested in and dug in, like you said, because they
Speaker 3: saw homosexuality and feminism in particular as signs of a
Speaker 3: decadent society that would eventually cause us to crumble and collapse.
Speaker 3: And that the the And this is according to Robinson
Speaker 3: and Spy I haven't actually interviewed any one on the
Speaker 3: Christian right who believes this, but they are academics and
Speaker 3: this was a peer review journal that the that masculinity
Speaker 3: is the antidote to that, it's the antidote to homosexuality,
Speaker 3: it's the antidote to feminism, and that it was up
Speaker 3: to each man to be a strong leader among women
Speaker 3: and children and to be as masculine as possible. That's
Speaker 3: how you how you did that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I went.
Speaker 1: I heard sermons every Sunday, well not every Sunday, but
Speaker 1: I heard sermons on many Sundays where they were still
Speaker 1: saying why to submit to your husband's Yeah, straight out
Speaker 1: of the Bible, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like most of the antidote is dad's you're
Speaker 3: being way too passive. You need to step up and
Speaker 3: be the leader of your family. But also, moms, you
Speaker 3: can help by saying, oh, you have a question, ask
Speaker 3: your father. I defer to your father. Go ask your father, right,
Speaker 3: and just yeah, being passive.
Speaker 1: Well, which goes back to that triad you mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: about the domineering mother.
Speaker 4: The passive father equals gape.
Speaker 3: That's basically the basis of the whole thing. From what
Speaker 3: I could tell is that at least among the Christian right,
Speaker 3: that if the father is not the dominant, in leading
Speaker 3: figure in the family, that's where the trouble comes from,
Speaker 3: and that can produce homosexual children. Interesting.
Speaker 4: Yes, So.
Speaker 1: Something we failed to mention as part of the AMA's
Speaker 1: change in nineteen seventy two, or was that.
Speaker 3: The apa apa was?
Speaker 1: They said, and this is an important distinction, is that
Speaker 1: homosexual they deemed a normal variation, not deviation, but a
Speaker 1: variation in human sexual orientation, and like other normal sexual orientations,
Speaker 1: can't be changed. In other words, you can't make a
Speaker 1: straight person gay anymore than you can make a gay
Speaker 1: person straight, is what that equals.
Speaker 3: And because of that is we'll see later on. That
Speaker 3: became the basis for this idea that conversion therapy is
Speaker 3: in essence of fraud, right, because it purports to do
Speaker 3: something that can't be done.
Speaker 4: That's right. Should we take another break?
Speaker 3: Oh? Man, really, they're coming hard and fast like men
Speaker 3: swinging sides in sweaty shirts on the field.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take another break and we'll talk about what
Speaker 1: might happen in conversion therapy right after this shot.
Speaker 3: Shot. All right, Chuck, I'm excited about this part.
Speaker 4: You're excited about the horror show of conversion therapy.
Speaker 3: It's not all horror show. Some of it is just
Speaker 3: outright laughable. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So statistically also.
Speaker 3: Also, I'm sorry everybody, I want to say something too. Okay,
Speaker 3: we typically try to be super objective. This one is
Speaker 3: very tough.
Speaker 4: We have science on our side too.
Speaker 3: This was really hard for me to research. Yeah, nothing
Speaker 3: is ever hard for me to research. This one was.
Speaker 3: It was like turning over a log and finding it
Speaker 3: like Maggot's writhing underneath. That was what researching this one was. Like.
Speaker 3: I just kept putting it off. I just keep leaving
Speaker 3: it and just going and watching like the Office or
Speaker 3: something like that. Just anything but researching this because it's
Speaker 3: super sad.
Speaker 1: It is it's that that children are taking at their
Speaker 1: most vulnerable time and adolescence, when they don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on, and they're told that they're wrong and they're
Speaker 1: sinning and they're dirty.
Speaker 3: That is a part of why it's sad. Another part
Speaker 3: to me of why it's sad is that the idea
Speaker 3: that grown ups would direct this much thought and attention
Speaker 3: and effort into slamming their head up against a wall
Speaker 3: to try to change someone else to a way they
Speaker 3: think they should be. That I think is that's at
Speaker 3: least as sad to me as the new children being
Speaker 3: misdirected like this, because a kid can go on and
Speaker 3: grow up and be like, geez, my family was super
Speaker 3: messed up. I'm really glad I don't speak to them
Speaker 3: anymore because I'm much happier over here. Right.
