This month Boy Erased — a film starring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Lucas Hedges, Joel Edgerton, Troye Sivan, and Cherry Jones, and based on the memoir by Garrard Conley — premiered in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Boy Erased is based on Conley’s experience as a 19 year old forced by his parents to attend a conversion therapy program run by “ex-gays.” The program, known as “Love in Action” was a nonprofit faith-based ministry, that claimed it could “fix” LGBT people by changing their sexual orientation or gender identity through “12-step programs, fire and brimstone depictions of God, junk science, and misconceptions of what it mean[t] to be gay.” In 2009, Love in Action closed its doors on the heels of protests from LGBT groups, a contentious lawsuit against Tennessee government officials and various internal controversies.
Archive activism for LGBT civil equality
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