¶ Intro / Opening
Hey everyone. I just wanted to let you know that today's show has some heavy moments, including mention of suicide. So please use discretion and listen with care.
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¶ Understanding Conversion Practices
This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Ann Helen Peterson.
And I'm Timothy Schrader Rodriguez, the author of Conversion Therapy Dropout.
We're gonna start just broadly with this idea of Conversion therapy, which, you know, I was reading something from the Center for American Progress and they at the top they said, We don't use the term conversion therapy anymore because they use conversion practices to describe what's happening. Because to call it therapy is to suggest that there is therapeutic value.
To the people receiving it. Whereas it's actually like a non therapeutic value. Um, so we'll go back and forth because I think a lot of people call it still conversion therapy and conversion practices. But I also want to start with how these programs are talked about, are like the names for them. Like what was it called? How did you think of it? when you started going through it uh one of these programs, any of these programs.
Yeah.
I started conversion therapy when I was nineteen. I opted into it. So there was no adult or, you know, parent telling me I had to do it. This was in two thousand one and so the internet really wasn't fully invented yet. So I couldn't go online to seek it out. So it started by me reading a book that I picked up at a Christian bookstore that was like, here's the pathway to become the man God wants you to be.
In the back of the book was a phone number to Exodus International, which was the largest conversion therapy organization of its time. And so I picked up the phone and said, Hey, I I don't think I want to be gay anymore, or I don't want to be gay, period. And they said, Okay, we can help you. And so it was originally under the banner of Exodus International. Exodus was an organization that was a network of ministries that at the time promoted conversion therapy.
There was hundreds of them across the United States and globally. So the first ministry that I got a part of was called Living Hope, which was an online based forum that's still in existence today. And then over time, I went to an in-person therapist. I did support groups. I went to Exodus's big national conference every year. So it took a lot of forms and a lot of different shapes. But at the end of the day it was communicating the same message to me that I was broken.
Is this the only work that Exodus did? Or did they do like a why did they call it Exodus?
Well, if you think about it, we were in captivity to our sexuality and we needed to be free. Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh. Uh uh I also think like I wanted to outline a lot of this because I think sometimes from watching films or reading books There might be this idea for people who are not who didn't grow up in in Christian spaces in particular that like Conversion therapy is always like a camp that you go to almost, right? Um like an intense conversion experience in that capacity. But it's often, as you said, like an online message board.
Yeah. It it takes a lot of different forms. And you know, th those camps, there were residential treatment programs that were like rehab. There were, you know, the electroshock treatments, but by and large, it looked and felt like Christian therapy. I was in a therapist office excavating my past for evidence of why I was the way that I was. It was online support groups. It was also in-person support groups. So it was like AA, but for homosexuality. So it took a lot of different forms.
It brings to mind some of the conversations that I would have with male counselors at the church camp where I used to work, where they would always like at least a couple of nights a week, they would dedicate it.
Not to talking about sexuality, but just to talking about masturbation and like masturbation support groups. Like how do I masturbate less? Like confessing when you like give in to masturbation, like all of these things and With like d similar format, only the thing about masturbation is if you did it once, like it wasn't like your total self, whereas gayness was like, Oh, I need to deny myself over and over and over and over again.
Well, okay, interesting point on masturbation. So In conversion therapy, we were taught not to do that because it was reinforcing our same sex desire. Because it was male touch if you were male or female if you're Right.
Oh my gosh, really?
Oh.
Oh yeah. Like self touch was male too. Wow.
So like we couldn't even do that. But the thing was there was conflicting advice given. So that was one school of thought. The other school of thought was If the difference is between you acting out what they called, you know, if you had sex with anyone outside of marriage, it was acting out. Yeah. If if the choice was acting out with another person or taking care of yourself, do that because that's less criminal than actually acting out with another person. Yeah.
¶ The Psychological Toll of Denial
And this gets to something you talk a lot in your book about how you became incredibly adept at code switching. Not only like code switching like uh like in church settings and non church settings, but also code switching because of the way that you grew up. So can you talk a little bit about how you got so good at this, but also The toll that it took on you.
Yeah.
I mean the code switching for me started a lot earlier before I was in conversion therapy. I was adopted and my adoptive parents and my biological parents were friends and we all lived in the same small town, Peoria, Illinois.
