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The following episode contains references to

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nine eight eight. Listener discretion

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is advised.

0:42

After father Dave is reassigned, Alana

0:44

gets even more involved with her church, Saint

0:46

Thom's. As Joyce remembers it,

0:49

the church invites a licensed therapist, a

0:51

woman named Kate, to offer low cost

0:53

therapy to students. Alana,

0:55

who's nineteen, eagerly signs up.

0:59

When I first met Kate, I was shaking.

1:02

I was desperate. I was nervous.

1:05

She stared at me blankly, yet attentively.

1:09

I couldn't speak. I'm

1:11

sorry, I'm so nervous. Don't

1:14

be sorry. I know it's hard. I'm

1:16

a stranger. But

1:18

she wasn't a stranger. She

1:21

had the aura of a mother, my

1:23

mother. I wanted

1:26

her to help catch my tears

1:28

and collect them, keep them

1:30

tucked away deep into her bosom.

1:33

I felt deep shame. I

1:36

could barely get the words out I

1:39

struggle with same

1:41

sex attraction. She

1:44

asked, if God could take

1:46

away your same sex attraction, would

1:49

you ask him to?

1:53

From Tenderfoot TV, I'm Simon

1:55

kent Fong and this is

1:57

Dear Alana, Part

2:01

four Judo. I

2:07

moved to New York City after college to

2:09

work at a Catholic media company and Internet,

2:12

a faith based NGO that lobbied at the

2:14

un Looking back, I

2:16

was such a different person then, but in some

2:18

ways I haven't changed at all. I

2:21

was trying to find work that would help bring the

2:23

world closer to God. But

2:25

the other reason I headed to the Big Apple, the

2:28

one I didn't say out loud, was

2:30

to find a therapist who could help me with

2:32

my same sex attractions. Unlike

2:34

Alana, whose therapists kind of fell into her

2:37

lap through Saint Thom's, I had

2:39

to look a little harder. On

2:41

the note that Father William gave me when

2:43

he told me these people will quote

2:45

fix you. He wrote down the name of a

2:47

website. That website

2:49

was narth dot com. Which

2:52

stood for the National Association for Research

2:54

and Therapy of Homosexuality. It

2:57

was the leading organization in the nineties and

2:59

mid odts promoted sexual orientation

3:01

change efforts, what we now call

3:04

conversion therapy. What

3:06

Father William didn't know was that I'd

3:09

already been to narth's website a thousand

3:11

times before, I'd read every

3:13

page.

3:14

We believe that homosexuality is a

3:16

symptom of early childhood

3:18

trauma. We get the client to address

3:21

those traumas and they will

3:23

experience a diminishment in their same sex

3:25

attraction.

3:27

That's Joseph Nicolosi, one of the founders

3:29

of NARTH, who I'll talk about later. Before

3:32

I go any further, I want to make it clear

3:34

that all of my experiences with this

3:36

kind of therapy were self

3:38

initiated. Not even my parents

3:41

pressured me to do it. And while

3:43

obviously I was influenced by my church,

3:46

by the time Father William told me to get

3:48

help, I'd already gone through dozens

3:50

of websites and books on the subject on my own.

3:53

He merely confirmed what I was already determined

3:55

to do to be fixed, because

3:58

now my vocation depended

4:00

on it. You see, I

4:02

couldn't be a priest if I kept having

4:05

these tendencies. In two

4:07

thousand and five, the Vatican published

4:09

its guidelines on seminary admissions.

4:11

In it, they emphatically said that

4:14

those with deep seated homosexual tendencies

4:16

should not be admitted. Only if

4:18

you grew out of this quote transitory

4:21

problem. Could you join in

4:23

practice? Many gay men lie

4:26

and become priests anyways, But

4:28

I didn't want to cheat. I wanted

4:30

to follow the Vatican guidelines and get

4:32

over this quote transitory problem.

4:35

How is that going to happen? Thankfully

4:38

there was a solution. Conversion

4:40

therapy. Conversion therapy

4:42

refers to the controversial practice of

4:44

trying to change or convert one's

4:46

sexual orientation to go from

4:48

gata strait or gay to less

4:51

gay. It can look like many different

4:53

things, psychotherapy, healing,

4:55

prayer, even twelve steps, and

4:58

it's not always blatantly.

5:00

We're allowing people to be who they want

5:03

to be. We're not imposing, we're

5:05

not forcing people to change.

5:08

We're just exploring.

5:09

Again, Joseph Nicolosi, using

5:12

a free will argument to defend the practice.

5:15

When some people hear the term conversion therapy,

5:17

they may think of forced, gruesome practices

5:20

like electroshock and lobotomies.

5:23

Those practices certainly existed, but

5:25

conversion therapy today looks a lot

5:27

different, and both Alana and I pursued

5:30

it to follow what we felt was God's

5:32

will.

5:33

The reason I thought out therapy is because

5:35

I need to get this under control if I want to

5:37

be a nun or a wife.

5:39

Conversion therapy today is also a lot more

5:42

common than you'd think. An estimated

5:44

seventy thousand youth in the US will go

5:46

through some form of conversion therapy

5:48

before they turn eighteen, And a big

5:50

reason why it's still happening is because,

5:53

as you'll see for Alana and me, it

5:55

can be compelling to a young person who's

5:57

desperate to change.

