Stuff You Should Know - Selects: How Conversion Therapy Doesn't Work

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

Conversion therapy is a misguided attempt by religious zealots to convert people from gay to straight. News flash - it doesn't work. Learn all about this abhorrent practice in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Search Las Culturista and listen to the full podcast now. Good day, everyone. This is Chuck here on a Saturday with a Selects episode about conversion therapy. Boo! And you know what? Regardless of what you think about conversion therapy, it doesn't work. And so that's why this episode is titled, How Conversion, therapy doesn't work from November 2019. And if you're wondering, before you listen,

what is conversion therapy? That's when parents try to make their LGTBQ, let's just put it in that whole bucket, child, not that. And it's just not possible because that's who they are. So I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you don't, keep it to yourself. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of IHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's guest producer Josh over there. Don't be confused, everybody. There are more than one Josh in the world. That's nice to hear you finally admit that. It's taken a long time. A lot of therapy. Hey, nice segue.

It's like a short stuff. I'm like, let's get to it. Let's get going. Well, I have a COA to issue. You know what cracks me up is people who are still like, what does that mean? You figure it out. You can email us. Eventually, some people will.

Yeah, so my COA is just a personal COA that I'm going to try and just disguise my disdain for this entire topic. Okay. But I might not do a great job about it. Well, you've already shown your hand. All right, good. That's my COA. Yeah. I don't think there's too many stuff you should know listeners who are probably into this.

Yeah, but part of the problem is we'll see later in this episode is part of the problem with conversion therapy's coverage in the media. Yeah, yeah. It has largely been fairly even-handed and described as like, this controversial therapy and not said this scam and this junk science, perpetrated by zealots super harmful yeah yeah so that's where I that's where I am you know that stuck out to me too that in the late 90s we'll talk about it especially when it was treated even handedly yeah and it made me think like we should do an episode on that like the like should the media treat all sides of an issue equally and if it does does that just like perpetuate ignorance or if it doesn't

Does that, like, support fascism? Right. Like, it's a hornet's nest. I really think we should do it sometime. It is. That's a good call. Thank you, Charles. I don't know how we...

I mean, I guess it could be researched. Yeah. Surely somebody's done a think piece on it and we can springboard off of, you know? A think piece. Mm-hmm. That's right. Those are great.

That's what we do most of our research on those think pieces. This is from one of our great writers, There's Julia Layton, and she put a lot of this stuff together for us. Yeah, she did a good job on this. I like the additional histories you found out, though. Yeah, because this, so we'll define it first, and then we'll talk about some histories, but this stuff goes back way further than you would think. But what we're talking about today is called conversion therapy, reparative therapy, ex-gay therapy.

Repertive therapy is trademarked, by the way, we should say. Well, you couldn't hear it, but under my breath, I said, damn. More like T.S. It was, yeah, it was trademarked by a psychologist named Joseph Nicolosi, Sr. So what conversion therapy is probably what we're going to mostly call it, though. What it's, what it is is it's an alleged psychological theory and practice that is based on the idea that all people are born heterosexual, and because of certain events. Past traumas, typically, but also the family dynamics play a huge role.

People who would otherwise are meant to be heterosexual can be accidentally steered into homosexuality. And therefore can be purposefully steered back. Right, cured. Yes, cured. being gay right back to the righteous land of heterosexuality yeah and as you can imagine that this is a very popular with the fundamentalist christian right sure and um i mean like that's not even like a a guess like it overtly is they've adopted and taken on ex-gay the ex-gay movement as um as basically one of the the, what's it called in a tent poll, a temp post?

Sure. One of the planks in the Christian Rights platform for social change. Oh, it is a, it was officially part of the 2016 Republican Party platform even. What? That's right. Well, wait, the whole RNC. Yeah, which has been called, the 2016 platform has been called by far the most anti-LGTVQ platform in the next. history. Wow. I mean, yeah, if that's a plank in the party's platform, that's pretty

significant. Like, they don't throw just anything in there. No, they don't. So with the ex-gay movement and conversion therapy, I saw it described, at least back in the late 90s, as a front in the culture war that's as strong and as significant as abortion. Like the Christian right, in particular, has basically dedicated itself to stamping out gayness and by converting gay people to straightness. The problem is, is there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that that is even possible. Right. And the problem is when you try and stamp out gayness, that creates a good beat that you can dance to. It makes that sound. They're like, no, no, no, no, stop stamping. I had actually, I went to, well, should I say this?

