EPISODE 44: conversion part 1
[Instrumental of ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals begins to play.]
Dylan [VOICEOVER INTRODUCTION]: Hey, I'm Dylan Marron. And this is Conversations with People Who Hate Me, the show that takes conflict and turns it into conversation.
Now, I want to open with a quick thank you to every single one of you who went out and got my book, read my book, and told me how much you loved my book. It means more to me than you know. For the rest of you, I love you too. And Conversations with People Who Hate Me, the book, is available everywhere. Consider it as a guide on how to navigate difficult conversations that you may face in your own life from lessons that I learned here on this show. You can find it in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook, too. I also fully support you borrowing it from your local library. And the link to order the book is in the description of this episode.
Let's begin.
Now, for the first time ever on this show, we are going to do a three part mini-series, and this trio of episodes centers on one topic: conversion therapy.
Conversion therapy is a widely debunked practice that falsely claims to change a person's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. The American Psychiatric Association has vocally opposed it, if you need some more official opposition. 20 states, plus will Washington DC and Puerto Rico, have laws or regulations protecting young people from this harmful practice, and that statement is pulled directly from the Human Rights Campaign website. But conversion therapy is still legal in many places where it is protected on the grounds of religious liberty.
The harm of these program cannot be overstated. It leaves many participants with trauma and for some suicidal ideation and attempts. This, as you can tell, or maybe you already know is a big macro topic, but as always, this show will tackle it on the micro, between two individual people.
To begin this mini-series, I'm speaking with Garrard, Conley, a writer, activist, and conversion therapy survivor. Garrard is the author of the memoir Boy Erased, that documents his time in a conversion therapy center called Love In Action. Boy Erased was adapted into a film of the same name in 2018 that starred Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, and Russell Crowe. You don't need to be familiar with the film or the memoir to listen to this episode, but you might recognize it.
Joining Garrard in conversation will be John Smid, the man who ran the conversion therapy center that Garrard escaped from.
Though, this is a three part, released over three weeks, it still follows the basic structure of a moderated episode. First, I'll speak to Garrard, then I will speak to John, and then I will connect them with each other. I've decided to give this story three episodes, because both of my guests shared detailed stories, and I wanted to give each of their stories space and time to breathe. I also want to give you space and time to consider them, to sit with them.
I know that this is not a typical Conversations with People Who Hate Me story. It doesn't take place in the digital realm. It can't even be stretched by claiming that the conflict began in a text or email, because it didn't. The internet doesn't really play into this story at all. Still, some of the biggest themes that we've explored on this show are present throughout. The idea that hurt people, hurt people, and the way that shame can shape us. It's also about forgiveness and reconciliation. And it's about how two strangers' lives became intertwined with each other.
Last thing, I'll say before we begin, and it's important. In today's episode, we discuss sexual assault and suicide. If now is not a good time for you to be hearing about those topics, turn this off, go do something that feels right for you. And if you're struggling, there is no shame, but there is help. The National Suicide Hotline is available 24/7 at 1-(800)-273-8255. For LGBTQ folks, there's also The Trevor Project. Head on over to thetrevorproject.org for more resources.
All right, with all of that said, let's kick off this mini-series.
Here is Garrard.
[Music fades. Conversation begins.]
Dylan: Hi, Garrard.
Garrard: Hi.
Dylan: How are you?
Garrard: Great.
Dylan: How's your day going so far?
Garrard: Well, it was freezing outside.
Dylan: Yes.
Garrard: I think the wind chill was seven, and the sidewalks were a little precarious.
Dylan: Oh, God.
Garrard: But-
Dylan: Did you slip?
Garrard: No.
Dylan: Okay. So Garrard, there are a lot of ways you write about yourself and have spoken about yourself, but give us the backstage of the boring, mundane Garrard.
Garrard: Oh, great. I love that-
Dylan: Garrard on Garrard, as I said before.
Garrard: I love that!
Dylan: Tell us about you.
Garrard: Well, this is kind of the first time in my life, this year is the first time when I actually get to have a more boring day-to-day existence-
Dylan: Oh, congratulations.
Garrard: ... which I love. I also find it challenging. I mean, I do continue to go around to different universities and organizations and churches, and talk about conversion therapy and compassion. But I also spend a lot of time at home forcing myself to write.
Dylan: Okay. And how's that going for you?
Garrard: Well, I recently tried this thing where I read for like two hours, and then I usually take a bath.
Dylan: Oh!
Garrard: Yeah. I take a-
Dylan: Fancy.
Garrard: ... it's like a morning bath. And I read for like 30 minutes, like something, I try to read a classic before I get started. So like Anna Karenina, right now.
Dylan: Yes.
Garrard: I've been reading a lot of classic love stories, because that's what I'm trying to write, a love story, and it's not pretty. The image that I'm giving you through audio sounds kind of, ooh, nice life. But it's just me in my cramped bathtub, in my bathroom that kind of still smells kitty litter, too much. (Dylan laughs) I'm just avoiding-
Dylan: The beautiful romantic smells.