Speaker 4: Well, that can happen in the ideal circumstance.
Speaker 3: Sure, or the ideal circumstances that the family's just like, hey,
Speaker 3: we're really screwed up, We're really sorry, we love you
Speaker 3: no matter who you are. But the idea that there's
Speaker 3: a group, a social movement dedicated to just eradicating another
Speaker 3: group of people. Yeah that I find that very hard
Speaker 3: to swallow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 1: So apparently, statistically about or close to seven hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people in the United States have undergone conversion therapy, and
Speaker 1: we should mention that it's a real problem in places
Speaker 1: like Africa and Asia and South America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where you can still be imprisoned for being gay. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like Uganda is a big place for that.
Speaker 1: Conversion therapy is like on the rise in those places
Speaker 1: and other places. But we're talking about the United States
Speaker 1: in this case, seven hundred thousand people. And like we said,
Speaker 1: sometimes it is in the with a licensed therapist. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's done by a religious advisor in a basement or
Speaker 1: at a church.
Speaker 3: You know what that reminded me of is another thing
Speaker 3: we need to talk about sometimes exorcisms, like church exorcisms.
Speaker 4: We've done exorcism.
Speaker 3: We did like straight up Roman Catholic exercise. Oh okay,
Speaker 3: I'm talking like the kind that somebody does in the
Speaker 3: basement of their house. Gotcha because they're supposedly an exorcist
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 1: Sure backdoor exorcism basically a black market.
Speaker 3: You'll see You'll be like, oh man, we should be
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 4: This all right, Well, I agree already, I trust you.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So the AMA says that conversion therapy programs may utilize
Speaker 1: harmful psychological techniques. We were talking earlier about aversion therapy
Speaker 1: and given chemicals, they can still be given noxious stimulus,
Speaker 1: and I didn't see exactly what that entailed or could entail.
Speaker 3: There was a guy named Robert Gilbraith Heath who was
Speaker 3: the father of implanting electrodes into the brain to deliver shocks,
Speaker 3: and one of the things he directed that toward was
Speaker 3: curing gay people. I don't think anyone in their basement
Speaker 3: is implanting electrodes or whatever. But there are things like
Speaker 3: giving people like na nausea inducing medications as one, right,
Speaker 3: showing them pictures that might nauseate them and then figuring
Speaker 3: out how to associate that with masturbating the thoughts of
Speaker 3: other men or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we should talk about a few of
Speaker 1: these specifically. I mean, all you have to do is
Speaker 1: look up on a search engine conversion therapy horror stories,
Speaker 1: and there are plenty of people out there saying what
Speaker 1: happened to them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, look up also conversion therapy super happy fun stories,
Speaker 3: and you're going to connect with almost nothing Google zero results.
Speaker 1: There was one teenager who said that he was forced
Speaker 1: to wear a backpack with forty pounds of rocks eighteen
Speaker 1: hours a day to just signify the physical burden of
Speaker 1: being gay. One person's family gave them a fake funeral,
Speaker 1: closed casket funeral in front of him, where they said
Speaker 1: that he died of AIDS and they said their final
Speaker 1: goodbyes because he went down the sinful path.
Speaker 3: Pretending he wasn't there, like that he was dead and
Speaker 3: in the casket, yes, about him in third person, that's right,
Speaker 3: his family.
Speaker 1: One reported being told to strip naked in front of
Speaker 1: a mirror and say disparaging things about themselves.
Speaker 3: I just do that normally, though.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: I did read one account where they basically said the
Speaker 1: whole idea is to break you down to nothing in
Speaker 1: the worst way possible and then build you back up
Speaker 1: again and the image that they want.
Speaker 3: So I get the impression that that is one route,
Speaker 3: but that is not necessarily what you're going to get
Speaker 3: at any place you go for conversion therapy. There are
Speaker 3: other ones that say.
Speaker 1: That's the problem is we don't know because so many
Speaker 1: people don't talk about it.
Speaker 3: Right. There's some that like you would go to that
Speaker 3: say okay, we're not going to abuse you or anything
Speaker 3: like that. But the basis of our beliefs in this
Speaker 3: is that you you are gay because either you had
Speaker 3: an absent father, a domineering mother, some combination of the two.