And
we all had a lot of common friends. And so I met my biological family for the first time when I was nine years old. And it was an incredibly moving experience. And I've had a relationship with them since. But I never felt like I fully belonged to either of my families after that because in both families I was adopted and I think
as I explained in my book, that's kind of the reason why I gravitated towards church so much, because it was kind of the only stable community that I had in my life. And I had to learn through that process of navigating between both families how to show up to each and how to kind of present myself and then Obviously in conversion therapy I was given this whole list of behaviors to modify and things to change because
It was a combination of talk therapy and spirituality, but then there was also here's the external checklist that you need to follow. So learn how to lower your voice, listen to music. with male lead singers, not female lead singers. Uh-huh. But I made an exception for Hillsong because Darling Check was my diva. But since it was Christian music and it was about Jesus, I was like, this is okay. That's okay.
Uh-huh. Okay, that that doesn't this doesn't completely make sense to me. You're supposed to only listen to like essentially like third day. Yeah, tr but like that's male voices. Like so you're supposed to be identifying with these like masculine voices instead of identifying with like the diva and stuff. Yeah.
Exactly. Like lip sync to men singing. Don't like lip sync to the women. Like get it into your psyche that this is what men sound like. And then it went down to clothing too. So You know, think about what you wear and you shouldn't wear Abercrombie or Calvin Klein because those sexualize men's bodies and then you're thinking about what that how you feel when you wear those clothes. And so it's like, you know, go work shop at Eddie Bauer or the gap.
Y it just it strikes me as so much like it's not just about who you desire, it's also about performing a certain understanding of masculinity. So like Oh yeah. 'Ca you could be straight and be more feminine and and not understand your desire is is not straight, but you shouldn't be doing that. Like it's policing that as well.
Oh, absolutely. And like there were, you know, at these uh conferences I went to They would have football coaches come and teach the guys how to play football or the rules of football because they should be doing that when they go home with their straight friends to understand like what men are into. And the on the opposite end. like the local Mary Kay consultant would come and teach the girls how to do their makeup.
Yeah, messed up. But you know, to answer your question, like that ruined all of us because we were constantly second guessing ourselves, we were constantly policing ourselves. And you know, we were taught like your intuition is wrong. Your first thought is the wrong thought. You need to put every thought under the submission of Christ.
And so it just made us super self critical and self judgmental of ourselves to the point that, like, I didn't really know who I was. I was just performing this version of a person that I thought would be deemed acceptable.
And at such a incredibly formative moment in your life, right? Like Everyone is struggling with these things and you're having like your understanding of self undercut again and again and again.
And I mean the one thing I will say is like in youth group, before I had like fully named this and before I had engaged in conversion therapy, those like men's purity talks or like true love weights weakness.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No problem signing a a commitment to not worrying about sexual purity with a girl. I was like, I got this. It totally made me feel othered because I was like, my struggle is not like anyone else is here, but I don't feel safe to talk about it.
Yes. The other thing that I will note, and I think that this is something that like if you did not grow up in Christianity, did not feel this intensely, like sometimes people are like, Well, if this was so fucked up, like why did you stick with it? And It's hard to communicate that you think that you're going to hell if you don't. Like the threat of damnation is a very real
And it's very scary. And it's also, I think, when people are like, how can someone not love their their like gay son or whatever it is, right? I does not excuse this. I'm just like labeling that they think that this person is going to hell.
Oh yeah, definitely. And and it was that for me. It was I w I'm gonna go to hell for the rest of my life. But also I was going to lose my connection to God, to my church. I thought I was going to lose my family and church had become so important to me. that I couldn't imagine a life outside of that space because I didn't know that a larger world existed out there. And so this was I I I felt compelled to start it and put myself through it because I thought it was the only option I had.
Did you have any visibility on churches that were inclusive at that time? We have to like root people in this time'cause there was not like there were no rainbow flags on churches.
There were no rainbow flags on churches. There were barely queer characters on TV. I mean, this was the late 90s, early 2000s. My church. passed around a petition when Ellen was gonna come out on television, like we were part of this group of churches that like signed petitions to tell ABC like we don't want this on the air or put it on later at night because we want to protect our children. So like
there was I was so shielded from anything like that. And this is funny too, like I don't know if my parents suspected or if it was just their own Prejudice, but like I remember there were two women who lived down the street from me, and they always my parents always called them the sisters. And it wasn't until like a decade later I pieced together they were not sisters. They were lovers. Like that was a lesbian couple.
But like I didn't know any queer people or any openly gay people growing up either. So like I had no influence. I had no relationship. Like I was just in my little protected Conservative Christian bubble in the Midwest. And even though I was so shielded from all of that, I still had it in me. Yeah. Yeah.
