Gerrard Conley - Boy Erased: A Memoir
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RIVERHEAD BOOKS
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Copyright 2016 by Garrard Conley
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
eBook ISBN: 9780698155558
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Conley, Garrard.
Boy erased : a memoir / Garrard Conley.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-59463-301-0
1. Conley, Garrard. 2. GaysUnited StatesBiography. 3. Sexual reorientation programsUnited States. 4. Ex-gay movementUnited States. 5. GaysIdentity. 6. Gay menUnited States. I. Title.
HQ75.8.C665A3 2016 2015024641
306.76'6092dc23
Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the authors alone.
Version_1
For my parents
During my time at Love in Action (LIA), no journaling, photographing, or any other method of recording was allowed inside the facility. To that effect, all events, physical descriptions, and dialogue have been reconstructed to the best of my ability. My mothers and my memories, LIAs ex-gay handbook, newspaper articles, blog posts, and personal interviews have supplemented the empty spaces where trauma has made dark what was once painfully clear. As in most memoirs, the chronology is accurate, altered only in places where the narrative requires it. I have excluded details that seemed irrelevant to the nature of the story. The names and certain identifying characteristics of some key figures in my life, including Chloe, Brandon, David, Brad, Brother Stevens, and Brother Neilson have been changed.
I wish none of this had ever happened. Sometimes I thank God that it did.
Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.
F LANNERY OC ONNOR , R EVELATION
If Im looking at that wall and suddenly I say, Its blue, and someone else comes along and says, No, no. Its gold. But I want to believe that that wall is blue. Its blue, its blue, its blue. But then God comes along, and He says, Youre right, John, it is blue. Thats the help I need. God can help me make that wall blue.
E X - GAY LEADER J OHN S MID , IN AN INTERVIEW WITH THE Memphis Flyer
1973 | The American Psychological Association declassifies homosexuality as a mental illness. Love in Action (LIA), a nondenominational fundamentalist Christian organization, rejects APAs decision and opens its doors in San Rafael, California, promising to cure LGBT congregants of their sexual addictions. |
1976 | The first ex-gay conference takes place in Anaheim, California, where more than sixty-two attendees form what becomes Exodus International, the largest ex-gay umbrella organization in the world. LIA is its flagship program. |
1977 | Jack McIntyre, a four-year member of LIA, commits suicide, prompting one of the groups founding members, John Evans, to condemn the program. In a suicide note, McIntyre writes: To continually go before God and ask for forgiveness and make promises you know you cant keep is more than I can take. |
1982 | Exodus Europe, an independent organization working in coalition with Exodus International, holds its first ex-gay conference in the Netherlands. Ministries now exist in Australia, Brazil, and Portugal. |
1989 | Exodus expands its mission to include the Philippines and Singapore. The organization, which at its peak supported more than two hundred ministries across the United States, has reached mainstream attention, with spots on national television and radio. |
1990 | John Smid takes over as director of LIA. |
1993 | John Evans, a cofounder of LIA, writes an article for the Wall Street Journal denouncing ex-gay therapy: Theyre destroying peoples lives. If you dont do their thing, youre not of God, youll go to hell. Theyre living in a fantasy world. |
1994 | Under John Smids direction, LIA moves its headquarters to Memphis, Tennessee, purchasing five acres of land to house its residential program. |
1998 | Ex-gay leader John Paulk, soon to be featured on the cover of Newsweek with his ex-lesbian wife, founds Love Won Out, a series of yearly ex-gay conferences. |
2000 | First Latin American Exodus Conference is held in Quito, Ecuador. Ministries are now in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan. |
2003 | LIA opens its controversial Refuge program, bringing together teenagers and adults suffering from various sex-based addictions. |
2004 | My ex-gay story begins. |
J ohn Smid stood tall, square shouldered, beaming behind thin wire-rimmed glasses and wearing the khaki slacks and striped button-down that have become standard fatigues for evangelical men across the country. The raised outlines of his undershirt stretched taut beneath his shirt, his graying blond hair tamed by the size-five hair clippers common in Sport Clips throughout the South. The rest of us sat in a semicircle facing him, all dressed according to the program dress code outlined in our 274-page handbooks.
Men: Shirts worn at all times, including periods of sleep. T-shirts without sleeves not permitted, whether worn as outer- or undergarments, including muscle shirts or other tank tops. Facial hair removed seven days weekly. Sideburns never below top of ear.
Women: Bras worn at all times, exceptions during sleep. Skirts must fall at the knee or below. Tank tops allowed only if worn with a blouse. Legs and underarms shaved at least twice weekly.
The first thing you have to do is recognize how youve become dependent on sex, on things that are not from God, Smid said. We were learning Step One of Love in Actions Twelve Step program, a set of principles equating the sins of infidelity, bestiality, pedophilia, and homosexuality to addictive behavior such as alcoholism or gambling: a kind of Alcoholics Anonymous for what counselors referred to as our sexual deviance.
Sitting alone with him just hours before in his office, I had witnessed a different man: a kinder, goofier Smid, a middle-aged class clown willing to resort to any antic to make me smile. He had treated me like a child, and I had relaxed into the role, being nineteen at the time. He told me I had come to the right place, that Love in Action would cure me, lift me out of my sin into the light of Gods glory. His office seemed bright enough to substantiate his claim, the walls bare save for the occasional framed newspaper clipping or embroidered Bible verse. Outside his window was an empty plot of land, rare around this suburban subdivision, an untended grassy mess peppered with neon dandelions and their thousands of seed heads that would scatter across the highway by the end of the week.
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