6:03

So it's two thousand and eight and I'm in New York

6:06

City. It's the middle of the Great

6:08

Recession, and I'd just saved up enough

6:10

money to be able to afford to see a therapist

6:12

for the first time. But who could

6:14

help me? I couldn't just walk into

6:16

any therapist's office. I

6:18

wanted to be fixed, not encouraged,

6:21

and I knew that most therapists would be

6:23

affirming of my sexual orientation and

6:26

wouldn't agree to help me change it. So

6:28

I was kind of scared, what if a therapist

6:31

tried to steer me in a direction that went

6:33

against my faith? Luckily

6:35

I found someone. He was the go

6:38

to Catholic therapist for conservative

6:40

Catholics in the Tri State area. Even

6:42

Mother Teresa sent her nuns to see him.

6:45

On his website, he explicitly embraced

6:47

the teachings of the Catholic Church and

6:49

also talked about the work of Narth in one

6:51

of his interviews. So he passed my litmus

6:53

test. I eagerly scheduled an appointment.

7:04

In our first session, I sat across from him

7:06

in a worn leather armchair in his dim

7:08

Manhattan office. He was heavy

7:10

set and in his mid forties and spoke

7:13

with a kind of Jersey confidence. My

7:15

palms were sweating. He

7:18

asked me about my relationship with my father.

7:20

If I'd grown up with a strong role model

7:23

who rough housed with me and told me I

7:25

had what it took to be a man. No,

7:28

I said, my dad was your typical

7:30

Asian dad, kind of distant

7:32

and strict, non confrontational,

7:35

always busy with work. He

7:38

nodded. He asked me if I ever

7:40

felt distant around other boys growing

7:43

up. Yes, I said, I'd

7:45

been bullied and didn't have many friends,

7:48

boys or girls. He asked

7:50

me about my body and if I felt disconnected

7:52

from it in any way. Well,

7:55

yeah, there were many things I hated

7:57

about my body. He then

7:59

asked me what I wanted. I

8:02

don't want to have same sex attraction

8:04

anymore. Is this something you can

8:06

help me with?

8:09

He nodded.

8:15

The idea of treating homosexuality

8:17

goes back well over one hundred years.

8:20

The original term homosexual

8:22

was defined squarely as a disease,

8:25

and this idea that gay people were sick in some

8:27

way dominated the public consciousness

8:30

well into the sixties.

8:32

What Jimmy didn't know was that Ralph was sick,

8:34

a sickness that was not visible, like smallpox,

8:37

but no less dangerous and contagious,

8:40

A sickness of the mind. You

8:42

see, Ralph was a homosexual,

8:45

a person who demands an intimate relationship

8:48

with members of their own sex.

8:51

A dangerous and contagious sickness.

8:54

With this fear in the air, it's no surprise

8:56

that in nineteen fifty two, the American

8:59

Psychiatrics so Uociation or the APA,

9:02

listed homosexuality as well

9:04

a mental disorder. And what do you

9:06

do with a mental disorder, a sickness,

9:09

a disease, you try to

9:11

cure it. So what am I supposed to do now? I'm

9:13

so d are you?

9:14

You start masturbating with your homosexual

9:17

image there, but at that point

9:19

of inevitability switch over to

9:21

the female picture. I mean, maybe

9:23

nothing will happen, maybe you won't have a

9:25

climax, but you probably will, and I want.

9:27

To know about it.

9:29

Gay people became guinea pigs. Scientists

9:32

experimented with everything from shock

9:34

and hormone therapies to testicular

9:37

transplants, hysterectomies, and institutionalization.

9:40

Behavioral psychologists gave clients

9:43

nausea inducing drugs while playing audio

9:45

of gay sex. They tried all

9:47

kinds of things, but the biggest

9:49

influence on conversion therapy came

9:51

at the turn of the century from Sigmund

9:53

Freud. In short, his

9:56

theory was that our psyches were shaped

9:58

by our childhoods and our parents, and

10:00

his contemporaries were fascinated by the prospect

10:03

of using his psychoanalytic techniques

10:05

to uncover how childhood traumas and

10:07

parenting patterns might hold the key to curing

10:10

this disease.

10:11

I do not believe that it is

10:13

possible to produce a

10:15

homosexual if the father

10:18

is a constructive father to his son.

10:21

That's Irving Bieber. Together with other

10:23

New York psychotherapists like Charles

10:25

Sockerati's, he posited that homosexuality

10:28

was caused by a distant father and

10:30

what he called a close binding mother. Here

10:33

he is in a nineteen sixty eight CBS

10:35

News documentary.

10:37

Doctor Charles Soccerreats is a New York

10:39

psychoanalyst a clinical assistant professor

10:41

of psychiatry at the Albert Einstein School

10:43

of Medicine. Here, lecturing to a group of resident

10:46

psychiatrists on homosexuality.

10:48

I was wondering if you think that there any quotes

10:50

happy homosexuals. The fact that

10:52

somebody is homosexual automatically

10:54

rules out the possibility

10:57

that he will remain happy for long.

10:58

In my opinion, the belief

11:01

that homosexuality was a kind of

11:03

illness, compulsion, or parenting

11:05

disaster dominated the public.

11:08

Most Americans are repelled by the mere notion

11:10

of homosexuality. The CBS News

11:12

survey shows that two out of three Americans

11:15

look upon homosexuals with disgust,

11:17

discomfort, or fear. One

11:19

out of ten says hatred. A

11:21

vast majority believe that homosexuality

11:23

is an illness, and this.

11:25

View had a real impact on society. If

11:28

you were found out to be gay, you'd be fired

11:30

from your job, face interrogation and

11:32

jail time, and denied entry into

11:34

the United States.

