At a recent screening of Boy Erased,
several LGBT personalities spoke about the film's impact.
Based on Garrard Conley's 2016 book Boy
Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith and Family, Boy
Erased stars Lucas Hedges as Jared, a college student who is sent
to an “ex-gay” camp after he is outed to his conservative
parents, played in the film by Nicole Kidman and Russell Crow. The
film opens on November 2.
Conley
told The
Advocate that the first step to ending therapies that attempt
to alter the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBT people is
creating an awareness of the problem.
“We're just hoping to, like, bring
this into national consciousness so that it's actually, you know, no
one's shocked to hear that there were 70,000 Americans in conversion
therapy,” Conley said. “And no one should be shocked that it's
still going on. That's the first step [to ending the practice].”
Activist Jacob Tobia, host of the MSNBC
television series Queer 2.0, called such therapies “abuse.”
“It's institutions that abuse young
people and teach them that they are not worthwhile when they are
beautiful and perfect exactly as they are,” Tobia said, adding that
he hopes for a “swift” end to the practice.
Kit Williamson and his husband John
Halbach also attended the screening. Williamson is known for
creating, writing, directing and starring in the dark comedy series
EastSiders. Halbach also appears in the show.
“I think it's so important that we
have stories like this represented on the scale that this is
representing them,” Williamson said. “So many people are going
to see this, and understand conversion therapy in a new way, and the
impact that it has on people's lives.”