Garrard: Yeah. And if my husband were just walking by the doorway during that, I would just be like, "This is gross. (Dylan laughs) I don't think I'm a good person anymore." But because no one's there-
Dylan: Yeah. No, it's just you.
Garrard: And then I time myself for three hours. I don't look at the internet until at least 3 or 4:00 PM.
Dylan: Whoa.
Garrard: I know. And when the alarm goes off, I'm like, "I'm done." And then I usually cook something for myself.
Dylan: Oh, my God.
Garrard: And then hang out with my husband and watch movies.
Dylan: You're describing such a beautiful life. Wow.
Garrard: I completely engineered it in this past... I mean, I still was teaching once a week and doing other stuff. But on the perfect days, this is what my life looked like. But I mean, I'm highly aware of the fact that this is a very temporary existence I've created for myself. There's a certain insulation that came with the success of Boy Erased that I am fully taking advantage of and know that it is not going to continue past this year.
Dylan: Take advantage!
Garrard: And I'm trying to write a book so that I can, not actually make money, but make more of a name for myself in a different way. And then of course I'm going to go back to teaching.
Dylan: And so you said this time was afforded to you because of Boy Erased.
Garrard: Yeah. I mean it, the book, wasn't selling at first, it was like any other book that comes from someone who's not known, who doesn't have an internet presence. The publisher was like, "We did you a favor, here's your-"
Dylan: "We printed it."
Garrard: Yeah. "We printed it. Good for you." And I was just thrilled. I was like, "Oh my God, a book-
Dylan: A book!
Garrard: ... was published."
Dylan: Yeah. Huge!
Garrard: I never thought I would be a person who ever had a book come out. It was so exciting to me, and even when I was writing it, and when I got an agent, all of it felt very fake. Just life is fake, this is not real. Because if you typed in conversion therapy back then, let's say, 2010, it was mostly positive portrayals of-
Dylan: It was like, "try this thing!"
Garrard: It was like, "go to Exodus International, and you'll be cured."
Dylan [VOICEOVER]: Jumping in here quickly to let you know that Exodus International was this huge conversion therapy umbrella organization that connected a lot of conversion therapy "ministries." And it dissolved in 2013, when its president Alan Chambers, apologized for the pain and hurt that it caused the gay community.
Garrard: It felt very lonely. We didn't have a number to it. So I felt like it was something that rarely ever happened to anyone. Turns out there were 750,000 people on the United States alone who underwent conversion therapy, which is a conservative number. Every portrayal of conversion therapy in popular culture, it was treated as this niche kind of funny thing. Like, the take is always, "obviously, everyone was having sex with everyone," but that's not ever true, because conversion therapy strips you of any desire for sex at all. It tells you're disgusting.
Dylan: It's trauma.
Garrard: It's not really fun. But it was a little bit frustrating and isolating to be like, "Well, I guess no one's taking this seriously. Or if they are taking it seriously, it's just people who want to do conversion therapy."
Dylan: Right. Right. Right. And what was the name of the place where you went?
Garrard: Love in Action.
Dylan: Love in Action, that's quite a name.
Garrard: They were in Memphis, Tennessee. They were the largest residential program in the country. It was first designed in 1973 in San Rafael, California. It was about a year after the American Psychological Association declassified homosexuality as a mental illness.
Dylan: And it was largely in response to that, right? It was like-
Garrard: Yeah. It was in response to that. It was also like a church group that, I think, legitimately felt like wanted to explore something. Like, here are people with what they call same sex attraction, not homosexuality.
Dylan: SSA.
Garrard: Yeah. Because if you call it an attraction rather than an identity, it's something you can treat. And there are a lot of people today that will say that they didn't promise a cure or that they never used the word cure. A, they did. B, when my mom called and asked about Love in Action, the church was like, "There's an 80% cure rate. It's fine." Which I don't know where they got that statistic from, but it's fine. It's out air.
Dylan: Pulled it out of the air, and they were like, why not? It sounds good.
Garrard: Well, if the Holy Spirit can come visit you out of the air, then 80%-
Dylan: Totally.
Garrard: ... cure rates can too.
Dylan: I would have said 81 or 79 to make it sound realistic.
Garrard: To make it sound... Yeah, it sounds little too rounded.
Dylan: But if you're like, "It's too round," you're like, "honey, I don't believe that."
Garrard: But I think they weren't too worried about people being skeptical.
Dylan: Yeah. They were just like, "Come." So how did you get to Love in Action? What was the-
Garrard: Sure.
Dylan: What led you there?
Garrard: When I was 16, I was living in a small town in Arkansas, and then my dad became a preacher. I didn't know what we were in for, but there was this insane scrutiny around my dad and his family. What I was reading, was under scrutiny. What I was looking at, what I was consuming. The internet was a dangerous place-
Dylan: Totally.
Garrard: ... still is. (both chuckle) And so I had a girlfriend at the time, and everything was kind of like thrown up in the air from that. You have a certain amount of denial when you're a gay kid with a girlfriend, and you're like, "It's fine. We're for God, so we're not going to fuck." I don't know if I can say fuck on this, but-
Dylan: No, you can say "fuck."