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¶ Sponsor Break: Healthy Eating
The Culture Study Podcast is sponsored by Wild Alaskan Company. So, Melody, I have a kid in my life who uh is a notoriously picky eater and recently decided that he wanted to try salmon. And I was like Oh, oh Tap told his mom I was like I have the perfect size salmon if you wanna like continue g making it in different ways to try for him, right? Because sometimes you don't wanna cook like a giant fillet of salmon like the sort that you get at the store or whatever, especially if you're
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¶ Conversion Therapy's Ongoing Threat
Okay, so I also wanna note that conversion therapy is once again in the news for very important reasons. There's two well, two things. One, I think that we see this a lot, a lot of conversation about. Trans conversion therapy, like forcing people to detransition, trump
is trying to like make it so that people can't socially transition or must socially detransition. Um, different things about the the access to hormones in w for people who are incarcerated, all this stuff. But then there's also a Supreme Court case that by the time that this is released, may or may not have already come down. So can you talk a little bit more about that?
Yeah, absolutely. So Well, first of all I wanna say a lot of people think conversion therapy is a thing of the past. Yeah. Like let's just start there. Like Exodus, the organization that I mentioned earlier, was uh in twenty thirteen came out and and shut down. They said we have no proof. that this works. We have very little evidence that anyone has ever successfully changed their orientation over the on nearly 40 years that they were in existence.
And a lot of folks think, okay, well, that means that that all went away then. But not every organization under the umbrella of Exodus felt that way. And they just reorganized, they rebranded, they went underground. And now we're seeing this case before the Supreme Court. It is a therapist in Colorado.
who is arguing that it's her constitutional right of free speech to be able to do conversion practices in a therapeutic setting. And so This is a problem because, and a lot of people also don't understand that there are conversion therapy bans in place in 27 states.
But those don't that does not mean that conversion therapy does not happen in those states. The bands are only protecting conversion therapy in therapeutic settings. And so there's over thirteen hundred organizations in forty-eight states.
That are performing conversion therapy right now. And the number may actually be larger because some of them are underground. So the danger of this case is that if the court does rule in favor of the therapist, That's just specifically in Colorado, but that means that it's probably likely going to be a domino effect in all of the other states where there are bans in place.
And if by some miracle the court decides to, you know, keep the ban in place in Colorado, that only means that the breadth of conversion therapy is just gonna be continued to be pushed underground. And a thing to note on that too is that this is around minors. And so the Trevor Project did some research over the last year, a launch in a tutel study of queer youth.
and found that the number of queer youth undergoing conversion therapy in one year, in the last year, grew from nine percent to fifteen percent in the group that they studied. So this and I think this is just the effect of our current political climate, the things that you've mentioned with the attack on the trans community and the modern iteration of conversion therapy, one of the largest groups that's out there, is encouraging pastors. to not
uh give in to cultural pressure. And I think the new forefront of conversion therapy is going to be around the trans and non-binary identities. And conversion therapy itself already upholds those things. in forcing us into or people that are a part of it into those strict gender norms and binaries saying you have to be a man, you have to be a woman. And so it's set up to accommodate that. Yeah.
And we'll link in the show notes to some larger writing too about the ramifications like If the Supreme Court rules that this is an act of free speech, like there are pretty tremendous ripple effects in terms of like other practices that will become legal as well. So again, we'll link to that.
¶ Theological Justifications and Behavioral Control
So let's dig into the questions. They're gonna take us in so many directions. You are the perfect person to answer these. And I really appreciate the questions from our readers. Like this is a a hard topic and I think they're digging into it in a really interesting way. So this first question comes from Ne.
In what ways might the centrality of the concept of total depravity within American evangelicalism be driving, or at least connected to, the focus on using harm to try to convert people away from queerness and transness? Or is it merely an application of behaviorism, i. e. treating queerness and transness not as a central quality of people, but rather a behavior that can be pavloved out of people using negative stimulus?
I guess what I'm circling around is a question of how much the form conversion therapy takes is linked to particular religious frameworks versus just generic American bigotry utilizing a popsai application of behaviorism.
What a culture study question. We love our readers. Uh I know. But to me, this like is this a Calvinist thing, right? Is this like we are all totally depraved? And we need to figure out how to be maybe slightly less depraved, like trying to figure out if we're chosen. Like you're if you're behaving in g gay ways that like is an indication of that? Or is it this behaviorism thing? And like some of the discussion that we were having before really points to this idea that like
Uh, you may have a like a gay heart, but like you cannot behave in gay ways and maybe your heart will change. Like where does this take you?