11:36

The dilemma of the homosexual by

11:39

the law, that is, a criminal, shunned

11:42

by employers, rejected by heterosexual

11:44

society, a displaced

11:47

person.

11:48

The cracks were beginning to form. By

11:50

the late forties. Research showed

11:53

that homosexuality was far more

11:55

common than previously thought, and as

11:57

the gay rights movement began to take off alongside

11:59

the growing consciousness of gay people in

12:02

society, the APA eventually

12:04

removed homosexuality from its list of

12:06

mental disorders, first partially in

12:08

nineteen seventy four and then completely

12:10

in nineteen eighty seven, a few years after

12:12

I was born. For a deeper dive

12:15

into the fascinating string of events that led

12:17

to this landmark decision, I recommend

12:19

the documentary Cured, as well as

12:21

the episode titled eighty one Words

12:23

from This American Life.

12:26

But conversion therapy wasn't just going to go away

12:29

soon. A new wave of conversion

12:31

therapy research and practice would begin

12:34

a wave that would eventually come

12:36

for me. Alana's

12:46

journals inspired me to dig up my own notebooks.

12:49

I'm looking at my notes from my therapy sessions.

12:52

I remember being such an A plus student that

12:54

I transcribed every session, sometimes

12:57

sitting in the stairwell after my appointment to

12:59

write it all down so that I could study it later.

13:02

I begin my notebook with a prayer,

13:06

Dear Lord, this is my new workbook

13:09

to work on my SSA and

13:11

the healing and recovery of my underlying

13:14

issues. SSA

13:17

same sex attraction. It sounds

13:19

very clinical, but that's the point.

13:22

For many Catholics and conservative Christians,

13:25

same sex attraction is the preferred word

13:27

for homosexuality because other

13:29

words like gay are seen

13:31

as reductive political labels

13:33

used by radical activists to hijack

13:35

our identities. Instead, same

13:38

sex attraction describes a condition

13:40

like psoriasis or depression, something

13:43

a person struggles with but doesn't

13:45

fully identify as. When

13:47

I first heard the term SSA, I

13:49

remember feeling relieved.

13:52

These attractions I was starting to have towards

13:54

the same sex didn't mean I was gay

13:57

like those people on the news who were underwear

13:59

dancing at the Prime.

14:00

I parayed.

14:01

Those people scared me. I wasn't

14:03

gay like them, but

14:05

struggling with same sex attraction that

14:08

fit better. A lot of

14:10

my early notes document my therapist's

14:12

thoughts on the importance of developmental milestones.

14:16

Every boy needs to go through certain stages

14:18

when he's young, first looking

14:21

up to a strong and loving father and

14:23

being told by that father that he has

14:26

what it takes to be a boy, to

14:28

be a friend, to play sports,

14:31

etc. Then

14:33

to fight, to train, to test,

14:36

to lead, then beauty

14:39

and attraction eventually to a

14:41

woman, and lastly to

14:43

be a wise counselor what

14:46

steps you missed out on you can't skip.

14:49

We must go back and experience those

14:51

things. And my relationship

14:53

with my father played a central role

14:55

in our sessions. He

14:58

asked me to think about the father I I wished

15:00

I had as a boy, that

15:02

little boy inside of me who longs

15:04

for his dad. He's still there.

15:08

Together, my therapist and I will go

15:10

and find that boy and heal

15:12

him. There was a lot

15:14

I wished was different about my dad. He

15:17

was gruff and emotionally distant. I

15:19

was sensitive. We butted heads.

15:22

I criticized him a lot. He once

15:24

locked me in the garage when I wouldn't finish my

15:26

supper. He was always working or

15:28

sleeping. When my therapist

15:30

asked me if there was a moment growing up when

15:33

I felt the least connected to my dad,

15:35

one memory stuck out. When

15:38

I was five or six, my dad was

15:40

obsessed with teaching me how to swim.

15:43

We signed up for parent child swim classes at

15:45

the community center, but I didn't want to go.

15:48

It was cold, it was one ore time, The

15:50

change room smelled and I would cry

15:53

as we drove to the pool. When it

15:55

was time for the class to begin, I

15:57

freaked out. My dad commanded

15:59

me to get into the water with him, but I

16:01

shook with fear and cried bitterly.

16:04

I can't, I want to go home. The

16:07

more I cried, the angrier he got

16:09

his eyes burned with fire, and he'd pull

16:11

me into the pool. All I remember

16:14

as I entered the water was this primal

16:16

fear, the sense that I

16:18

was going to die. I gripped

16:21

onto my dad, who pushed me away so that

16:23

I could get used to floating, but the panic

16:25

took over, and I don't know how long this went

16:27

on for. When it was all

16:29

over and we were getting changed, my

16:32

eyes raw from tears and chlorine.

16:34

My dad wouldn't talk to me. His

16:36

silence conveyed both embarrassment

16:39

and frustration, and I dreaded the following

16:41

week when this would happen all over

16:43

again. You needed

16:45

him to protect and encourage you, my therapist

16:48

said, but he didn't. This

16:50

was a father wound, a wound

16:53

we must heal. It

16:57

felt so good to be able to talk about my childhood

16:59

with some one, and all of these ideas

17:01

for my therapist connecting trauma

17:03

to my sexuality were really

17:06

compelling to me. They weren't your

17:08

typical pray the gay away approaches,

17:10

though many people still encounter those, nor

17:13

were they premised on the outdated idea that

17:15

being gay was a choice.