Oh, I don't know. Sure. Why not? Because this is the truth. I went to a church camp once when I was a youth. Oh, I figured a story or two like this was going to come out. They talked about stomping your feet to the music or whatever they were playing, and they literally said, don't alternate feet because that's too close to dancing. Wow. Right?

Yeah. And these weren't like, I mean, these were pretty mainstream Baptist church camps. It wasn't like I went to some. Snake handling thing? No. Not at all. We did a really good episode on that. Yeah, that was a good one.

So anyway, stomp your feet, everybody. Just don't alternate. That's late. So you stomp them both at once? No, just stomp one foot. Just stomp your right foot. I was going to say, that's just jumping. Lightly.

Okay, so that's what we're talking about is conversion therapy. And like I said, it became part of the Christian rights kind of philosophy and part of their culture war, their culture war they're fighting. but it goes back way further than that than I think it was the late 90s when the Wright kind of adopted it as a matter of fact into the 19th century

there were people who subscribed to this but they were all psychologists this is back at the time when you could be a ghost investigator and say I'm a psychologist this is the times when you could say you know this cigar reminds you of your mother you know what I'm saying

and you could be a psychologist You could be a father of psychology at that point. Yeah, you dug up a great article from History.com called Gay Conversion Therapies Disturbing 19th Century Origins by Aaron Blakemore. And Aaron... Made nice attribution, Chuck. Yeah, well, Aaron wrote a great article. And in it, she talks about in 1890 this hypnosis, well, again, in the days where you could be a hypnotist

and be a legitimate scientist at the same time. Should I get in a stage shows or psychology? That's right. Where's the money? But he was German, of course, and he claimed to have turned a gay man straight after 45 hypnosis sessions and some other therapies. And that's sort of the first evidence of what we would later call conversion therapy starting up. Yeah. Although I'm sure even before that, people, they probably didn't call it conversion therapy, but if you were an effeminate man, you were no doubt.

probably beaten by your parents and shunned by your community. Right. I think one of the other things, it's kind of a hallmark of this long tradition of converting people from being gay to straight or trying to, is this idea that there's something wrong with you if you're gay. Right. And that that idea can actually become hung up on the individual,

the gay person, so that they actually do seek out help in becoming straight. But the problem is, in seeking that help, they're going to be frustrated and they're ultimately probably going to be, they're going to have feelings of shame, guilt, inadequacy, that they're not capable of helping themselves or something wrong with them,

why can't they just be straight kind of thing? And then if you're a minor and your parents are forcing this on you, then that raises a whole other can of worms of ethical dilemmas. Sure. But from the outset, there were probably people who sought out hypnotists and other psychologists for help. It wasn't just people walking around kidnapping gay people and taking them off the street and trying to convert them.

Right. It could have very well been some man that's like, wait a minute, I don't feel normal feelings because I'm looking at Joe out there in the field and things are happening. Right. You know what I mean, Doc? And they're like, well, come on in.

Watching him swing that scythe and take his sweaty shirt off, ring it over his face, that kind of thing. Right. So just sit down and, follow the wristwatch with your eyes. Right. Or I guess the pocket watch. That'd be a weird technique.

Swing your arm. I'm moving my wristwatch. But from that same history.com article there, she talks about some of the early attempts, like with electroconvulsive therapy, lobotomies. I think we even talked about some of the lobotomies episode. Man, maybe give you a lobotomy for anything.

Oh, sure. What about testicular transplantation? Right, because that was a theory from a doctor, an endocrinologist name Eugene Steinach who thought that your testicles were the root of the problem. Well, a lot of people did.

Yeah. There was like a... You could have gay testicles, literally, and they would swap them out for straight ones. Right. And there's no... I could not find any evidence one way or the other

that any of these testicular transplants worked or were successful. I don't think they were. But I didn't see anything that said, like, all of them just failed or whatever. But like, what happened? And they just shrivel up and fall off or something? Well, do you mean if it actually, like, medically took to the body?

Right, yeah, that's what I mean. Oh, okay. You're saying, like, did it convert them? Did it work? Right, yeah. No. Yeah. That's the answer.