Garrard: Okay. Yeah. "So we're not going to fuck, it's going to be fine. Everything's good and pure." We exchanged little purity rings and things like that. And, I mean, she was very beautiful and very nice and very smart and a good friend. And so a part of me was like, sure.
Dylan: And in the closet, it's easy to-
Garrard: Good life.
Dylan: ... confuse that for-
Garrard: A good life.
Dylan: Exactly.
Garrard: I don't have to have sex, it'll be fine.
Dylan: Oh, yeah. That can wait.
Garrard: Yeah. And so I think it was like the year before I was going to graduate, my dad gets a phone call from Chloe's, I have to change her name every time, Chloe's mother who says, "Oh, Chloe's brother has just been caught with his stepbrother-
Dylan: Whoa.
Garrard: ... in a compromising position."
Dylan: Whoa.
Garrard: And my dad gets called over there to my girlfriend's house to basically perform an ad hoc conversion therapy, we wouldn't call it that.
Dylan: Right. Right.
Garrard: But he went over there and explained to them that it was wrong and gave them Bible verses, prayed with them, went into a separate room with the parents, and then a separate room with my girlfriend. And was like, "Here's what we need to do to make sure this doesn't happen again." And I'm sitting at home with my mom, just sort of like silent.
Dylan: You know what's going on.
Garrard: Well, I know what's going on. I know that I'm lying. It's like, you can live in denial, but when your dad is performing conversion therapy on your girlfriend's brother, you're like, "Uh-oh."
Dylan: You're like, "Okay, it's coming for me."
Garrard: Yeah. Something, it's like, it's circling. And so I remember like a week later, Chloe and I are talking, and I'm on the phone and I'm just like, "I don't think that I can be your boyfriend anymore." And she's like, "What are you talking about?" Because we're geared up to already being married, because this town is like-
Dylan: Right.
Garrard: We met in church. They're like, "Y'all are going off to different colleges. You need to like lock it down."
Dylan: She's the option.
Garrard: She's it. Get engaged, let's do this. And I just was like, "I'm sorry, I can't explain it." And it was terrible. I know what I did to her was very harmful, but I couldn't explain it. And I think she probably thought like, "oh, I guess he's judging me, because of my brother or something." So fast forward, go to college, still in the closet very much, so this was like a Christian college. And then there was a person at college and he admitted to me that he had raped a 14-year-old boy. So I don't know why he told me this, well, I do know why he told me this because he knew that I was gay, because I had told him in a very private conversation. I said, "I'm having these feelings." And I think that he thought that it was so evil, what I had told him, that he could tell me something equally evil in his mind.
Dylan: Oh, my God.
Garrard: Which as we know, is like, there's one thing that was not evil, and one thing that was truly evil. But he tells me that, in his youth group, he raped a 14-year-old boy. I mean, he talked about it in graphic detail, and he told me this after having raped me. The worst possible combination of things-
Dylan: Has happened.
Garrard: ... that I could have ever dreamt of happening because of my queerness... You know, like, the logic of this doesn't make sense to people who weren't raised in this bigotry. But anyone who's heard, like, "What are they going to do next, fuck an animal, if we let them marry?" Or if you hear, "If a teacher is gay, then he's going to rape a child." These were the things that you heard. So out of all of the possible punishments that could have happened, rape from another man, was like the one that seemed most of all to confirm what people had told me in my childhood. That gay sex would be rape. That you would live a life of torture, that this is what it was. Are you willing to have that cost? Not only will you lose your soul, but you will also lose any sort of potential happiness, because it's a dead end. That's what they say. So I tell my friends, Charles and Dominique, who are my only two really close friends at the time, aside from him, at college. And I said to Dominique, like, "I think that what happened last night was rape." And crazy, I remember we were on like this tennis court, because we didn't trust anyone to not eavesdrop. I told her the whole thing, but I said, "But more importantly, I think he raped a 14-year-old boy. And I don't know what to do about it. I really don't know what to do." Then I decided to go to the pastor at the college. And I go to her and I tell her the whole thing. I don't tell her the details of my rape, but I tell her about the 14-year-old boy. And she's like, "Well, unless you have any sort of proof, this is just hearsay." Meanwhile, Dominique calls her mom and says like, "We don't know what to do about this person who has committed a rape with a 14-year-old boy." And it sounds really comical, but then her mom called him.
Dylan: Dominique's mom calls him-
Garrard: Dominique's mom hears the story, then she calls him. And I'm like, "Dominique, don't tell a soul." But she of course-
Dylan: Dominique told a soul, her mom.
Garrard: Because what are you going to do with knowledge about a-
Dylan: It's a lot of information.
Garrard: ... 14-year-old being raped. You're like, I didn't know what to do.
Dylan: Let me tell the authority figure I trust in my life, my mom. I'll tell my mom.
Garrard: So this mom calls him, and chews him out. Is just like, "You're a horrible human being. The cops are going to come for you," all this stuff. Not true, she didn't tell the cops, but she's telling him all this stuff. This is like the worst period of my life, it's hard to even describe, because it's so insane. So he in retaliation calls my mom.