Speaker 3: Or you always like wanted to be like loved and
Speaker 3: you know, popular among your male peers, and you didn't
Speaker 3: get that. So now you are misdirecting this need, this
Speaker 3: unmet need, toward having anonymous gay sex on the dance
Speaker 3: floor with some dude in Miami or whatever. So we
Speaker 3: need to figure out how to meet that need and
Speaker 3: have you hang out with guys who will tell you
Speaker 3: how cool you are and how popular you are, yeah,
Speaker 3: like tailgating or something kind of. And while we're at it,
Speaker 3: we're going to do that by accenting the masculinity. We're
Speaker 3: going to teach you how to be masculine so that
Speaker 3: you can hang out with dudes in the real world
Speaker 3: and they will think you're cool. So things like we're
Speaker 3: going to teach you how to change the oil in
Speaker 3: your car. We're going to teach you to sit without
Speaker 3: crossing your legs. No joke. There was a guy who.
Speaker 4: Can teach you how to man spread on the subway.
Speaker 3: There's a guy who's kind of a prominent thinker. I
Speaker 3: think he was. I saw him as a sexologist, maybe
Speaker 3: a Christian sexologist, garretar van den Ardluig. It's pretty great.
Speaker 3: I think I nailed it. He said that homosexual men
Speaker 3: need to unlearn avoidance of getting their hands dirty doing
Speaker 3: manual work like chopping wood, painting a house using a shovel,
Speaker 3: and that I.
Speaker 4: Say, no, thanks to all three. Chop wood. That's kind
Speaker 4: of fun.
Speaker 3: It is fun, and that not necessarily just here's an act.
Speaker 3: Start chopping wood. You're going to just suddenly become cured.
Speaker 3: But that that is part of it. And in this thought,
Speaker 3: this tack where they're not abusing you, they're not degrading
Speaker 3: you or anything like that. They're teaching you masculinity and manliness.
Speaker 3: That the ultimate aim and goal of that is to
Speaker 3: go get married and have a kid or kids, right,
Speaker 3: And that that is a big part of conversion therapy.
Speaker 3: It was for a very long time, was saying you
Speaker 3: might still be gay or whatever, but you're not really gay.
Speaker 3: You're now married and you have a kid, and that
Speaker 3: is what you're dedicating yourself.
Speaker 4: That's right. You're a wood up in football throwing dude.
Speaker 3: With a pencil thin mustache.
Speaker 4: Oh no, no, not that.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen seventy four, we should talk about George Reckers.
Speaker 1: He was a psychologist who tested whether or not this
Speaker 1: was an effective treatment, and he had a four This
Speaker 1: wasn't his boy, but this was his client was a foreigner.
Speaker 1: I guess client's a weird way to put it. Sure,
Speaker 1: this child was forced to go to this person at
Speaker 1: four and a half years old, and this is a
Speaker 1: boy manifesting quote childhood cross gender identity. And they said
Speaker 1: this is based on the clothes that this boy wears.
Speaker 1: And now, of course looking at this, it was probably
Speaker 1: a transgender.
Speaker 3: Child, yeah, or gender fluid.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's hard to tell because this was nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four and the way they wrote about it, it's
Speaker 1: hard to kind of piece it together.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's also like, just how much of this
Speaker 3: behavior did this child exhibit? Like it makes it makes
Speaker 3: it seem like this is all the kid did was
Speaker 3: act like a girl when he was a boy, Right,
Speaker 3: what else was he into? What else? You know, it's
Speaker 3: just such a narrow picture of the subject.
Speaker 1: Of course, so in the end, Reckers did something super damaging.
Speaker 1: He trained the boy's mother to be the therapist, Like,
Speaker 1: here's what you need to do, so this kid can
Speaker 1: get twenty four to seven therapy from you and basically
Speaker 1: punish feminine behaviors, reinforce masculine behaviors at all times. And
Speaker 1: they said that, hey, this is working because every time
Speaker 1: this boy gets punished for doing something feminine, he stops
Speaker 1: and like chops wood or throws the football and gets
Speaker 1: a reward. So because he's four and a half years old,
Speaker 1: he's doing the things that their parents congratulate him for
Speaker 1: and reward him for.
