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