Dylan: There a lot of moms involved-
Garrard: There's a lot of moms. (laughs)
Dylan: ... in this story. Okay. Got it.
Garrard: Moms are both like the agent of chaos and the savior figures, in the story.
Dylan: No, it's okay. They contain multitudes.
Garrard: (laughing) Yeah, exactly. So he calls my mom and he is like, "Garrard has admitted to being to me, and he is living an openly gay lifestyle." Not true, but he is saying this to retaliate. Make sure I don't tell my mom anything. So by preempting anything I can say to my parents, he has made sure that if I say he raped someone, it's like, there's nothing. So he calls her and he says like, "Garrard's openly gay. He's living this lifestyle. You wouldn't even recognize him anymore." He tells everyone that this is true on the campus, basically, everyone that we knew. And then he sends someone over, a close friend of mine, to come over to where I was staying at Charles and Dominique's, and his friend comes over and says, "Well, your mom is coming to pick you up. She's going to kick you out of school. You're not going to have anything paid for anymore, and it's over."
Dylan: How does this person know this?
Garrard: Because he has told them-
Dylan: Oh, got it. Got it. Got it.
Garrard: ... that my mom is freaking out and that she's coming to the school.
Dylan: Wow. Wow.
Garrard: So I'm sitting in Charles's room, just like, "What? I guess she's going to like drive over here and take me out." And meanwhile, this person, the evil person who did this, I can't say his name, so I just have to refer.
Dylan: That's... Yeah, I get it.
Garrard: He's- in a podcast about compassion, he's the one that I don't have any for-
Dylan: Totally.
Garrard: ... and I never will.
Dylan: And that's just great.
Garrard: And that's just a solid-
Dylan: Just this not a mandate. I say that frequently-
Garrard: Yeah, exactly.
Dylan: ... compassion, empathy are not a mandate.
Garrard: There are a lot of different people on different scales, but he's the one that just doesn't even-
Dylan: He's actually not registering on the scale.
Garrard: Yeah. He doesn't register.
Dylan: And that's okay.
Garrard: Yeah. So he invites a bunch of his friends to just go through all of my stuff. And they're looking through everything I've ever written. And I'm just like, "This is the worst."
Dylan: This is horrible.
Garrard: Yeah. It's the worst, I've just been raped, and told that this isn't a thing. I didn't put all this in the book, because I was just like, it's too complicated.
Dylan: Right. And now here we are.
Garrard: But mom comes, she's invited a friend with her, because she's scared of whatever she's going to see. And I sit with her on a bench, in the quad, and I'm like, "What he said is absolutely not true. He raped someone..." And like, I mean, it's just like a tit-for-tat. We're just like trying to combat each other in all these different ways. And she's like, "Well, I still think you should go home and talk to your dad." And so we go home, I'm crying in the backseat. Her poor friend, who I know as well from childhood, is just like
Dylan: Is there.
Garrard: ... "Oh, no, what's going?" (laughs)
Dylan: In the car. (laughs)
Garrard: Yeah, just like just-
Dylan: Wow.
Garrard: While I'm in the backseat just sobbing. (laughs)
Dylan: Yeah. Oh, my God. They are really witnessing something. They are going to write a book.
Garrard: Yeah, exactly. (laughs) They're traumatized forever, now.
Dylan: Exactly.
Garrard: And I go back home and mom takes me into their bedroom, and dad closes the door. It's like a father, son talk. And he is like, "Is any of this true?" And I'm like, "He did rape a 14-year-old boy." And dad's like, "Well, is any of it true about you?" And he was like, "I need you to answer this, but I need you to swear to God when you answer it." And I was still enough of a Christian at this point to be like, "I'm not about to condemn my soul to blasphemy and hell forever, in this moment." So I'm like, "I can't do that," and then it all just kind of comes out. And I'm like, "I've felt this way for years." And he's like, "Well, we need to do something about it." And I don't know what that means. My mom is actually vomiting at this point, because she's so upset. And I'm like checking my credit score, which I've never done. I didn't have credit.
Dylan: What makes you do that?
Garrard: Because I'm like, what if they don't pay for my college? What if I-
Dylan: Got it.
Garrard: ... got it kicked out? What if I don't have a life anymore? What if I'm on the streets? All these what ifs, because my dad just says, "We've got to take care of this." And I'm like, I don't know what that means. So meanwhile, they're calling the Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. And they're like, "Oh, don't worry. We have brochures for this place called Love in Action. We'll send it to you. We're going to handle this from here on out." And so my dad comes down and offers me the ultimatum, which is like, "You go to this place called Love in Action, or we're not going to pay for your college anymore." I had a scholarship, but not a full scholarship. "We're not going to pay for college," which is like the one lifeline that I've had. "We're not going to pay for college. You're not going to see me or your mother again-
Dylan: Ever.
Garrard: ... if you don't go to this place."
Dylan: Got it.
Garrard: This is a question I always get. It's like, why didn't you just fight back? Why didn't you go to New York? All those things, right?