It's a fantastic question. And I think it's both. It it's honestly a a mix of both. I think that that whole idea of total depravity creates a framework where queerness is is just a symptom of the fall, of us all being broken and sinful. And so it kind of gives that moral authority to the argument. And that is different than behaviorism because that suggests that it's something that's learned. And so therefore you can unlearn it or you can kind of like work your way out of it.
And so in my experience in conversion therapy, it was a combination of the two. And I would say that, you know, there are some forms of conversion therapy because it's not always religious, first of all. Like Sometimes not. And so in that case it is treated as as a behaviour. But if it's treated with a religious connotation to it, then it's also treating it as this spiritual condition that requires confession and surrender. And so in either way, in in both of those scenarios.
If you fail to change, the problem is you, the individual. It's not the, you know, what you went through or whatever. It's like, no, it's all on you. And so You know, in the behaviorist approach, it was a failure on your part because the spiritual thing wasn't worked or vice versa. In the spiritual approach, you didn't do the behavior modification right. And so, you know, but I would say there's been a long
tradition of pathologizing queerness. Um the APA added it into the DSM in nineteen fifty two, but it only stayed in for about twenty one years. It was removed in nineteen seventy three. And what happened in that time was a lot of horrific things, right? Like medical castration and lobotomies, just like horrible things that people were doing because they thought that they could change a person's sexual orientation.
And obviously like the broader shame of the evangelical culture of shame kind of just, you know, fueled that. And what's interesting is the DSM removes homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in 1973. Exodus International began in 1975.
Wow.
So it was sort of like the Christian response to that being removed. And so I think what conversion therapy in the modern sense did is it absorbed that pseudoscience that was medically disproven already not to work. and just applied spirituality over it and gave it a theological architecture.
There's a place in the intro where you talk about uh th your quote unquote quack Christian therapist telling you that like some of your backslides as we say, like into queer desire. Like that that's just like God refining you, like testing you. Yeah. So that messaging of like, what like how does that work into this? This idea that the tests and like the the moments when you like break with your best intentions that that's like God's refinement of your character essentially.
Yeah, I mean again. Our failure in conversion therapy was never the failure of the program or the failure of the divine to protect us. It was our failure as the individual. And so just like how God tested Job. things are gonna come our way or just how Jesus was tested in the wilderness. Right. Like we're gonna have these things come up to us and we're gonna have to make this decision. And if we stumble, if we fall, as long as we get back up and keep fighting the good fight.
We're gonna be okay. But it's just this process of like, you gotta work through it. God's gonna be with you. God's gonna be faithful, but you just gotta keep at it. And it it just messes with your psyche. But yeah, yeah, every week I would sit in my therapist's office or in a circle of chairs in a church basement and would have to confess, I I messed up, I did this, I did that. And but my showing up there again was a celebration that I was still fighting the good fight.
So in the State of the Union, I'm trying to see if I can get the the words right, but Trump essentially said like we're not going to let kids tr socially transition anymore. And he said something along the lines of Because God loves you exactly how you are, or like the the way that God made you, like something like that. But that idea, right, that like God originally made you as straight and cisgendered instead of God loves you whoever you
You are.
Right. Right.
that to me it really strikes at like different understandings of how like God works, how belovedness works, right?
Completely. Oh yeah. I mean, that was absolutely shoved down my throat growing up. Like, you know, there is only one particular way to live your life. God created us.
perfectly, but sin corrupted us. And so in my instance it was like I was okay, but my gayness is just a result of brokenness and the result of the fall. And it took me eight years in conversion therapy plus many years after healing from it to realize that when the Bible does say we are created in God's image, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. That doesn't just mean straight people. That means everyone. Yeah. But it took me a long time to realize that truth and to claim it for myself.
I just can I chime in with a flashback I just got.
Yeah.
I remember hearing from pulpits like God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
No, for real.
So messed up.
¶ Persistent Harm & Media Representation
Our next question comes from Lena Allah and Melody's gonna read it.
Trans people have existed long before Christianity was formed. Trans traditions and folk have been documented in various South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Asian cultures, as well as across the Polynesian diaspora. Given this fact, how do Christian nationals justify reinstituting a practice that has been proven to be dangerously harmful to LGBTQ people?
And moreover, is ineffective. People just learn to live forever in shame and silence. If that's what someone has chosen for themselves, fine, but we cannot force it on others, can we? What are the best ways to prevent this from happening?
I really wanted to include this question both to emphasize as she does that like trans people have existed forever, gay people have existed forever. But also just I think this is a very common reaction outside of the church to be like, we know that this hurts people. We know the suicide rates, we know the suffering and yet this process continues. So how do you think like the church continues to like Even with Exodus saying, like, this is ineffective.
Yeah.
How do they continue to like endorse?
