It’s International Day to End Conversion Therapy, And A New Book, ‘Conversion Therapy Dropout’, Is On Our Radar
Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez’s new book documents his journey of trying to “pray the gay away” – scheduled for release in May.
Featured Image: “Conversion Therapy Dropout: A Queer Story of Faith and Belonging,” courtesy of Broad Leaf Books
Every year on January 7th, a global observance takes place to raise awareness and call for an end to the dangerous and discredited practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. On International Day to End Conversion Therapy (IDECT), we honor survivors of these abusive techniques that are still employed in pockets of the United States.
While many states have banned the practice, this past year has brought a flurry of concerning legislative activity. In October, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, challenging Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. On January 5th, an Oberlin City Council meeting in Ohio advanced its ordinance banning conversion therapy on minors. It looks good on the surface, but the outcome is shaky, given a Michigan decision last month, ruling that banning counselors from practicing on minors is a violation of counselors’ First Amendment rights.
Related: Supreme Court Seems Skeptical About Bans On Conversion Therapy
At the end of the day, what matters is the individual effects these practices have had on innocent victims of a sort of religious pathology—a practice condemned by our leading medical and psychological organizations of expertise. One such story is that which belongs to Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez, who set out to share a gay Christian’s behind-the-scenes account of eight years in conversion therapy before finding his whole and authentic self.
In Conversion Therapy Dropout: A Queer Story of Faith and Belonging, Schraeder Rodriguez digs into years spent in evangelical Christianity, consumed by a harmful theology, even while questioning his own sexuality. In a desperate attempt to “fix himself,” as he puts it, he subjected himself to conversion therapy, one of more than 700,000 people in this country who have done so.
Related: Parliament In The Netherlands Has Voted To Criminalize Conversion Therapy
The book joins the canon of conversion therapy accounts, along with other memoirs such as Garrard Conley’s Boy Erased, about a childhood in a fundamentalist Arkansas family that enrolled the author in conversion therapy. Those who have had the privilege of a sneak peek describe Conversion Therapy Dropout as “a story so outrageous that it reads like spiritual fiction, except every devastating detail is true” (Jonathan Merritt, contributor to The Atlantic). “In today’s increasingly polarized world, narratives like this are essential for building bridges of empathy and unconditional love” (Philip Calabro, PFLAG NY).
Today, January 7, Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez received the honor of a GLAAD nomination for Outstanding Online or Print Journalism Article (“I Spent Eight Years in Conversion Therapy Mistaking Shame for Faith“). He was also a featured speaker on NPR this morning in recognition of IDECT.
Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez spent years crafting messages of belonging for Evangelical Christianity’s largest megachurches. But the more he tried to heal, the more he drifted from himself.
“It took years for me to understand that what they were calling healing was really a kind of harm,” he wrote in TIME. “The turning point came when I finally recognized God’s failure to answer my prayers to make me straight was, in fact, the answer.”