Dylan: These are when audience members-
Garrard: Yes. Yes.
Dylan: ... engage in the hypothetical.
Garrard: They like to do that.
Dylan: They're like, "This is what I would've done." And you're like, "Well, I was about to be-"
Garrard: It sometimes happens online.
Dylan: ... kicked out. Oh, yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Garrard: And you're like, "Yeah, I was technically 18, but I was going to lose my family. I was going to lose my education and I was going to lose God." That was what was being offered to me. You lose all of that, every lifeline you ever had, or you do this program.
[BREAK]
Garrard: Yeah. I mean, it just didn't feel like there was a choice.
Dylan: And so you went to Love in Action.
Garrard: Yeah. I went to Love in Action the summer between freshman and sophomore year.
Dylan: Which leads to the next question, which is, can you give us the overview of Love in Action?
Garrard: So the overview is were handed a handbook with 275 pages of rules, and ways you're supposed to stand and act, and what you're supposed to wear. The places that you can go in the city, while you're there, which are very few. There's a zone, it's called a safe zone, and you're allowed to be in certain places. You can't even go to a secular bookstore.
Dylan: Wow.
Garrard: They tell you like wake up at 6:30, take a shower by 7:00, eat your breakfast, come here. And we had like this quiet time where you had to reflect on Christ, a lot. And then we had, now I very facetiously refer to it as an arts and craft session. But it was like, we basically created these, anywhere from like a mask that would show our inner and outer selves, what we showed to the world versus our corrupt inner beings that were sinful. Or we did this thing called a Genogram, which is actually a very normal therapeutic technique, usually. But Love in Action likes to spice things up a little, so they added what were called sin symbols to our family trees that we created. And we had like our whole family up there, and we had to look at our family and decide what sins they most represented in their lives. So my uncle, my poor uncle, who's dead now, I still feel bad, I had to write down sin he'd ever done, because we knew he was a big sinner. He was a drug addict, alcoholic-
Dylan: And his addiction caused your homosexuality.
Garrard: ... cheated on his wife. Yeah. So you put all these symbols, like D for drug addict, a dollar sign for gambling, because gambling's evil, according to these people. So is Dungeons and Dragons and yoga so-
Dylan: Whoa, we're casting a wide net of evil.
Garrard: Well yoga's Eastern.
Dylan: I see.
Garrard: It's too Eastern.
Dylan: Yikes. (both laugh) Okay. We're getting into racist territory now. Okay. Love that.
Garrard: Well, they thought it was like an Eastern religion that was influencing people, just regular yoga.
Dylan: Wow.
Garrard: Dungeon and Dragons activated sort of demonic parts of your imagination. It was not Christ based, because there were like goddesses and stuff, which-
Dylan: Got it.
Garrard: ... I don't even know if there really are any gods or goddesses and Dungeon and Dragons, but-
Dylan: They didn't like it.
Garrard: ... close enough.
Dylan: Yeah. The title is-
Garrard: Seems like you shouldn't have a dragon. And dinosaurs are fake, obviously.
Dylan: Good. (Garrard laughs) Tell them!
Garrard: Yeah. So there were like arts and crafts, but we also had these things called rap sessions, which are another part of therapeutic language.
Dylan: W or R rap?
Garrard: R, actually rap.
Dylan: Oh, R-A-P.
Garrard: We didn't actually rap though. It's just called a rap session. I don't really know why. Someone smarter than us can school us.
Dylan: Maybe it was a W that they intended, but they misspelled it and it was a-
Garrard: They misspelled a lot of things.
Dylan: Okay. So I think that's... It was a wrap up kind of?
Garrard: No, it-
Dylan: Then I'm wrong.
Garrard: This is the thing that I've looked up. It's real, apparently. And you sit around in a group and you sort of just like discuss your problems. And in normal situations, that might be really helpful for people. But in our situation, I'm sitting next to people dealing with anything from bestiality to pedophilia to marriage issues, just all sorts.
Dylan: Wow.
Garrard: All sorts were there. And, yeah, it was under the assumption that we were all addicted to our-
Dylan: Sexuality.
Garrard: ... sexuality, which they wouldn't even think were sexuality. They would say like, "Our attractions." And it's bad enough that I'm sitting next to someone who is dealing with pedophilia, because I'm like worried about what had just happened-
Dylan: "Dealing with pedophilia," meaning, they're the victim of pedophilia?
Garrard: No, they are a pedophile.
Dylan: Oh. And this is equated in-
Garrard: Yes, we are equated-
Dylan: ... Love in Action.
Garrard: ... to pedophiles and people who have sex with animals. And I truly say this, like with a full... like, it's not ironic or anything, that person dealing with pedophilia just needed different therapy.
Dylan: Totally.
Garrard: You don't need to be in therapy with like a 15-year-old.
Dylan: No, this is, in fact, dangerous for-
Garrard: It's just not-
Dylan: ... them and-
Garrard: ... good for anyone.
Dylan: ... the 15-year-old.