Speaker 3: And not doing the things that he's getting punished for.
Speaker 3: And exactly the punishment is what stood out to me.
Speaker 3: It's just so sad that the mother was instructed to
Speaker 3: reject him, to basically ignore him when he acted like
Speaker 3: a girl, but not ignore him like pretend it's not
Speaker 3: going on, like let him know that she is giving
Speaker 3: him the cold shoulder and that that's how he learned.
Speaker 3: And that is just devastating.
Speaker 4: It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: And what's heartbreaking is this is used was used as
Speaker 1: an example like see this works. This four and a
Speaker 1: half year old is now acting more masculine and is
Speaker 1: not going to grow up to be gay. And this
Speaker 1: this child died by suicide at the age of thirty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like that's the end result of this road. That's where
Speaker 1: it ends up.
Speaker 3: And that's what I meant earlier when I said, like,
Speaker 3: it does kind of work because it follows psychological techniques
Speaker 3: that actually work. But it works in like kind of
Speaker 3: a bent way where yes, you can train somebody, You
Speaker 3: can mold a four year old to behave in a
Speaker 3: certain way by conditioning them. It's possible you can get
Speaker 3: somebody to do just about anything like that. But the ramifications,
Speaker 3: the results, the damage to the individual's identity that will
Speaker 3: eventually come out later are widespread and sweeping. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: that's the point. That's why you shouldn't monkey around with
Speaker 3: somebody's identity using proven psychological techniques. That's what's so evil
Speaker 3: about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, my daughter's four and a half had
Speaker 1: a hard time even getting through this stuff.
Speaker 3: And then also if somebody this is the other thing too,
Speaker 3: if you're a conversion therapy advocate or activist or practitioner,
Speaker 3: and that you say, no, there are people out there
Speaker 3: who are distressed who are experiencing psychological distress for being gay. Yes,
Speaker 3: that's true. I guarantee that there are people like that
Speaker 3: out there, But directing them toward working on not being
Speaker 3: gay is not the answer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, go to regular therapy.
Speaker 3: And learn to love that you're gay, and go find
Speaker 3: a church that accepts gay people. There's step two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're out there, let's talk about the science
Speaker 1: of it, because we.
Speaker 3: Are so contributing to a decade into society.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, there was a report from
Speaker 1: the APA Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation.
Speaker 1: Quite a read, and this was the actual final stance
Speaker 1: was sexual orientation change efforts can pose critical health risks
Speaker 1: to lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Critical health risks, not
Speaker 1: emotional not I mean it's part of emotional health too,
Speaker 1: but critical health risks. And if you read the review
Speaker 1: of research and peer reviewed literature and the findings of
Speaker 1: what it can result in, it reads like the worst
Speaker 1: pharma ad disclaimer you've ever heard. Depression, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, shame,
Speaker 1: self hatred, hostility, dehumanization, betrayal, social withdrawal, substance abuse, stress,
Speaker 1: sexual dysfunction, loss of faith, and suicidality. And on that
Speaker 1: last note, homosexual teens attempts suicide more often than heterosexual teens.
Speaker 4: And then among those homosexual.
Speaker 1: Teens, you're twice as likely to try that if your
Speaker 1: parents have rejected you, and three times as likely if
Speaker 1: you have undergone convert therapy.
Speaker 3: Three times is likely, yes, compared to a heterosexual team.
Speaker 3: That's right, man, Well do you have it? That was
Speaker 3: just the apa that a bunch of different associations, like
Speaker 3: legit medical and psychological associations have come out and condemned
Speaker 3: in no uncertain terms conversion therapy. And all of these
Speaker 3: condemnations basically follow two different texts. One, there is no
Speaker 3: science backing up the idea that you can change somebody
Speaker 3: from homosexuality to heterosexuality. And number two, there is science
Speaker 3: backing up the idea that trying to do that causes
Speaker 3: damage to the individual, So don't do that. And as
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, some countries and states in the
Speaker 3: United States have said, well, this is outlawed, you can't
Speaker 3: do this anymore everybody, which is really touchy stuff because again,
Speaker 3: the Christian right kind of adopted it, and we don't
Speaker 3: really infringe on religious beliefs. But that's how strong these
Speaker 3: condemnations have been that they're saying, we'll kind of start
Speaker 3: to wade into that with this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll talk about the legalities of recent years
Speaker 1: in a sec But before that, between the seventies and
Speaker 1: the APA's stance changing things a little bit, then through
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, where conversion therapy was really sort
Speaker 1: of hitting its peak. I think in America there were
Speaker 1: a lot of there were a few high profile cases
Speaker 1: that were exposed that have helped sway things a little
Speaker 1: bit back to sanity.