Because they're reading the Bible through such a narrow lens. You know, if you think about how people read and look at and interpret the Bible. They've used it to justify horrible things in the past. They're using it to justify horrible things in our present. If you read the Bible like I do now, I mean I see trans folks. I see gender nonconforming people, the Ethiopian eunuch.
Maybe David and Jonathan were gay. Maybe Naomi and Ruth were lesbians. Like, I don't know. But we always just tend to read the Bible through a particular black and white binary. And it's like, I think the Bible's a lot more expansive than that. And at the end of the day, they don't view the Bible as this document that's just part of a long history of things that are out there.
uh, you know, cultural literature, they see it as God's final word on everything which overrides anything else. And so They're not they don't care about what the data says about the harm that conversion therapy causes because they're more concerned about the eternal harm of what's going to happen to someone that they what they believe will s happen to someone if they embrace their sexuality. So
that's kind of where the whole like love the sin or hate the sin comes into play. Like they are so like we love you so much, we don't want you to go to hell. And so that's why we're telling you this is what you need to do. Or They use it and say, well, you know, the Bible does say narrow is the road for someone to find their way to heaven. Or Jesus said, deny ourselves.
And so like the argument in those instances for them that it doesn't work just doesn't hold any weight because, you know, a real therapist would say like uh someone effectively integrating themselves is the goal where, you know, conversion therapy and the Christian nationalists want compliance. And so
They're just like, are you fitting the norm? Are you saying what we need to want you to say? Are you believing what we want you to believe? They're they don't look at the data. They're not listening to those stories. And one thing I'll say on that is When I entered into conversion therapy, like I said, it was pre-internet, pre-social media. And so I would read people's stories in the books I picked up, or I would hear people's testimonies on stage at conferences that I used to go to.
But the modern version of conversion therapy is very digital savvy. They are all over social media, sharing their testimonies. And that movement is weaponizing people's experiences and their stories to say see. This is proof. You c you can change. This is proof. This works. And and so that you know, churches have those kinds of people on stages. But what I will tell you is the people whose stories I read in books and the people whose stories I heard at the conferences I went to.
none of them were successful long term in changing themselves. Most of them reverted back, came out, broke up their families, broke up their lives, some ended their lives. And, you know, we're just seeing a new iteration of that today. Right.
Gosh, this r reminds me of so many things. First of all, the the idea that like the The Bible, as Christians understand it, is like this uh absolutely sacred text that is not instead stories that were passed down to make sense of the world, right? And
For us to make sense of God, whatever that means. I think that like that resistance to understanding the text as a vibrant living thing is part of the problem. And you could actually apply this to how people think about the constitution as well. Oh yeah. And the other thing Um just with like why do you think
And I kinda know-
But like this incredible focus on sexuality instead of all of the other blaring contradictions, like let's say in the White House, like to what Christian nationalists proclaim to believe about Purity, behavior, the the accumulation of wealth, like all of these things, right? Why such oversized focus on who people love, how they perform masculinity, how they perform femininity, how they perform gender.
I think a couple of things. I mean It's their unwillingness to look at it in themselves. Yeah. It's their own internalized homophobia. I also think There were so many mega churches that I worked for. There were so many influential pastors that I knew who told me, you you can't keep doing what you're doing. You're not welcome. You can't we can't accept people like you.
And
Fast forward about a decade, the They're no longer the pastors of those churches or the leaders of those organizations because they themselves were disqualified for other sexual immorality or other things that they had done themselves. And so I think some of it is It's just a deflection from what's going on inside them, not actual concern or compassion for the people that are impacted by these decisions they're making.
I love the point that you make about your high school, about like your Christian private high school, that four of the teachers had a fair.
Yes.
Yes. And that your principal came out as gay.
Yes, it was terrible. Um Yeah, like my my high school principal, like he loved to listen to Celine Dion. He had a Tiffany lamp in his office. He sang solos at church, like just artsy fartsy, like and you know, we all laughed at it. It's like, oh, he's artsy. But this is the T gave his wife an S T D. She worked in the medical profession and just thought She got it somehow there. And then like it all came out how she actually got it. And it's, you know, it's like devastating. I'm like,
I feel s I mean, it's horrible what happened, but I also feel bad for him because it's like, yeah, God, like what a life. What how to put yourself and your family through that? Like it's it's so sad.
This is always what I think about when you try to repress who you are.
Mm-hmm.
There's just so much heartache. So much. Unless you have like people who are really and I know that there are a lot of stories about this. Like people who have fought it and fought it and then are like No, I can't fight it anymore. And then their their spouse, their family, like figures out how to love them. and and get through it, but oftentimes because of the incredible denial and shame, it just leads in in catastrophe.
