Out singer-actor Troye Sivan, who
appears in the “ex-gay” drama Boy Erased, has said that
the movie shows how “damaging” and “ineffective” so-called
conversion therapy is.
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.
(Related: Garrard
Conley: You don't have to be in conversion therapy to be in
conversion therapy.)
Sivan talks about the movie in a video
for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest LGBT rights
advocate.
“This movie takes something like
conversion therapy and plays it step by step,” Sivan said. “And
you can see how damaging and hurtful and ineffective conversion
therapy is. It really, really just shook me to my core.”
Kidman also appears in the video.
“When there's ignorance, that's a
very dangerous thing, so a lot of it is educating,” she said.
“Sometimes you're gonna have to shift your viewpoint if you come
from a certain background or had a certain behavior that's been
instilled in you.”
Boy Erased is currently playing
in theaters.