Speaker 4: So first thing, more recent years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So before those high profile cases, and I mean
Speaker 3: right before them, I think in nineteen ninety eight, a
Speaker 3: coalition of church groups got together and sponsored an ad campaign,
Speaker 3: something like a six hundred thousand dollars ad campaign, and
Speaker 3: things like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times all
Speaker 3: this and this ad featured John and Ann I believe
Speaker 3: Anne Polk, both of whom were formerly gay but were
Speaker 3: now ex gay and married and married and had a kid,
Speaker 3: and said gay conversion helps. And at the time, there
Speaker 3: wasn't a lot of ink on the other side saying
Speaker 3: actually this is totally discredited, and it captured everybody's attention.
Speaker 3: And this was when the Christian wright came in and said,
Speaker 3: we're going to make this huge push in the culture war,
Speaker 3: and it really worked. That's when that Newsweek's story came out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were on the cover of Newsweek.
Speaker 3: He was.
Speaker 1: He was a leader of an ex gay organization called
Speaker 1: Exodus International.
Speaker 3: John Pauk was right, and it brought a lot of
Speaker 3: the poster boy yes, and in Exodus International in particular
Speaker 3: became one of two main umbrella organizations. They were kind
Speaker 3: of like this I saw it put the spiritual version
Speaker 3: of this the X gay movement, and then something called NARTH,
Speaker 3: the National Association Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, was like
Speaker 3: the scientific branch of the ex gay movement. And so
Speaker 3: Exodus International became a very well known prominent organization in
Speaker 3: the late nineties. But within two three years two it
Speaker 3: would be it would basically be the poster child for
Speaker 3: how conversion therapy doesn't.
Speaker 1: Work right, because John Paulk is gay. In two thousand,
Speaker 1: just two years later, he was photographed coming out of
Speaker 1: a gay bar in Washington, d C. At the time,
Speaker 1: he refuted that he didn't refute that he was there,
Speaker 1: He said, what you always say, I didn't know it
Speaker 1: was a gay bar.
Speaker 3: I went in there asking for directions.
Speaker 1: Now I saw he went and to use the bathroom.
Speaker 1: So no, either way, I just read the article and
Speaker 1: then they were like, but you're in there for a
Speaker 1: couple of hours. Did you get the directions and use
Speaker 1: the bathroom?
Speaker 3: It clearly says blue Oyster in neon. Have you not
Speaker 3: seen the Police Academy movies?
Speaker 4: That was the name of it in the Police Academy, right,
Speaker 4: the Blue Oyster Bar, d D.
Speaker 1: Dan Goodness uh and John Pauk, we should say, now
Speaker 1: lives life as a gay man and is a chef.
Speaker 1: He's been on like some celebrity chef shows.
Speaker 3: All right, uh huh cool, and he is uh living
Speaker 3: his best life.
Speaker 4: He's living his best life from what it looks like.
Speaker 3: So he's no longer married any longer to ann Actually
Speaker 3: that I don't know, because there are some well we'll
Speaker 3: keep going.
Speaker 1: I don't think he is, but there are a couple
Speaker 1: of people that are. There was in two thousand and
Speaker 1: three Michael Johnston. He was another person touted as an
Speaker 1: ex gay success story, founder of National Coming Out of
Speaker 1: Homosexuality Day.
Speaker 4: He actually was.
Speaker 1: He was found out to be having sex with men
Speaker 1: that he met online and infected them with HIV. Very
Speaker 1: big deal. And then there's Ted Haggard. Of course in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six I remember this. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: a preacher and president of the National Association of Evangelicals
Speaker 1: or was it the time. I guess very much an
Speaker 1: anti gay leader in the religious circles. And this one
Speaker 1: sort of unfolded little by little, like, hey, this guy
Speaker 1: came out and said, this guy had a relationship with
Speaker 1: me for like three years. We did crystal meth together.