Mm-hmm.
Oh absolutely.
So sad.
And you know, when I was in conversion therapy they would always scare us away from the gay community or I'm using air quotes since this is audio like if we went into the lifestyle because
The lifestyle.
You know, they wanted to scare us out of it. And they said, if you choose this, it's gonna be a dark path. You're gonna be depressed. You're gonna do all of these things, you're gonna become addicted to drugs. And those things were true for a lot of us. Yeah. Like, but it wasn't because we came out as gay. It's because of all the toxic things that we were taught to believe about ourselves.
Yeah. Okay, next question is from Sam. I've been thinking about this a lot in terms of like how people have talked about heated rivalry. So Sam wants your thoughts on something she's noticed.
What do you think about the presence of conversion therapy as a staple of American queer cinema and literature?
Right. Like part of the celebration of heated rivalry is that it's a queer love story without tragedy.
Yeah. I mean, I'm huge heated rivalry fan, love it, and I loved that it was a happy queer story. And I I do think we need those. I think those are necessary because not every queer story, thank God, is a traumatic one. But to the specific question on conversion therapy, I think it is so important for it to still be present. I mean, like, but I'm a cheerleader, boy erased, prayers for Bobby.
I I think it's important because one, it it validates people's experiences that have been through it, but second, it continues to keep it in people's minds to see that this is still a reality that people go through and an experience and it can help people understand what folks go through, but also give people who don't have those particular challenges compassion for people that have gone through it. And so those stories are needed. And I think that
maybe where we can kind of pivot a little bit there is just that like, yeah, let's talk about what happened, but then like let's also show the other side. You know, what is life like after? And I mean of the reason why I wrote my book, but exactly I think just to kind of show people like yes, it's a horrible thing that happens, but you don't have to stay there. You can you can thrive and you know be successful outside of there.
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¶ Sponsor Break: Home & Health
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¶ Identifying Harmful Therapeutic Practices
Okay, so our next two questions are from people seeking some advice about navigating the prevalence of this so-called therapy. This is our Ask and Anything segment for this week, and usually it's just for paid subscribers. But this week we're giving everyone access to it, felt important. First, let's hear from J D.
I'm thinking about people who think they're going to good therapy and go to therapy with genuinely conflicted feelings about their own sexuality. Maybe perhaps don't want to be gay. They have internalized homophobia. What's the tell? How would they know that they're getting good support that would work with their own internal confliction and not actually just be the goal of the therapy to do some kind of conversion therapy.
Love this question. How would you identify some of these tal
Very important question. I think that a real therapist is focused on your well-being and your integration, and they don't come to you with a particular agenda or an end point. They want to help you as a human flourish. They want to help you grow. And so I think seeking out affirming therapy where they're looking at you as a whole person and not a problem to be solved is super important.
In my experience in conversion therapy, we did mine through my past and look through my past. And a lot of conversion therapy is kind of centered around this idea that like you're the result of trauma or the result of bad things that happened to you. And so all of that was like weaponized against me to be the reason why I to explain the reason why I I turned out the way that I did.
And so I would say that if you're in a therapeutic setting, like you obviously have to talk about your past and things that happened to you because that does impact who we become today. But if it's used in a way to pathologize you or is used to say like okay, now we've got to correct that because X, Y, or Z, I think that would be a red flag. I also think that um they should be a licensed therapist also.
Like a amazing idea, right? Right.
Right. And I mean, and that's that's the thing. A lot of people go to their pastors or their religious community. And I think it is important to have someone that's aligned with your personal values, but like, are they licensed? Are they legitimate? And to answer that specific question about
internalized homophobia. I think that's it's really important to have those conversations and to work through that therapeutically. And I think that a good therapist holds space for that ambivalence without pointing you in a particular direction. and we'll just kind of help you discover what it is that you might be questioning, but isn't armed with this agenda to try to make you straight. I think anything that tells you you have to change who you are a a cellular, spiritual level, whatever.
If they say that that's broken, I think you need to you need you need to head out the door because a good therapist wants to help you be whole.
¶ Journey to Self-Acceptance and Healing
Okay, this is a personal question, but do you feel like you now know the the difference between a quack uh conversion therapist? Like do you have good therapy now, I guess is
Oh yeah. Yeah, but I but I mean an important point to put there is it took me a long time to be trusting of another therapist.
Right.