Garrard: Just not good for anyone. So we're all sitting there, of all ages, dealing with all things, and everyone's sort of just talking about their stuff. And I'm sitting there talking about fantasies that I've had about men, but someone else is talking about fantasies they have about a child, or when they did something with a child. And the message that's going into everyone's brain is we're all the same, which is not helpful for the pedophile either. So we're just absorbing this idea that everyone's addicted to all of the same thing, which was very harmful. And that went on, I was there for approximately two weeks. And the whole thing with Love in Action is that you go for two weeks for an intro session. Well, you do the six months beforehand, one-on-one, then you go for two weeks for the intro session. Then you stay for a month, and it's like half a year. And they convince you to stay for a year, and then you become a counselor. That's the-
Dylan: There's a hierarchy.
Garrard: There's a trajectory. It's like, from the beginning, that's where you're going. And I mean, I was there for two weeks doing that daily for like 10 hours. And another kind of, now, funny criticism that I would sometimes get at the beginning, is like, "You were only there for two weeks. How bad could it be?" And-
Dylan: You're like, "Let me-
Garrard: (laughing) Yeah, exactly.
Dylan: ... tell you."
Garrard: Have you ever sat through 10 hours of real brainwashing? Because it is something, it is like really powerful, because they have so much conviction. It's just like, after a while, it's very compelling to just give in. And-
Dylan: And did you give in?
Garrard: I did, for a while. I gave in until something jolted me out. We had to sit across from an empty chair, and basically, we had to yell at our father figure, if you were a gay man, you're yelling at your father figure, I don't know who you're yelling at if you had sex with your dog. But it was bunk science, bunk whatever, everything was bunk. And I remember just being like, "Okay, I guess I am upset with my dad a little bit for doing this, and for giving me the ultimatum. But mostly I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness at our loss together. That we are now in this place where we don't understand each other at all. And he sees me as a different person." And what a real therapy session would be, if you were working through a gay kid's horrible upbringing. And I'm saying all this stuff to them, and they're like, "No, you're angry with him." Trying to fit me into a model of-
Dylan: What they think they understand.
Garrard: Yeah. Because, turns out, stereotypes don't really work well as a form of therapy.
Dylan: Mmm-hmm (affirmative). Wild thought, but.... (Garrard laughs) Here's Garrard with a hot take.
Garrard: Yeah. So wild, right?
Dylan: Yeah. You're actually going to revolutionize therapy, (Garrard laughs) right now.
Garrard: I'm like, "No, I'm, I'm really not. I'm telling you what I feel." And they're like, "No, you're wrong." And so they're trying to goad me into being angry, because this is going to be some sort of catharsis that's going to like release a moment for me that I've been holding up. And I'm going to suddenly be one step closer to being cured. And I just keep arguing. It's like a group of people I'm in... It's like, I'm on a stage. I mean, it's an auditorium, and everyone in the therapy is there watching me. It's your turn. And I'm just like, "No, it's just not true. Stop doing..." And I am getting angry, and I'm getting mad that they're making me angry. Because I'm like, "This is not how it's supposed to go. I'm supposed to be strong, always." And there's something truthful, I mean, there's a nuance here that I was never able to capture in my book, so the film wasn't able to capture. Because I think it's actually so nuanced that it like blows your mind, where like, what they were doing was helping me, because they were telling me this obvious non-truth that I was feeling in my body.
Dylan: That was so clearly a non-truth.
Garrard: Yeah. And I was just like, "This is clearly wrong. For once, I don't need to consult the Bible. I don't need to go pray to Jesus. This is truly evil what you're telling me. You're telling me to hate my father. And I'm not going to do it. I'm just not. If I am going to do, it's going to be me doing it." And so they're pushing me to get angry, and I did need to get angry. That's the irony here is that I did actually need therapeutically to get angry at them, to get out of there.
Dylan: And unintentionally, they-
Garrard: Yes, they did.
Dylan: ... gave back to you.
Garrard: They gave it to me. And I'm like, "If I agree with you here, my whole life, from here on out, is being a complete fake person. It's like going back to the point where that I was with Chloe and being like, 'Everything's fine. Let's get married.'" I could feel that. It was like, that was the first tremor with Chloe. The second tremor was being told that rape was not a thing. And the third was here, right?
Dylan: Yeah.
Garrard: And finally it was just like an earthquake, because you're like this, this is going to lead to my death. And I'm going to take everyone down with me. You can feel it.
Dylan: And you're aware of that, at the moment.
Garrard: I could feel it, as a writer, you learn to avoid like epiphany moments because they're cliched. But it was an epiphany. It was a true epiphany. And I think, to this day, I'm not a super religious person, but I do think that if there is a God, God gave me that, in that moment.
Dylan: Wow.
Garrard: Because I was just like, I know I had never been that certain in my life that what they were doing was going to kill me, and it was going to kill everyone that loved me. Not that I was going to go shoot them or anything, but it was just like, it's going to take them down with me, because they love me. And I walked out and called mom. You know, they take all your stuff away when you come in. And so I had to beg for my phone back. And they're like, "We can't give it to you." And I was like, "It's an emergency. You have to give it to me." And so I took it, called mom, and she comes up. And of course, they run out to the side of the car and they're like, "He needs to stay longer. He's extremely gay."
