Harms of conversion therapy
Once a rising star of the ‘ex-gay’ movement, Julie Rodgers speaks out against conversion therapy in Netflix documentary: ‘I carry with me the scars.’
In 2011, a bright-eyed newcomer from small-town Texas was invited to speak at the annual Exodus International conference, alongside a who’s who of conservative Christians who were trying to curb their homosexuality via prayer and counseling. Casually dressed in a button-down shirt and baggy pants, Julie Rodgers commanded the stage with a feisty fist pump and heartfelt testimony about how Jesus was helping her to refrain from lesbian sex.
At age 25, she was on her way: a rising star in the “ex-gay” movement.
But Rodgers was also having doubts — doubts that would come to full flower in an epic journey through the LGBTQ culture wars. Within a few years, she would renounce efforts to try to change LGBTQ peoples’ sexual orientations or behaviors via the scientifically discredited practice of “conversion therapy.” Then, for a time, she would commit to abstinence as the first openly LGBTQ chaplain at Wheaton College.
Now, as an author and a key figure in the Netflix documentary “Pray Away,” she’s taking yet another bold step into the spotlight, cataloging the harms of the conversion therapy she experienced starting at age 16, and calling for the practice to end.
“There were so many of us who were in those (conversion therapy) communities who were self-harming, and none of us are self-harming now,” said Rodgers, who started burning her shoulders when she was 19. “It just seems like such a direct correlation: We’re told we’re broken and sinful and disordered so we hate our bodies and take it out on our bodies.”
She had friends from the conversion therapy community who became addicted to meth, or homeless, she said. In her memoir, “Outlove: A Queer Christian Survival Story,” she relates the story of a participant who carved an anti-gay slur on his chest.
Ricky Chelette, executive director of Living Hope ministries in Arlington, Texas, where Rodgers underwent conversion therapy from age 16 until her mid-20s, said there’s no coercion in the program and participants are always free to leave.
“I love Julie very much and she personally was very, very close to me and my wife, and lived with us for a while, and vacationed with us, and did all kinds of activities with us, and ate at my table for eight years,” said Chelette.
“I don’t understand how we could be monsters, and somebody would do that, if they’re an adult.”
He objected to the idea that his ministry uses religion to try to change LGBTQ peoples’ sexual orientations, saying that Living Hope helps people have a closer relationship with Jesus, and in the process they often decide to abstain from LGBTQ sex.
The American Psychiatric Association has opposed conversion therapy since 1998, and Illinois is among the states that have banned its use on minors by counselors and therapists.
Rodgers said she was skeptical when she entered Living Hope, and at first she resisted its teachings.
“I had a sense that God loved me and that this was weird. It just didn’t feel right,” she said.
But she’d been brought up evangelical, hearing that homosexuality was a sin, and a family member wanted her to participate in the program.
In her book, she writes about how Chelette encouraged her as a speaker, and about how she wanted to be a good Christian and continue to win his approval.
Still, her feelings for women didn’t change, and the barrage of negative messaging about her sexuality was punishing.
“I think the hardest part, looking back, is seeing how they manipulated me and used me as a poster child, when they should have had compassion on me and seen me as a vulnerable kid,” she said.
She began distancing herself from Living Hope, and by her mid-20s, she had built a life outside the ministry.
Running into Living Hope alums who were struggling terribly was a turning point, she said; she couldn’t believe that God would be on the side of a program that was doing such damage to people.
By the time she was hired at Wheaton as the school’s first openly LGBTQ associate chaplain in 2014, she had rejected conversion therapy and embraced her lesbian sexual orientation. However, she was still carefully threading the needle as an LGBTQ evangelical, committing to celibacy as a way to honor Wheaton’s policy against LGBTQ sex.
The students at Wheaton, both gay and straight, were wonderful, she said, but she came under scrutiny by administrators concerned about her LGBTQ-positive presence on social media, which distressed alumni and prominent conservative leaders.
Wheaton president Philip Ryken met with her regularly, and told her that the time might come when it would be best for Wheaton if she resigned, she said.
“He would forward emails from people — ‘Just so you know what kind of messages I’m getting’ — and it would be someone saying, would you hire a pedophile to work with students who are struggling with pedophilia?” Rodgers said.
She resigned in the summer of 2015, after publishing a blog post supporting marriage equality.
Wheaton College issued a statement saying, “Julie Rodgers was employed by Wheaton College during the 201415 academic year to provide student spiritual care with a particular focus on sexuality. When she came to Wheaton, she expressed wholehearted agreement and personal affirmation of the institution’s theological commitments and covenantal moral expectations expected of all employees. Ms. Rodgers’s resignation without notice came on the same day as a blog post in which she announced a change in her views regarding sexuality and marriage.”
Having effectively torpedoed her career as an evangelical role model, Rodgers moved on, writing her book, appearing in the documentary, and marrying a woman, from whom she has since separated. Now 35 and living in Washington, D.C., she said she’s been flooded with responses to the documentary, most of them very positive.
“It’s been an incredibly healing several years,” she said. “A lot of that time has been sad and unpacking a lot of my trauma, but it’s also been a really beautiful and healing process to write my book and feel like I was able to make sense of what happened and to offer something back, to help some vulnerable people feel less alone.”
She and her wife love each other deeply, she said, but she married the first person she dated after being ejected from evangelicalism, without taking the time to get to know herself outside of a relationship.
“I carry with me the scars (of conversion therapy), both literally and figuratively,” she said.
“It’s not a fairy tale. It’s just a story of finding my way, growing, being a lot healthier than I was, and still having a long way to go to find a real, solid, rooted sense of self, and to show up in strength in all kinds of different relationships.”
“It just seems like such a direct correlation: We’re told we’re broken and sinful and disordered so we hate our bodies and take it out on our bodies.” — Julie Rodgers, on those in conversion therapy communities who self-harm