Speaker 1: And then Haggard came out and said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I have to admit, I sinned. I bought crystal meth,
Speaker 1: but I didn't use it. I threw it in the
Speaker 1: trash because I wouldn't succumb to the sin. Is everyb
Speaker 1: he said, Yeah, he says he did buy crystal meth,
Speaker 1: and because I assumed that was proof, and he said
Speaker 1: that he didn't use it at all. He threw it
Speaker 1: in the trash before he used it, where the other
Speaker 1: guy was like, no, he did tons of meth and
Speaker 1: had gay sex a lot.
Speaker 3: I know he's talking about on like day four of
Speaker 3: us staying up. He like freaked out and threw it
Speaker 3: in the trash, but then he went back and got it,
Speaker 3: and the proof was that he paid for it by check.
Speaker 1: Maybe no, no, probably not. I don't think met dealers
Speaker 1: take checks any or do you thing? And then that
Speaker 1: was he was outed by a having a relationship with
Speaker 1: an underage boy, a sexual relationship.
Speaker 3: This is Ted Haggard again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the boy sued and it was settled by
Speaker 1: the church with a dollar figure.
Speaker 4: I think it was like one hundred and eighty grand.
Speaker 1: And then finally in twenty eleven, Ted Haggard comes out
Speaker 1: and is like, all right, so I did have a
Speaker 1: relationship with a boy, but we never touched each other.
Speaker 4: I just masturbated in front of him.
Speaker 3: I threw him in the trash.
Speaker 1: And in twenty eleven he said, you know what, I'm bisexual.
Speaker 4: I'm going to admit it.
Speaker 1: I am bisexual, but I am going to choose to
Speaker 1: live my life as a faithful heterosexual husband to my wife.
Speaker 3: I wonder if, after he admitted that it came out
Speaker 3: as bisexual, what that felt like, if he felt like
Speaker 3: a weight was lifted, or if the anxiety associated with
Speaker 3: it was just so much, or know what his wife
Speaker 3: knew or didn't know or thought about it. I'd be
Speaker 3: very curious to know what that, you know, what life
Speaker 3: has been like for him after that.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's a preacher again, because I.
Speaker 3: Mean, more power to him. If he's like, I'm a
Speaker 3: Christian and I'm just not going to have gay sex.
Speaker 3: That's as much a personal choice as having gay sex,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean the whole underage boy thing. That's
Speaker 3: a huge problem that I think I'm hoping was addressed.
Speaker 3: But I wonder what his life is like now.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean he's, like I said, he's preaching again.
Speaker 1: I think in Colorado.
Speaker 3: He's probably a stuff you should know. Listener Haggard right in.
Speaker 4: We'd like to hear from you, sir, you want to
Speaker 4: talk about the law.
Speaker 1: Because right now, oh wait, there was one more, Chuck,
Speaker 1: there's a big one, Alan Chambers.
Speaker 3: Yes, so John Paulk. When he was outed cruising the
Speaker 3: Blue Oyster in DC back in two thousand, he was
Speaker 3: running Exodus International.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 3: He was replaced a couple of years later by Alan Chambers,
Speaker 3: and about a decade after Chambers took over Exodus International,
Speaker 3: he said, I'm gay I've been gay. Conversion therapy doesn't work.
Speaker 3: We're shutting down Exodus International.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I apologize to the LGTBQ community.
Speaker 3: Yes. So, within about a decade or so of the
Speaker 3: Christian Right adopting the X gay and Conversion Therapy pillar
Speaker 3: post as part of the platform for their culture war,
Speaker 3: the biggest organization, one of two biggest organizations dedicated to
Speaker 3: conversion therapy said it doesn't work. We're sorry gay people
Speaker 3: for all the damage we've done. Yeah, that's a pretty
Speaker 3: big turn of events, it is. So, Yes, it's still continues.
Speaker 3: So that led to Yeah, so that led to a
Speaker 3: bunch of laws. They're trying to keep it from continuing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the laws are basically usually around miners, saying
Speaker 1: you cannot force a minor to do something like this, right, not. Hey,
Speaker 1: the whole thing is outlawed. If you're an adult and
Speaker 1: you want to go do this, then that's up to you.