Because I I write about this, but The last therapist that I saw was part of a Christian therapy group. So like he wasn't on paper a conversion therapy therapist, but he was part of a Christian counseling group, which held to a very particular viewpoint. And so I was in his chair for two years before I dropped out of conversion therapy, wrestling and struggling and going through it.
And when I finally broke down and said, I don't think I can do this anymore, he said, Oh my God, I've been waiting for this moment. I'm so proud of you. And I was like, wait, what? And he was like, Well, I personally am gay affirming, but like the counseling center has a very particular view on that issue. And you came here.
wanting help with that. And so I didn't feel it was my place to like enforce that upon you. But now we can really get to work. And I was like, absolutely not. Like if you sat here for the last two years, And watched me almost end my life and not say anything and not try to help me, like, no way am I gonna carry on with you. So it took me some time before I finally worked up the courage to like see a real licensed therapist. Um but I have been in therapy since, but it took a minute.
Do you ever talk to your therapist about your past therapist?
Oh yeah. Absolutely.
But they're like, what the fuck?
Yeah.
I'm I'm a lot of fun for any therapist I work with.
Yeah.
There's a lot of layers there.
Okay, so how were you able to be like, Okay, this isn't working for me? Basically like, I'm done with this code switching or like pretending what was the break?
Yeah. Uh it was a real break. Um I was in conversion therapy for eight years total and It was not working and I decided that I was working in churches. I was working for evangelical Christian mega churches and part of me thought, Well, maybe if I just lose myself in my work, yeah, none of this will matter.
And I started to like become a very, very minor Christian celebrity, but was traveling and speaking at conferences. And I remember being in an arena filled with Christian leaders and seeing the crowd rise to their feet and cheer when the speaker said that we needed more men in churches and no more sissies and we needed to fight against gay marriage.
And just feeling crushed inside. Yeah. Because I knew if they knew the truth of who I was, I would be ostracized. And I came home from that and Just felt the weight of the world on my shoulders and was like, I can either end my life now. Or I can try to figure out how to live my life differently. And instead of trying to fight this, figure out how to integrate it.
Yeah.
But that decision did not happen quickly. I was in bed for about four days. It was a nervous breakdown. And I went to see a doctor and, you know, explained what happened and he's like, Well, you you've had a breakdown and said, You know, what's causing this? And I was like, Well, I've I've been in conversion therapy for eight years and I I think I just need to come out. And and that was the beginning. But it I the one thing I think it's important to say is
When I walked out of the therapist office for the last time was not the moment I was free. Yeah. That was just the beginning of a very, very long journey because this stuff rewired me to the core. And so it took a long time for me to untangle all of those wires.
That is the tragedy. Like that is the deep, deep tragedy is that the way that this affirms hating yourself, like teaches you to hate yourself. It takes so long to unlearn that.
Yeah, unlearn that and then also learn to trust your intuition and all of that.
¶ Supporting Queer Youth in Conservative Families
Our last question is looking for some advice comes from someone who wants to remain anonymous. So Melody's gonna read it.
My brother is a fundamentalist who draws a hard line on sexuality and gender. His kids are banned from reading books with even vaguely LGBTQ content. His daughters aren't allowed to wear pants, etc. I'm a queer affirming liberal Christian with two queer kids. My brother doesn't know how my kids identify, but I know it won't stay that way forever.
I hold out a tiny bit of hope, but not much, that his views will change. What I really want though is for my little nieces and nephews to grow up, turn away from their parents' teachings, and accept their beloved cousins as they are. I'm also terrified that if one of my nibblings is queer, they'll be forced to hide or be sent to conversion therapy. Our family dynamics don't allow for me to be overt.
If I started telling the kiddos it's okay to be gay, they'd likely be banned from seeing me. So how do I lay the groundwork for them to see possibilities beyond what their parents have limited them to while they're still kids? And how do I protect my own kids in the process?
Oh this is really heavy and hard. But I'm I'm glad that we're talking about it.
First of all, I am so grateful that your children have you as a parent who is loving and affirming of them. And that will change their lives. And so I just want to say, first of all, like I'm so, so grateful that your children have you and that your niblings have you in their lives as well. And this is complicated. And I would say I'm in the same position with certain children in my life that consider me their gunkle Tim. And I would say that just your constant presence as a loving
person in their life makes all of the difference. And you don't need to be overt. You don't need to be outspoken. I think just Saying like, hey, I'm always here for you. Hey, if you ever need anything, you know, you can always call here or you're always welcome in our home anytime. I think just affirming the presence that you can bring into their lives. Um, my oldest sister definitely like broke the mold of my family's structure. And when I was really young,
I distinctly remember a conversation she had with me when I was probably about twelve or thirteen. I didn't really have the language to understand then that I was gay, but she obviously saw it in me. And I remember her saying,
Tim, it might be hard for you right now. You might not feel like you fit in, but I promise you in college and once you get out of here, you're gonna make a lot of friends and people are gonna love you and there's gonna be people who understand you and like I I didn't understand the depth of what she meant.