17:17

Instead, these theories seemed really

17:20

psychological and appeared to map

17:22

directly to my life.

17:29

The person most responsible for bringing a

17:31

level of sophistication to conversion therapy

17:34

was this woman named Elizabeth Moberly.

17:37

In the seventies, while all the drama at

17:39

the apadlisting homosexuality

17:41

was going on, Moberly, a quiet,

17:44

bookish woman who had just graduated from

17:46

Oxford, decided to do some research

17:48

on homosexuality. A lot of her

17:50

friends in the theology department were gay

17:53

and she wanted to better understand them. Here

17:55

she is speaking at a nineteen ninety eight conference

17:58

organized by Fishnet Ministries.

18:01

I believe that homosexuality derives

18:04

not from genetic or

18:07

hormonal causes. I

18:09

believe it is linked with

18:11

difficulties in the

18:14

early relationship with the

18:16

same sex parents. The

18:19

parental identification is

18:22

particularly conspicuous in a lesbian

18:24

relationship. Typically there

18:26

is a search for a mother figure, even

18:28

if this is unconscious, so

18:31

really the lesbian partnership has

18:33

the character of a mother daughter relationship.

18:38

Moberly cites this unresolved attachment

18:40

to mom and dad as the underlying need

18:43

that the homosexual is subconsciously trying

18:45

to resolve those unmet love

18:47

needs. She thinks get transferred

18:50

to a same sex partner that the child will seek

18:52

out later in adulthood. The way

18:54

my therapist described it to me was that at

18:56

puberty, my need for my dad

18:59

got a writis sized, but

19:01

she goes further.

19:02

Same sex love is not a deviation

19:05

from normality, but an attempt

19:07

to resume and continue

19:09

the normal developmental process.

19:13

It's not an abnormal sexual

19:16

drive, it's a normal developmental

19:19

drive. A reparative

19:22

drive, a reparative

19:24

attempt to make good

19:26

developmental deficits.

19:29

She theorizes that by finding

19:31

a same sex lover, the homosexual

19:33

person is subconsciously repairing

19:35

a deficit in same sex love that they

19:38

never got from their parent, like a body

19:40

trying to heal itself. Her

19:42

remember being drawn to Moberly's reparative

19:45

theory because she seemed to be suggesting

19:47

that my attractions weren't bad.

19:50

In fact, Moberly spends a good part of her talk

19:52

scolding religious people for demonizing

19:54

same sex attractions that she says are

19:56

at their root perfectly valid, and

19:59

then she's as something counterintuitive.

20:02

Same sex love is not

20:04

the problem, but the solution.

20:08

Not the problem, but the solution. I

20:11

really do think it's essential to get

20:14

that person into therapy

20:17

where they can get a more intensified

20:19

and focused experience of same sex

20:21

relating with somebody who is already

20:23

fulfilled and secure in their own

20:26

same sex heterosexual identity.

20:29

Moberly's belief is that the way to heal

20:31

the same sex love deficit is

20:34

through same sex connection, the non

20:36

Eurotic kind like when we were kids.

20:38

By working with a straight therapist of the same

20:41

sex. The homosexual can be healed

20:43

of these mother or father wounds, have their

20:45

childhood needs met, and naturally

20:48

become straight. At

20:52

the time, this all sounded plausible

20:54

to me. Her theory seemed to explain

20:57

so much of my childhood. I

20:59

didn't have a great relationship with my dad,

21:02

and others who since extended Moberly's

21:04

work have brought in the childhood trauma

21:06

theory to include not just the role of parents,

21:09

but also peers. Given that

21:11

I was bullied for so long on the schoolyard

21:13

that totally checked out too. I

21:15

never questioned whether maybe my experiences

21:18

were actually quite common for

21:20

a lot of kids. I was just happy

21:22

to have an explanation for my SSA,

21:25

and by working with my therapist, I

21:27

was determined to heal these wounds and

21:29

resume my developmental journey towards

21:31

heterosexuality. At

21:34

the end of Elizabeth Moberly's talk, she

21:36

takes questions from the audience.

21:38

My question is granted

21:42

that I really believe the whole framework

21:44

and the whole everything you've been telling us. This

21:46

makes such sense psychologically, But I want

21:49

to know what are the bottom

21:51

line results. How many people

21:54

can you give us? Percentages? Can you give us

21:56

figures. Can you give us some kind of

21:58

hope? But no matter.

22:01

I can give you a hope, but I can't give you

22:03

a head count.

22:04

Sorry, I'm loving

22:06

for I love the idea, but I need the results.

22:09

You see, I'm screaming for g

22:12

Bill.

22:12

You go out and use these principles, and

22:15

you come back and you give me your headcount.

22:23

The reason Moberley can't answer this question

22:26

is because she was never a clinical

22:28

practitioner. She had never tested

22:30

out her reparative theory on actual

22:32

patients, but others soon

22:35

would. In

22:42

the late eighties, once homosexuality

22:44

was no longer officially considered a mental

22:46

disorder, practitioners who'd spent

22:48

their careers trying to treat homosexuality

22:51

were outraged. They called the APA's

22:53

decision a quote destructive

22:56

and blind pursuit of political correctness,

22:58

and so Charles Charides, a

23:01

Catholic, and his colleagues Joseph

23:03

Nicolosi, also Catholic, who you

23:05

heard at the beginning of this episode, and Benjamin

23:07

Kaufman, who was Jewish. The

23:09

three of them got together and started NARTH,

23:12

the National Association for Research

23:15

and Therapy of Homosexuality. They

23:17

published their own research and started to

23:19

bring Moberly's ideas into clinical

23:22

practice. The establishment

23:24

of NARTH injected new life into

23:26

the conversion therapy movement. Joseph

23:29

Nicolosi would appear on news shows

23:31

and Doctor Phil Partner with Focus

23:33

on the Family and advise Catholic and

23:35

Christian ministries on all things gay

23:38

coming up.