Speaker 1: As of twenty nineteen this year, eighteen states in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And Puerto Rico have similar bands enacted. And
Speaker 1: also it's important to point out that those bands are
Speaker 1: about the legitimate scientific community. Like you will have your
Speaker 1: license revoked, doesn't say anything about a preacher that you
Speaker 1: go to, or a youth counselor or any you know,
Speaker 1: sort of non licensed church there.
Speaker 3: Right, it's only scientists or licensed counselors or psychologists or
Speaker 3: psychiatrists or doctors. I'm sure who can lose their license
Speaker 3: if they practice it.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's because there's religious freedom. It's I guess
Speaker 3: you can still do that to minors, though if it's
Speaker 3: a religious group doing.
Speaker 4: It, that is what I'm not sure about. So for
Speaker 4: the well, it depends on the state.
Speaker 3: So there was a group or there was a counseling
Speaker 3: organization called.
Speaker 4: And Jonah is this Goldbird and Burke.
Speaker 3: Yes, they ran Jonah, which stood for I can't find
Speaker 3: it anywhere.
Speaker 4: I got to hear Jews offering a new alternative for healing.
Speaker 3: Okay. They were not only found practicing in New Jersey
Speaker 3: conversion therapy, so they both lost their licenses. They were
Speaker 3: also sued in a civil suit by former patients for
Speaker 3: fraud and lost.
Speaker 4: It's interesting if you think about it.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, if this is not possible, right, you're
Speaker 1: charging people for it, right, that's fraud.
Speaker 3: So they had like a three and a half million
Speaker 3: dollar settlement levied against them and lost their licenses, But
Speaker 3: then they just set up shop under another name, apparently
Speaker 3: the same year of the verdict in the civil suit.
Speaker 3: But for the most part, if you're a state and
Speaker 3: you pass a law banning conversion therapy to minors among
Speaker 3: medical practitioners or counselors, the courts are going to uphold
Speaker 3: that law.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been upheld in California and New Jersey. Most
Speaker 1: of the challenges are on the grounds of free speech.
Speaker 1: And the New Jersey when they upheld the New Jersey
Speaker 1: or maybe it was Maryland, the judge said, we're not
Speaker 1: infringing on your free speech. You can say whatever you want,
Speaker 1: but you can't practice this therapy. That's different than free speech.
Speaker 1: You can believe what you want, say what you want,
Speaker 1: but you can't do this as part of your licensed therapy.
Speaker 3: It's the same thing as like if you if you
Speaker 3: carry out quack cancer treatments that is harmful, like you're
Speaker 3: poisoning your patients or whatever, and like they become they
Speaker 3: lose the use of their arms and legs because of
Speaker 3: a treatment that you gave them for cancer. That the
Speaker 3: American Medical Association has specifically said is damaging and harmful.
Speaker 3: You're totally going to get held accountable for that. You're
Speaker 3: lucky to just lose your license in that case. This
Speaker 3: is the exact same principle, Yeah, for sure. So because
Speaker 3: it deals mostly with minors or exclusively with miners, the
Speaker 3: course have upheld it. But New York City actually is
Speaker 3: widely considered to have overstepped its bounds and actually misstepped
Speaker 3: in this kind of culture war about conversion therapy in
Speaker 3: banning the practice among miners and adults, and that got
Speaker 3: New York City sued, and New York City was like, well,
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court's actually gotten pretty conservative lately, I don't
Speaker 3: know if we should test this, And they repealed.
Speaker 4: The ban, yeah, as a strategy, right to keep.
Speaker 3: It from getting tested in the Supreme Court, where the
Speaker 3: Supreme Court could say, no, all laws against conversion therapy
Speaker 3: are unconstitutional. You can't outlaw or ban it in any form.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think the Supreme Court already refused to hear
Speaker 1: one case.
Speaker 3: Which actually upheld the state's outlaw of conversion therapy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Very interesting. There's a movie I haven't seen yet called
Speaker 1: The Miseducation of Camera and Posts. It's a twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: film from the twenty twelve novel by Emily Danforth. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it yet, but it's about a girl who
Speaker 1: undergoes conversion therapy, and it's Chloe Grace Mortz Moritz.
Speaker 4: I you know her.