Yeah. But I absolutely connected with what she was saying because I knew there was something different about me then. And so that gave me a little bit of spark of hope to know my teenage years might be a little bit difficult. But she said, if I get through this, like I'm gonna find my people. And so that that really stuck with me. And then
In regards to your children and then the relationship that they have with your family, um, kids notice things. Kids are very, very smart and they notice when things are different. Or they just they just pick up on things. And my youngest nephew is is six years old. And my brother called me one day and was just like, well He knows now. And I was like, what? And he's like, yeah, just like randomly the other day, he like ran up to us and was like, Hey, is Uncle Tim gay?
And you know, he and his wife kinda looked at each other and like, Yeah, yeah, he is and like we love him and we think that's incredible and yada yada yada. And he's like, Okay, yeah. I thought it was kinda weird he was into Broadway musicals. Okay. You know. And just like ran off.
Right. And so kids kids get that. And so I would say your first and foremost priority though is to care for your children and and make sure that they know how to handle walking into spaces that might not be affirming of them and to know how to navigate the world and and leave it up to them to decide when and if they choose to share with other people in their lives and their other cousins.
um, you know, what's going on with them. But I will say that, you know, boundaries are super important and if it becomes hostile towards you or towards your children, you're gonna need to do the right thing and protect your children. But if you choose to do that, your your family's gonna have to explain to their children why they can't see their cousins anymore. And so, you know, don't put that onus on yourself.
Um, but again, I I'm really, really glad that your children have you and that y your your nibblings have you as well.
¶ Conclusion, Resources & Outro
You know, so much of this advice is like universal design advice and so much as like this is something that you should say to any kid in your life that you love, right? It's like I am a safe space for you no matter what you're going through, no matter what's happening, like Just saying those things. Even though sometimes they seem like weird, right? Like
One thing that I have started doing with some of my friends' kids as they've gotten older is just being like, You can always text me. Like and we text about stupid stuff, right? But it it lowers the bar. So it's just like Oh, if I'm feeling something I can text that and maybe like it's just lower stakes. Yeah. Um But I think saying those things over and over again places you as this person they can trust, a person that loves them. Yeah.
Absolutely.
No matter what what is happening in their lives. I'm just so grateful for this book. Like I think that you are Uh this is stuff that people really need to hear. Like you said, like this is still happening. Like the number of organizations that are still doing this work. Yep. And I think so many people know how Christian nationalism is So deeply enmeshed in our current political administration. And this is one of the most pernicious and harmful ways that it's working. And
I'm I'm scared of what's going to happen next, but I also think like the more that we can have beacons like this and declare ourselves these safe spaces, like it matters. So Tim, where can people find more of you and your book if they want to find more of you on the internet?
Well, I hope they do. Uh I am on Instagram threads and I'm like begrudgingly on TikTok, uh Timothy S. Rodriguez. Is where you can find me. And then uh you can find more about the book. It's coming out soon at conversion therapy dropoutbook.com.
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you for having me. It's so great to be here.
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Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts because we have so many great episodes in the works and I promise you don't want to miss any of them. If you want to suggest a topic, ask a question about the culture that surrounds you, or submit a question for our subscriber-only advice time segment, go to our Google form at tinyurl.com slash culture studypod.
or check the show notes for a link. And if you want to support the show and get bonus content, head to patreon.com slash culture study. It's five bucks a month or fifty dollars a year, and you'll get ad-free episodes, an exclusive advice time segment, and weekly discussion threads for each episode. The Culture Study Podcast is produced by me and Helen Peterson and Melody Rowell.
Our music is by Poddington Bear. You can find me on Instagram at AnnHelenPeterson, Melody at Melodious47, and the show at Culture Study Pod.
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I bet you're great on TikTok.
I'm I'm leaning into it. I don't love it, but I'm leaning into it.
I feel like you should do some like hillsong renditions, like
I mean...
I was cackling to myself thinking about lip syncing for your life to Darling Check.
Right.
So
This is...
The one song I would love to do in drag is Jackie Velasquez on My Knees.
Ha ha ha!
Ah yeah.
You re-listen to that. There's power when I'm on my knees.
I am begging it.
So also you said like something about stumbling and falling and I was like what if I stumble?
Ha ha ha.