23:38

He claims he's reversed homosexual tendencies

23:40

and hundreds of his patients through therapy. I

23:43

have the belief that all people are heterosexual

23:46

in their nature, and that the particular

23:48

trauma creates the homosexual condition.

23:51

And they came up with a term that described

23:53

their techniques. They called it

23:56

reparative therapy. You can see

23:58

now where that comes from. In fact,

24:00

Elizabeth Moberly would later claim that

24:02

Joseph Nicolosi took credit for her

24:04

ideas and they publicly feuded over

24:06

it. In the literature from the nineties

24:09

onwards, it was this kind of reparative

24:11

therapy that captivated many religious

24:14

therapists like mine, eager

24:16

to combine church teaching with psychology.

24:25

Since I had SSA, I clearly

24:27

missed out on the rights of passage that fathers

24:29

normally give their sons, the sorts

24:31

of interactions that secured a sense

24:33

of masculinity, so my therapists

24:35

would be stepping in to play that role. He

24:38

would become a sort of surrogate father to

24:40

me. He

24:43

said, I'm intelligent, articulate, blessed

24:46

with many artistic gifts, and

24:48

these are good, but we need

24:51

to work on my masculinity.

24:54

For the next year, my therapist would teach me

24:56

about how men move their bodies and

24:58

take up space, how men insalt

25:00

each other. As a way of bonding. We

25:02

practiced what he called verbal judo so

25:04

that I could learn how to spar with words and

25:06

insult other men. We role played

25:08

situations from my childhood where I was

25:11

bullied and he had me fight back and

25:13

tell my bullies off. It wasn't easy,

25:15

and honestly it felt a little awkward

25:17

at times, but I took it all very

25:20

seriously. There was no shortcut

25:22

to growth. Looks

25:25

like we had a few months focused on inner child

25:28

healing and this is

25:30

a letter I wrote to myself as my inner

25:32

child. Dear

25:35

big Simon, I want to

25:37

tell you about a big hurt. For

25:39

the longest time, I felt insecure

25:42

and not confident. Playing red ass at recess.

25:44

That's a game we used to play in elementary school where

25:47

we'd have to throw a tennis ball against a wall,

25:49

and if you missed, you'd get a letter until

25:51

it's spelt red ass, at which point

25:53

you'd lose and have a ball whipped at your ass.

25:56

I always dreaded throwing the ball from far away

25:58

because I can't throw that. I

26:01

remember running to the wall to not get

26:03

a letter, and then I slipped on a

26:05

patch of ice and smashed my face against

26:07

the brick wall. My glasses

26:09

were destroyed and I was bleeding

26:13

for weeks. I had a nasty scab on the right

26:15

side of my face, and the other boys

26:17

teased me even more. I

26:19

remember feeling so alone and sad and

26:22

so numb. No one

26:24

cared. I wanted to hide

26:26

at home. I think

26:28

this was the last straw that made me give up

26:30

on ever fitting in. From

26:32

now on, I just have to figure it out by

26:35

myself. To

26:41

repair some of these same sex masculinity

26:43

wounds around sports, my therapist

26:45

encouraged me to take up a sport.

26:48

I chose judo, maybe because of all

26:50

the verbal judo we were practicing, but also

26:53

because I thought it looked cool, so I

26:55

gave it a shot. I

26:57

showed up at the dojo, and they paired me up with

26:59

some went at my skill level, which for me meant

27:02

the eleven year old boy or the middle aged woman.

27:04

Those were my options. Week

27:06

after week, I'd get thrown on the mat,

27:09

get up, and get thrown again. It's

27:11

something you have to get used to in judo. One

27:13

time I dislocated my toe.

27:15

Some days I'd throw up from nerves.

27:18

And the guys there, they were like comically

27:21

attractive, Like why are all the

27:23

men in judo so good looking? So

27:26

he says, when the attraction comes, don't

27:29

fight it, accept it. There's

27:31

something behind it. Take a

27:34

pause, and instead of freaking out, ask

27:36

yourself why. What are

27:38

the hidden immediate thoughts that come to mind?

27:41

How do I feel about myself? What

27:43

do I believe about this person? Do

27:45

I feel small and weak? Do

27:47

I think he has a better body. My

27:51

therapist called this the exotic becomes

27:53

erotic theory. Because I was so

27:55

cut off from my masculinity, I

27:57

saw men as the other and he

28:00

said, contributed to their eroticization

28:02

since we're naturally attracted to opposites.

28:05

So I had to demystify these men by

28:07

confronting them platonically, especially

28:10

the ones I felt attracted to. Remember,

28:12

same sex love is the solution, not

28:15

the problem. There was this one

28:17

guy, Patrick, probably in his thirties,

28:19

who I felt extremely attracted to. This

28:23

is an entry about Patrick. It

28:25

took a risk, but I started

28:27

talking with Patrick, asking him

28:30

where he lives. He offered

28:32

me a ride. I accepted. Once

28:35

we started talking, it broke the ice,

28:38

and what I thought that he thinks I'm a loser

28:41

just didn't seem true. In the

28:43

car, he said he was into computers

28:45

as a kid, but didn't stay in it and regrets

28:47

it. He doesn't even know how to download pictures.

