'Boy Erased' by Garrard Conley

Boy Erased is a memoir telling Conley's true story of growing up gay in Arkansas, in a fundamentalist Christian family and community. When he was outed to his parents at the age of 19, they sent him to 'conversion therapy' - a programme ironically called 'Love in Action' (shades of Orwell's Ministry of Love) - which aims to 'cure' people of being gay.

I knew that such programmes had existed in the past, but I had no idea that this was still happening. According to Conley's website, 
"Over 700,000 Americans have been subjected to conversion therapy and over 20,000 Americans are currently affected by this abusive practice." In addition, according to Trans Lifeline, “Trans people are twice as likely as LGB people to be subjected to conversion therapy, which substantially increases the risk for suicide.”

I listened to a podcast of Conley being interviewed on Rainbow Country, a gay radio show in the US. He was asked what made him write the memoir. His response was, "I survived a lot, but I didn't survive as much as some other people who were in 'Love in Action' for six months, a year, whatever, and I think that gave me the ability to write about it with a bit of objectivity. You know, to be able to look above, to sort of swoop out, and look at why my parents did what they did, and why the counsellors did what they did, and why I did what I did. And I think when you're in pain you can't write that. So it was almost like, I had this privilege that allowed me to tell the story and I should use it to help other people. It sounds cliche, but it's true, it's actually what I thought."

I'm warning you, this is a not a happy read. Conley was raped by a young man in his college dorm, and it was this rapist who outed him to his family. Some of the details of what happened to others in the programme were disturbing. Reading about a culture and community where people think that being gay is a sin and can be 'cured' is disturbing. I did find it encouraging that, no matter what his parents thought about him being gay, and what they did by sending him to the programme, he still loves them and they still love him. I was pretty depressed when I finished reading it, but listening to the podcast encouraged me to post my review, since the book gives an important message: 'conversation therapy' is torture, and it shouldn't be allowed in any society.

Even more disturbingly, I find that conversion therapy exists in NZ and that it is not illegal. Britain is moving to ban conversion therapy and NZ should do the same.