Speaker 3: I do. I can't put the face with the name,
Speaker 3: but I know both.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you've seen her for sure.
Speaker 3: Sure. If you want to know more about arrested development,
Speaker 3: conversion therapy, all that stuff, you can, well, I guess
Speaker 3: start researching online. See what you think. And since I
Speaker 3: said see what you think, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this complaint pedantic complaint. Okay, I
Speaker 1: write to complain Josh. In the episode on historic districts,
Speaker 1: you kept referring to them repeatedly with the indefinite article
Speaker 1: ANN rather than A and historic district.
Speaker 3: I said, ann.
Speaker 4: That's what he says.
Speaker 3: That sounds unusual. I don't usually do that. Really, I
Speaker 3: guess I was just being unconsciously correct.
Speaker 4: So is that correct?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So what's the rule? I don't know.
Speaker 3: Huh, what I just said, that's the rule. That's the rule.
Speaker 4: What I say, Okay, I.
Speaker 3: Try not to exercise it too much. Only when i'm right.
Speaker 4: Joe says this.
Speaker 1: I realize this infuriating practice has become popular in recent
Speaker 1: years in the US. I feel passionately that it must
Speaker 1: be discontinued, especially primarily by those voices are attended by
Speaker 1: large audiences like you.
Speaker 4: You are no doubt where the letter H is.
Speaker 1: A consonantssit necessity necessitating geez nice. The use of the
Speaker 1: indefinite article A rather than ann citation all grammar books. Ever,
Speaker 1: I should limit the scope of my gripe with an
Speaker 1: important caveat Cockneys. They should probably continue to say ann
Speaker 1: because they pronounce it historic.
Speaker 3: This guy doesn't even know that the rhyming slang episode
Speaker 3: is coming out. How weird.
Speaker 1: But guys, that's not really what I write today. I
Speaker 1: love the show. I wanted to tell you. I wanted
Speaker 1: to wait for a halfway plausible pretense to make the
Speaker 1: email a little more fun, which I hope this has
Speaker 1: been any chance on an episode of How Pedantry Works.
Speaker 4: Keep up a good work, Joe, He's spoken fun.
Speaker 3: Turns out he's good. Peeps after all?
Speaker 4: Yes, is the and before an ah? Is that a thing?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 4: That is it?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think I don't know if it's proper or not.
Speaker 3: But I understand where it comes from because the vowel
Speaker 3: that comes right after the age is usually so heavily
Speaker 3: pronounced in relation to how it's pronounced when it comes
Speaker 3: after other consonants, like an historic and historic district sounds
Speaker 3: an honor and honor a honor? Which one sounds better?
Speaker 4: Like I was bestowed an honor?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the other way, but you wouldn't say dog vomiting.
Speaker 1: In high school, I had an history teacher that was great.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really weird.
Speaker 3: Did Joe tell you to say that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: I just thought of it because an historic history teacher.
Speaker 3: I had a historic Yeah, both work. How about this,
Speaker 3: We're both right, Joe, try not to focus on such
Speaker 3: stupid stuff.
Speaker 4: I'm cure.
Speaker 1: I'm curious if there I really want another rule now,
Speaker 1: because I know it's a consonant, But if people are
Speaker 1: saying it these days, is that just some sort of
Speaker 1: a fighting the system.
Speaker 3: That's the descriptivest way. The prescriptivist is like, no, it's
Speaker 3: this way right. Joe's the prescriptivist here. We're descriptivists, all right.
Speaker 3: I think we've proven ourselves there.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should launch a side podcast called the descriptivists.
Speaker 3: Oh that's a good one. Yeah, almost as like a
Speaker 3: Civil War era folk band feel to it.
Speaker 4: We'd have to curly cues that one.
Speaker 3: That's fine, We're not going to do that. We could
Speaker 3: get fake ones that we just took on and off
Speaker 3: for publicity.
Speaker 4: For all right, scout mob, all right.
Speaker 3: Uh. If you want to get in touch with this,
Speaker 3: like Joe did, have a little quibble, a little gripe
Speaker 3: or praise or whatever, you can go on to stuff
Speaker 3: you Should Know dot com and check us out. Our
Speaker 3: social links are all up there. You can also send
Speaker 3: us an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of Radio. For
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