28:50

He's the leader of his police squad, climbing

28:53

towers, etc. He

28:55

wants to retire in five years then open

28:57

a bar or a hot dog stand. So

29:01

now the mystique is broken. He's

29:04

a man trying to live just like me, and

29:06

he seems to like me too. He

29:08

called me brother as I was leaving, Lord,

29:12

thank you for arranging this. I

29:15

excitedly told my therapist about all of

29:17

this, and he was overjoyed. He

29:19

said that this guy wouldn't affirm me as a

29:21

brother if he didn't see masculinity

29:23

in me. The therapy was working with

29:26

time. I believed my attractions

29:28

would go away.

29:33

September eighteenth, two thousand and eight, I

29:36

asked my therapist how am

29:38

I progressing. He said, you

29:40

have a high probability to change between

29:43

one and five years. Your

29:45

ssay is a symptom of a deeper problem.

29:48

You are a heterosexual man with a homosexual

29:51

problem. He told the story of

29:53

one of his clients who began therapy five

29:55

years ago. Today he's dating.

30:00

The idea of dating women made me light

30:02

headed and kind of nauseous.

30:04

I'd asked women out before earlier

30:07

in college, when I was trying to see if

30:09

maybe I could make it work. Usually

30:12

we started out as friends, but whenever

30:14

we'd get too close or I felt like

30:16

she was falling for me, I'd back out.

30:19

At the time, in the Catholic circles I ran

30:21

in, this was seen as virtuous behavior,

30:24

a sign of sexual purity. Restraint

30:27

was holy. All that would be

30:29

required for me to change within one

30:31

to five years would be to grow into

30:33

my masculinity. So I returned

30:35

every week, hopeful that my day

30:37

of healing would come.

30:44

Kate said that my thoughts and attractions were not bad,

30:47

but if I acted on them, my soul

30:49

would start to wither away.

30:52

They said I was making too big a deal out of it, that

30:55

it wasn't my true identity. It

30:58

was only a small part of me. It

31:00

was just a disorder. I

31:03

was so confused.

31:05

I'm with Joyce flipping through Alana's

31:07

journals. It's uncanny how

31:09

Alana is reiterating the same conversion

31:12

therapy talking points that I got

31:14

from my therapist. I ask

31:16

Joyce if she knew about Alana's therapist, Kate,

31:19

and what was going on.

31:20

I remember I went to I met Kate.

31:22

I went to the student center where all these

31:24

kids would meet with Kate and sign up and

31:27

they paid very short amount,

31:29

but they paid.

31:30

You know you

31:32

did.

31:32

Yeah, she's Catholic

31:35

therapist. Went to Institute

31:37

for Psychological Sciences, which is this Catholic

31:40

psychology program that

31:42

is run by it started by a religious

31:44

supporter. About the Legionarias of.

31:46

Christ and their

31:49

anti ka I

31:52

mean, they're.

31:54

They're part of this like cluster

31:56

of many different institutions and organizations

31:59

that are faithful to the teachings

32:01

of the Church.

32:02

Right, So.

32:04

Yeah, their training and their how

32:07

they are told to counsel people will be within

32:10

those frameworks. It's

32:13

hard for me to answer her with a definitive yes.

32:15

Here because the Catholic Church doesn't

32:17

see itself as anti gay people.

32:20

It sees itself as anti gay

32:22

sex, which it considers an elective

32:24

choice, a sin, something separate

32:27

from the person. Hate the sin, not

32:29

the sinner. This is why so much

32:32

of the guidance I got in the church was

32:34

framed as protecting me from going

32:36

to Hell, in the same way that a parent would

32:38

see denying their child candy for breakfast

32:40

as the most loving thing to do. But

32:44

as I see the confusion that this kind of

32:46

council had on Alana, I

32:48

begin to wonder if maybe she

32:50

was right to feel like this

32:52

didn't add up, that

32:55

compartmentalizing our sexuality in this

32:57

way might be what's actually

32:59

wrong. When Joyce

33:01

first met Alana's therapist, Kate,

33:04

she remembers Kate reiterating that as

33:06

a therapist, she stands by every

33:08

teaching of the Catholic Church. But

33:10

Joyce clearly had no idea what that implied

33:13

and didn't know about the messages Alana was getting

33:15

in therapy. When I was looking

33:17

for a therapist, I knew that faithful

33:20

to the teachings of the Catholic Church was code

33:22

for a conservative therapist who would

33:25

support my efforts to change my sexuality.

33:27

It was a dog whistle that signaled that

33:30

they'd likely be open to conversion therapy

33:32

theories. In

33:39

the summer of twenty ten, I

33:41

went home to visit my family. We

33:43

did the usual family barbecues with my grandma

33:45

and cousins. My younger cousin,

33:48

Vivian, was home from college for the summer,

33:50

and we took a car ride just me and her

33:53

to pick something up from the store. We

33:55

were always close and joked around.