Dylan: Yeah. Extremely gay, a lot. He needs to be-
Garrard: It's just a really deep case. It's like, stage four gayness. (both laugh)
Dylan: You were diagnosed with the science that they had.
Garrard: Exactly.
Dylan: Yeah, exactly.
Garrard: And then she starts asking questions like, "what are your degrees?" Turns out, there's no degree in conversion therapy. It just doesn't exist. It's not a graduate level track.
Dylan: No.
Garrard: Just some people made it up. And so she's like, "I can't believe, I never asked that question before." And I'm sitting there, next to her in the car, just-
Dylan: You're in the passenger seat.
Garrard: Yeah. I get in.
Dylan: She's in the driver's seat.
Garrard: Yeah. She's in the driver's seat.
Dylan: They're on her side of the car.
Garrard: They're on her side of the... Not even talking to me.
Dylan: They're just saying, "Please-"
Garrard: They're not even checking-
Dylan: No.
Garrard: ... to see if I'm okay.
Dylan: That's fine. Whatever you're feeling, he can feel whatever.
Garrard: Because I'm supposed to have been pushed to that edge.
Dylan: And she's the money, too.
Garrard: Yeah. She is the money.
Dylan: And, I mean, this isn't a tangent, but we do have to acknowledge, this is also a business model.
Garrard: Oh, it is a business model. I mean, I later found out they made a million dollars that year.
Dylan: Whoa.
Garrard: And it's a small, it's not like it's a giant-
Dylan: Yeah. It's a small operation.
Garrard: Yeah. The people that work there made quite a bit. Way more than we'll ever make.
Dylan: So they're like, and I don't say this to trivialize it, but they are losing a customer.
Garrard: They are. And I think that when we hold people accountable, I don't ignore that fact, and it was a business model, and all the complications are still there, but we have to acknowledge that there was a way in which they knew how to protect their investments. I was a good investment. They knew for most of my attitude that I had always been a people pleaser. They knew that I wanted more than anything to be reunited with my parents, so there was a lot there. And she's like, "I can't..." She drives off, and she's like, "Well, you're still enrolled." She's like, "Let me think of about it." She drives off, we're on the interstate, going back to our hotel, and I'm freaking out. I'm trying to like grab the airbag. I don't know why. And mom asked me a question that she'd begun to worry about in her own time, and she said, "Are you going to kill yourself?" Because she had also heard stories of people-
Dylan: Committing suicide.
Garrard: ... committing suicide. And I was like, "Yes." And she, without any questioning, she went back to the hotel, we packed our stuff up. She told them, "We're not coming back." We went home, didn't tell dad we were coming home, just show up. And he's like, "Did it work?" We're back a day early. Mom's like, "No, we're obviously here unexpectedly. And it didn't work, and it's never going to work."
Dylan: Well, go her. For at least coming to it in that moment.
Garrard: She did. And I don't think it's an "at least" thing. I think, it's like, people haven't lived their life brainwashed in some way, don't understand how hard it is and how actually almost impossible it is for people to truly change. My mom truly changed.
Dylan: Changed.
Garrard: Just from that point, it wasn't just like, before and after, now she's perfect, but it was a true change. And she started praying to God saying like, "If I need to change, change me." And she did.
Dylan: Whoa.
Garrard: And she said, she felt it. She felt the answer was that she needed to change. She prayed with her full heart.
Dylan: For change?
Garrard: For change, and she got it.
Dylan: I mean, you're illustrating, I think, what I'm also trying to discuss here, which is in the larger sense of the podcast, which is that change is this like deeply, unsexy process, that takes a long-
Garrard: It's not good.
Dylan: ... time and it doesn't happen, because of an epic clapback tweet.
Garrard: (laughing) No it doesn't.
Dylan: It doesn't happen because of any kind of large humiliation that your enemy may face, as good as that can feel in the moment.
Garrard: It can happen sometimes politically.
Dylan: Yes.
Garrard: We can protest and that can cause-
Dylan: Totally.
Garrard: ... real change.
Dylan: Totally. But that's a protesting against a system, and not a specific person. But change on the micro level doesn't happen that quickly, and it takes time.
Garrard: No, I mean, my mom apologized to me for like, well, she still does, but for 10 years straight, every time we talked.
Dylan: Wow.
Garrard: She would say, "I just want to say it, again." And I'd be like, "Okay, I'm so tired of hearing this. But, okay, I get that it's part of your..."
Dylan: Yeah. It's part of your shtick now. Not shtick, I'm really-
Garrard: No, it was a bit of a shtick.
Dylan: Okay. Well, then God bless. (both laugh) But, yeah, it was part of her repertoire.
Garrard: Yeah. And I would be like, "Shut up. It's fine. I don't care anymore." But-
Dylan: But she meant it, it seems.
Garrard: And she had to. And sometimes we have to still deal with her trauma from that time, because she's still dealing with-
Dylan: The guilt.
