When director Kristine Stolakis first began researching the modern history of conversion therapy and its impact on LGBTQ communities across the globe, she was immediately startled by what she learned about the leaders of the movement.
Instead, she realizing that the heart of the so-called ex-gay movement was led by a group of people who struggled with their sexuality and truly believed that they could train themselves and others to be straight and cisgender. This discovery deeply affected the way Stolakis approached directing her new documentary,creator Ryan Murphy andproducer Jason Blum among its executive producers.
The cultural component to the movement is also why conversion therapy continues to endure in certain highly religious communities. While 24 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have instituted bans on conversion therapy when practiced by licensed therapists, Stolakis notes that even in those jurisdictions it is likely that such conversion attempts are still going on, particularly efforts targeting LGBTQ teens and college-aged young adults.
“We believed that something must have happened to ‘make’ you gay,” one Exodus official says in the film. That was a sentiment that was not particularly unusual throughout most of the 20th century, Stolakis noted. Given her personal connection to conversion therapy, Stolakis initially wondered how she would feel when she met and interviewed the former Exodus International leaders and the one current proponent of the ex-gay movement for the film. “I often expected to feel very angry as someone who had witnessed the pain of a survivor,” she said.
Religion has resulted in more pain, terror and Death in this world than any other cause.
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