33:58

She was the comedian of the family, but

34:00

that day in the car, she was unusually

34:02

quiet and kind of sullen. I

34:05

looked over from the steering wheel and asked her, what

34:07

was up. Nothing, She said,

34:09

come on, tell me what's going on. We

34:12

pulled into the driveway, and that's

34:14

when something happened that I was not

34:17

expecting. She came

34:19

out to me. I stopped

34:21

in my tracks. Although her

34:23

news wasn't a huge surprise to me, I

34:25

knew I needed to say something, but

34:28

how I had the opportunity

34:31

to be vulnerable with her in that moment, to

34:33

share with her my own struggle, but

34:35

I was too ashamed to admit it. I

34:38

had worked so hard to get to where I was

34:40

with my therapy. I was so close to

34:42

being fixed that the thought of me opening

34:44

up to her and coming out was not

34:47

on the table. I chose my

34:49

words carefully. Vivian,

34:52

you do know that you don't have to be

34:55

gay, right She looked

34:57

at me and tears began to fall

34:59

down her cheeks. Vivian,

35:01

there are resources out there. From

35:03

what I've read, homosexuality

35:06

is a developmental delay caused

35:08

by some sort of childhood trauma. You

35:11

don't have to go down the route that the gay activists

35:13

want you to go down. There are other options

35:16

like therapy. Vivian

35:19

turned to look out the window. She

35:22

wiped her face, and

35:24

then she said something I'll never forget.

35:28

You will never understand what it's like

35:30

to be me. You can go get

35:33

married and have kids and live your normal life,

35:35

but I can never have that, and you'll never

35:38

know what that's like. She

35:41

got out of the car and slammed

35:44

the door. Everything

35:58

I'd been working on with my therapy culminated

36:01

in him suggesting one day that I bring

36:03

my dad in for a joint session. My

36:05

parents have always been supportive of me when

36:08

I first came out to them. I brought them to

36:10

a weekend conference organized by Exodus

36:13

International, the largest Christian umbrella

36:15

network for conversion therapy. We

36:17

attended lectures and purchased all the books

36:20

at the book table. So when I told my

36:22

dad that this special session with

36:24

my therapist could be a major breakthrough

36:26

for my healing, the key that unlocked

36:28

everything, he booked a plane ticket

36:31

right away. I felt

36:33

nervous and excited. This was

36:35

my chance to heal my father wounds

36:37

and get one step closer towards my goal.

36:41

On the day of our appointment, we walked up to

36:43

the building together, pushed the heavy

36:45

metal doors, and went inside. Okay,

36:49

mister Fung, thank you for coming, my

36:51

therapist said, So, I'd like for Simon

36:53

to start off by expressing how he feels

36:56

about your relationship when he was a child.

36:59

I was prepared. My therapist and I

37:01

had worked for weeks on my father wounds.

37:03

So I told my dad what was on my mind.

37:06

How he never supported me in the ways I needed

37:08

when I was bullied at school, how abandoned

37:10

i'd felt in the swimming pool, how I often

37:13

felt caught in the middle when he and mom would

37:15

fight. It was hard and

37:17

several times I saw my dad

37:19

WinCE. Then my therapist

37:21

invited him to respond. My

37:24

dad had his head down and was thoughtful for

37:26

a few seconds, and

37:28

then he spoke in a way I'd never

37:30

heard before. He was precise

37:33

and direct and gentle. He

37:35

said that he knows that he did so many

37:38

things wrong, that there were more

37:40

mistakes that I hadn't mentioned. He

37:43

said he felt so sorry and

37:45

so bad and had no excuses

37:47

for any of the pain I went through. He

37:50

said he was working on all of this, working

37:52

on himself.

37:53

Now.

37:55

I looked at my therapist to facilitate the rest

37:57

of the conversation. Was there more to dig

37:59

up? Maybe I could do a verbal judo

38:02

match with my dad or have my inner

38:04

child speak to him. But my

38:06

therapist had his jaw open, and

38:09

when he turned to me, he said, Wow,

38:12

I'm floored. In all my years

38:14

of counseling, I've never seen such humility,

38:17

honesty, and courage. He

38:19

said he could only pray for some of these qualities

38:21

in himself. He said, I had an

38:24

amazing dad. We

38:29

ended that session and my therapist said that

38:31

further father son appointments wouldn't be

38:33

necessary. As I sent my dad

38:36

off to catch his flight. I was grateful

38:38

for his honesty and remorse, but

38:40

I was also kind of disappointed. I

38:43

thought that there would be more to our sessions, that

38:46

there would be more to process about our relationship.

38:49

After what I'd hoped would be a breakthrough,

38:51

I didn't feel any different, but

38:53

a cure still had to be possible. If

38:56

this didn't work, what was I going to do? How

38:59

would I follow god vocation for me? How

39:01

would I cope? I

39:03

was determined to be a conversion therapy success

39:06

story, to not be gay, to

39:08

be fixed, and over the next five

39:10

years, I would seek out even more

39:12

kinds of conversion therapy, from a camp

39:14

in central Virginia where we re enacted

39:16

scenes from my schoolyard in order to help

39:19

me process my childhood bullying, to

39:21

group therapy where we deconstructed

39:23

our sexual fantasies. There

39:25

wasn't anything I wasn't willing to try in order

39:28

to find that silver bullet.

39:31

Alana was also willing to try anything.

39:33

From her records, we know that she belonged

39:35

to a Catholic support group for people with

39:38

SSA. I remember hearing about

39:40

this group growing up. They'd

39:42

meet regularly in church basements and

39:44

Somehow the timing never worked out for me to go

39:46

to their meetings, which were structured around

39:48

treating homosexuality as an addiction, another

39:51

popular theory. As the stigma

39:53

around homosexuality began to fade

39:55

after the APA's decision, Catholic

39:58

psychologists started professional groups

40:00

like NARTH, and Catholic clergy started

40:02

ministries. Father John Harvey,

40:05

a moral theyologian who was teaching in DC

40:07

at the time, founded what would become the

40:09

largest and only Vatican approved

40:12

Catholic ministry for the same sex attracted,

40:14

a ministry known as Courage International.

