How I Escaped Conversion Therapy

One gay teen’s story

When I was 15, I was a faithful evangelical Christian

Church was my sanctuary! After the trauma of my parent’s divorce and the stress of a move from the deep South to the Great Plains, I had a very hard time adapting to public school. Years of private Christian education had left me a fish (no pun intended) out of water. My church became my family, the one place I knew where my friends would love and accept me no matter what.

I was wrong about that. This is my story.

I’m fifteen years old and I’m pumping out push-ups on the slightly musty shag carpet of the cluttered bedroom I share with my younger brother.

I kept praying hard for God to have mercy on me and make me straight.

I want to puff my pathetic chest up a little because I’ve got a date. With a girl! And she has a reputation. I’m desperate to like her. I need a girlfriend in the worst way. All this liking-boys bullshit has to stop. If only I can make out with a girl, I’m sure all this gay nonsense will go away.

And this girl… well, she isn’t exactly flat chested, but she doesn’t have ginormous, unappealing, pillowy-soft mounds for breasts either.

Shudder.

She doesn’t wear a lot of makeup. If you look at her just right, she could be a cute boy.

Stop thinking like that! Do more push-ups! Imagine how sexy it would feel if you were kissing her! She’ll let you do stuff. Everybody says she will.

Just go out with her tonight. Make out. “Please God!” I prayed with the earnest belief of a teenager. “Let it get hard. Let her see I want her.”

I did make out with her that night

Nothing happened. No thrill. No electricity. No nothing. She noticed. That wasn’t my last date with a girl, but it was my last date with a girl I thought I might have been able to muster some attraction for.

There are programs that can help heal you. They’re expensive, but if your mom can’t afford it, the church will make sure you can go. We’re here for you always.

I kept praying hard for God to have mercy on me and make me straight. I couldn’t understand why he’d cursed me with this sickness. It would be another year or perhaps a little less yet before I would give up on God.

I couldn’t understand why I felt for other boys what morally straight guys felt for girls.

That moment doing push-ups in my bedroom stands out for me. I was doing my best to take positive action. I felt good. I felt powerful. I felt like kissing a girl was going to be a magical moment in my young life. It would change everything. It (and God) would change ME.

How I yearned to be normal!

How I remember coming home after our date at the church function

It’s late. My brother is sleeping in the top bunk. I take my clothes off and slip into the bottom one. I pull the covers up. I have a tearful talk with God about how bitter I am that He didn’t help me feel what I was supposed to feel.

Then, as I relax and grow sleepy, visions of my baseball-playing boy flit in and out of my inner eye. I see his taut body, cheerful smile, white teeth. I revel in his athletic grace and sinuous form.

My hand wanders unbidden to take up a rhythmic pleasure. I do what I keep promising God I’ll never do again. I do it thinking of him, not of her. I feel powerless and dirty.

The cheerful boy pumping out push-ups is gone, replaced by a deeply sad, depressed boy who’s been indoctrinated to believe that he’s bad, that he’s sick, and that he’s all wrong on the inside.

The girl I went out with wasn’t the only one to notice my lack of interest

It didn’t take long before my “difference” became apparent to the rest of the youth group and eventually to the youth pastor and his wife. I was the only boy in our small circle who was apparently not interested in girls. Teens whispered about it. Adults treated me funny.

The youth pastor subtly encouraged me, trying not to be too obvious, I think. His wife gave me little pep talks about how all the girls thought I was cute. (I didn’t believe her. I knew I wasn’t bad looking, but I was short and skinny — not the type girls mooned over.)

I tried to date a couple more times, even going out with a friend’s sister after hearing on the church grapevine that she’d say yes if I asked. What an excruciating date that was! We barely said a word to each other all evening. I found out years later that she came out as a lesbian and ended up as the music director at an LGBTQ-affirming church.

Fast forward a year

The youth pastor stopped being subtle. I’m pretty sure he’d figured out I was having an affair with another boy at church. An affair, or whatever you’d call it when two 17-year-old guys are mooning over each other and trying to keep it a big secret.

The youth pastor called me into the senior pastor’s office. Sat me down. He smiled at me warmly while we waited for the older man to come in and take a seat. I don’t remember the first part. I think I’ve repressed it. Too embarrassing!

This is what I remember the senior pastor saying after we stood and prayed together. “There are programs that can help heal you. They’re expensive, but if your mom can’t afford it, the church will make sure you can go. We’re here for you always. You’re our family.”

He wanted me to go to a program that offered to turn gay kids straight. A summer camp.

I’d never heard of such a thing, but I didn’t hesitate for even a second. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I protested. “You guys have the wrong idea. I’m just concentrating on school and my military academy applications. I don’t have time for girls. That’s all it is.”

Their staring eyes told me they didn’t buy my story, but I didn’t budge. My voice was ice, and my gaze didn’t waver. I denied everything and thanked them for their concern. I shook their hands and walked out of the office with my head high.

How I escaped conversion therapy

Unbeknownst to either pastor, I had given up believing in God about six months before. I was still going to church, but it was an act. Well … that’s not fair. I still loved my friends and I still thought of the church people as family.

But if the church had asked me to go to conversion camp that night after the push-ups? Or the night after the miserable date with my friend’s sister? I would have leapt! I would have invested all my hopes and prayers in a quest to become straight.

The pastors waited a few months too long. I lucked out.

By the time they asked me, I no longer possessed the faith necessary to believe God could or would change my sexuality. I believed I was who I was and that I’d have to just make the best of it.

I was luckier than I realized

I had no idea how dangerous conversion therapy was, how much suicide it causes among Christian teenagers. I didn’t know that the kids most at risk for severe depression and suicide attempts are the kids who enter into therapy voluntarily — that the more they sincerely desire to change, the more their risk increases.

I escaped by mere chance of timing, but I was wrong about something

I’d been sure that my church family loved me, and that they would always accept me. I still possessed an adolescent’s faith in the innate goodness of humanity. So, when the church families began to pull back from me, when I found myself not invited to events, not included in activities, I internalized a harsh lesson in rejection. I developed calluses and scars that have never really softened.

But that’s another story. At least I escaped conversion therapy. At least I had a shot a life of love, human intimacy, and fulfillment. I’m so happy about that!

Did you know the several Catholic dioceses in the United States are now offering conversion therapy, even in jurisdictions where it’s outlawed? Please click the link below for more information!

James Finn is a long-time LGBTQ activist, an alumnus of Act Up NYC, an essayist occasionally published in queer news outlets, and an “agented” novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].