Garrard: ... what she did.
Dylan: So who is John Smid?
Garrard: Well, John ran Love in Action when I was there. He was involved in the "ex-gay movement" for a very long time. I remember, at first, he was like a kind of Sunday school teacher that I'd encountered before, warm, welcoming, kind. For many of us who had been newly outed, here's a man who has been through the same feelings that I've had. And he is saying like, "Yeah, it is sinful, but I'm going to help you."
Dylan: Did you have a sense of warmth for him there?
Garrard: Yeah, at first. I started to hate him, for multiple reasons. One is that he is brainwashing me, but another, the shameful, for me, still that I feel, reason that I hated him was that I remember thinking to myself, he's too flamboyant, and judging him for it.
Dylan: Whoa.
Garrard: And being like, "It's showing."
Dylan: Recognizing that.
Garrard: Being like, "You're gross, because it's showing."
Dylan: Oh.
Garrard: Like, "I can see your gayness-
Dylan: Gayness.
Garrard: ... coming out."
Dylan: Whoa.
Garrard: Isn't that messed up?
Dylan: Well, this is, I mean, I think the-
Garrard: It's all internalized.
Dylan: Yeah. I think it's the epitome of hurt people hurt people. And that's the like, when it's like getting-
Garrard: Yeah, exactly.
Dylan: ... to the bottom of the funnel and it's like-
Garrard: Exactly.
Dylan: ... really ping ponging back and forth.
Garrard: And I remember just like watching him. I wish I'd written this in the memoir, it would've been better, but it's fine.
Dylan: Hey, we're rewriting it now.
Garrard: You never know. You never know until you're processing all this stuff years later. But I remember just looking at him and watching him for moments of the collapse, like his facade of potential straightness has fallen through, and I can see it, and he's disgusting.
Dylan: You're talking about in those two weeks.
Garrard: Yeah. Watching him do... And every time I would hear his voice kind of lisp, I'd be like, (clicks tongue disapprovingly) "Disgusting."
Dylan: Wow.
Garrard: "Can you believe it?"
Dylan: Were you policing your own voice at the time?
Garrard: (laughs) Yeah. I mean, I policed my own voice for like my whole life and-
Dylan: It's hard to shake it.
Garrard: Yeah. And also just the way I walked and talked. I mean, I just remember watching John, and being like, "It's disgusting. You got to change. You got to change."
Dylan: You got to change. Did you hate him in that time?
Garrard: There were waves of hate. Sometimes I was like, "Oh, save me Sunday school teacher." And the other one is like, "I find you disgusting." And then the other one is like, "You are trying to destroy me, who I am, and I hate you."
Dylan: So have you had really in-depth conversations with John?
Garrard: Never an in-depth conversation.
Dylan: Never an in-depth.
Garrard: No.
Dylan: Well, how do you feel about the fact that you're about to have your first in-depth conversation with him?
Garrard: I feel mostly good about it, because I trust my intuition. I think it's time. I think that I'm in a place now where I feel healed enough to do some more healing. I know it's going to be a bit difficult at first. And the things that I don't think are going to wound me from this interview will, because I know enough about how these things go. It'll be like a year's worth of work after this, but-
Dylan: Oh.
Garrard: No, I mean just like a personal work, I know that, but I'm willing to do it. I've recently had this kind of change where I'm more willing to talk about the complexities of what John has experienced, because I think that any movement requires a kind of broadening over time of compassion. If we're going to do real restorative justice, rather than name calling or finger pointing. And so I think it's important, even though these sort of players that come back in and are invited into the conversation once more after harming us, I think, it's important for even if they're problematic or don't say the right thing at the right time, that it's important to talk with them.
Dylan: Totally. But you feel safe to do this?
Garrard: Yeah. Totally.
Dylan: Emotionally safe.
Garrard: Yeah. Yeah.
Dylan: Okay. Well, to be continued.
Garrard: Yes.
Dylan: And I'll talk to John, and then we'll all talk together.
Garrard: Beautiful.
[Phone line rings. Caller picks up.]
John Smid: Hello?
Dylan: Hey, John. It's Dylan.
Dylan [VOICEOVER]: Part two, my one-on-one conversation with John, is next week.
[Instrumental of ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals begins to play.]
Dylan [VOICEOVER CLOSING CREDITS]: If you have an idea for a conversation for this show, head on over to www dot conversationswithpeoplewhohateme dot com and fill out the brief submission form.
Conversations with People Who Hate Me is part of the TED Audio Collective.
This episode was mixed by Vincent Cacchione, the theme song is “These Dark Times” by Caged Animals, the logo was designed by Philip Blackowl with a photo by Mindy Tucker, and this show is made by me, Dylan Marron.
You can preorder Conversations with People Who Hate Me the book by following the link in the description of this episode, or you can buy it wherever you buy books.
Thanks so much for listening. And guess what? We are weekly now! So stay tuned next week for a brand new conversation and until then, remember: there’s a human on the other side of the screen.
[Chorus of ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals plays.]