40:18

It's an organization for the purpose

40:20

of helping people those same sex attractions

40:23

to lead chase lives. And

40:25

we use these tall steps of AA

40:27

with permission of them. So it's the same

40:30

kind of program as the dynamics

40:32

is the same.

40:33

On the Saint Thom's community bookshelf, the

40:36

two books about homosexuality are

40:38

by Father John Harvey. In

40:40

his interviews, Father Harvey insists

40:42

that his group Courage is not therapy,

40:45

it's a ministry. It's the Church ministering

40:47

to the individual. But the more I listened

40:50

to him talk about his books, like

40:52

in this interview a year before his death on

40:54

the EWTN Bookmark talk show.

40:56

The more I'm not so sure.

40:58

That wonderful chatter on

41:01

one of the greatest psychologists

41:03

in this subject. Her name is

41:05

Elizabeth Moberly. He's

41:07

been quoted all over the place by Protestants,

41:09

Catholic Jews. So I got hold

41:12

of that and I the even visited

41:14

her over in England. She knew every

41:16

word I put down, and every word here

41:18

is her words. You know, I'm just summarizing

41:21

her thinking.

41:22

His books contain Moberly's theories

41:25

essentially verbatim. He

41:27

rhymes off her theories.

41:29

Relationships for parents, teenage,

41:32

relationships with peers,

41:34

you know, an overweening mother.

41:37

These are all very important factors.

41:40

The host asks him whether people can truly

41:42

be cured from same sex attraction?

41:45

Well, must they live with it for the rest of

41:47

their lives?

41:48

And what about we've heard about this, I think

41:50

Nickelosi usually with reparative

41:53

therapy.

41:54

Reparative therapy is a good thing. It

41:56

really flows out the teaching of

41:58

Elizabeth Moberley. That's the idea

42:01

that if something's wrong, you can

42:03

repair it, and what it was wrong

42:06

is an attachment to the sex

42:08

of same sex attraction. You can

42:10

work your way out of it.

42:11

You know, I can work my way out

42:13

of this. I told myself I had

42:16

to. How else would I become a priest.

42:19

That guy's not hot. He's just a reflection

42:21

of my underdeveloped masculinity. And

42:24

it's just a temptation anyways, something I

42:26

can learn to disassociate from.

42:28

Or is it more like a disease or maybe

42:30

an addiction like gambling or

42:32

alcohol. I was holding

42:34

all of this in at once, and I think

42:36

Alana must have felt this way too

42:40

sophomore year.

42:42

The reason I thought out therapy is because

42:44

I need to get this under control. If I want to

42:46

be a nun or a wife, a lesbian

42:48

relationship is not an option for me.

42:55

On September twenty ninth, twenty sixteen,

42:58

right as Alana starting her senior year year of college,

43:01

a police car shows up at the chenhouse.

43:04

Alana's upstairs and Sophia, her

43:06

younger sister, here's the door.

43:08

I answered the door. I see a

43:10

cop, Alana's friend at the time,

43:14

and a nun, and

43:16

I was like, what is

43:19

going on?

43:20

And

43:23

they were like, we're really worried about your sister.

43:24

We need you to go get her right now. And

43:27

I was like, what could possibly be going

43:29

on. I was like, this is such a random group of people.

43:32

I had no idea. I was like, this is so

43:34

weird.

43:35

She goes upstairs to get Alana.

43:38

Her eyes are so red and I'm clearly crying,

43:40

and I brought

43:42

her down and I was like, they're like, we need to take

43:45

you to the hospital now.

43:46

She kept saying over and over, She's like, I don't

43:48

want to leave you.

43:49

I don't want to leave you. Just

43:53

hours before this, Alana had

43:55

told her friend some disturbing news.

43:59

She had planned to kill her herself in the adoration

44:01

chapel at Saint Thom's. The

44:03

police rush her immediately to the hospital.

44:07

I will follow you, follow

44:12

you wherever you might

44:14

go.

44:15

Next time on Dear Alana, it

44:18

was like a.

44:18

Big deal at the channel House that she

44:20

was going on the state and

44:22

he picked her up and like we had all met

44:25

him.

44:25

He's super nice, he's handsome.

44:27

How Alana's college community deepens

44:30

her convictions.

44:34

I will follow you ever

44:38

since you touched my hand.

44:43

Dear Alana was created, hosted,

44:45

and written by me Simon Kentfong

44:47

and is a production of Tenderfoot TV in

44:50

association with a Slept Audio and

44:52

the Center for Independent Documentary. It

44:54

was produced by Laurie Puliski, who also

44:56

composed the music. Executive producers

44:59

are myself, Donald Albright, and Payne

45:01

Lindsay. Our supervising producer

45:03

is Tracy leeds Kaplan. Additional

45:05

music by Makeup and Vanity Set sales

45:08

and distribution by iHeartMedia. Our

45:10

voice actor is Alana Rabor and our

45:12

credit song I Will Follow You is Bye

45:14

to Loose. Show notes and resources

45:16

can be found on our website Dearlana dot

45:19

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Notion toud Monton

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So High, Keep

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Me Away, Away.

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