But, yeah, I didn't know that you could in the 1920s have a testicle transplant successfully. That's what I'm saying. Like, I surely, I mean, at some point, and we must have talked about this in the Michael Dillon episode. Mm-hmm. We talked about the, I don't think. it was, but it wasn't a transplant, it was just a straight up removal, an orki-ectomy, I believe. Castration. So, but at some

point, testicles have been transplanted onto a person successfully. When did that happen, is my question. He probably did to a dog first. Right. But, I mean, think about it. Like, if it didn't work, well, sorry, you're castrated now. Yeah, they probably didn't say sorry, though. No, but we took

your gay testicles. The heterosexual testicles just didn't pan out. Right. But now you don't have any testicles, gay or otherwise. That's right. Some of the other awful techniques that they would use back in the day were chemicals that they might have to make you wretch and vomit when you look at, you know, pictures of people of the same sex. Yeah. That's called covert sensitization. Yeah? Yeah. Or if you're cross-dressing maybe, same thing. Sure. Or if you look in a mirror and be disgusted with yourself and wretch and vomit. Yeah, and very sadly, if you have, say, like, a someone you are in a relationship with that you love, they might show you picture of that person and carry out aversive therapy or aversive conditioning. What's weird, as you said, these are things they used to carry out.

From what I've seen, this stuff still goes on today. Yeah, some of it. So what we're talking about, though, back in the 19th and most of the first half or so of the 20th century, this was all like the domain of psychology. And then eventually gay psychologists and other straight psychologists too, we're basically like this is wrong. Like the science is not adding up. This is just incorrect.

Yeah, there were medical doctors too, though. It wasn't just psychologists. Right, sure. So eventually in 1973, the American Psychological Association said, hey, big news, we're no longer going to classify homosexuality as a mental disorder. Right. And a certain part of the population went, yeah, it's 1972. Why did it take this long? Right, exactly.

But that was a big deal. And at that point, psychology mostly abandoned the idea that being gay was a disorder of a disorder. any kind and therefore there was no point in researching how to cure someone of being gay and so it turned its back on this whole history of conversion conversion yeah but it didn't fully die away and I believe starting in like the 80s the Christian right started to kind of pick up on it and kind of breathe new life into it again that's right think we should take a break yeah that's a robust and a half set up. Is that, oh, I thought we were already into it.

Oh, my gosh. No, it wasn't just the setup. It was more. You're right. We'll be right back. Oh, the stuff we learn from Josh and Chuck. Stuff you should know. On the podcast, health stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night.

Yes, I'm Dr. Priyankawali, a double board certified physician. And I'm her. Kondibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. On health stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health, but also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes.

In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes, are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world that, like, your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but, like, you don't even know. You don't know.

You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in. Listen to health stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. She said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the central Texas planes, teens are dying. suicides that don't make sense, strange accidents, and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad.

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But, you know, there's conversion therapy that can happen at a licensed therapist office. And there's conversion therapy that can happen in, you know, somebody's basement or the basement of a church. I was going to see basement, too. Yeah. Or a room. It doesn't have to be a basement. I know, but a basement makes it seem more sinister.

That's probably why I said it. So there are two sort of ways that can happen. We're going to talk a little bit about the first way, the patented way, reparative therapy trademark by Joseph Nicolosi, senior. That guy doesn't even get the Italian accent, man, and I don't blame you. He doesn't. Which we should say, by the way, in July this year, Amazon stopped carrying his

works on their website. Yeah, because they considered them that they promoted fraud. That's right. Which we'll get to. Yeah, which is interesting. But this guy is like a psychologist. Yeah. He's a trained

psychologist who basically said, I'm going to take everything I learned and direct it toward curing gay people of being gay. Yeah, I don't know much about, do you know much about his religiosity or? I think he was Jewish. Okay. I'm born in Brooklyn from what I understand. I read a really, really great article, not a think piece, but a memoir in the American

Prospect from... American Prospector? From 2012, yeah. That's different. They're gold. By Gabriel Arana. Okay. It's called my so-called ex-gay life.

It's definitely worth reading, but it's, it's a good. a great look at conversion therapy but also is like overlaid with his like personal experience with it okay uh at any rate his contention was that uh like we said um you develop homosexuality or homosexual feelings at least because of a result of environmental conditions childhood traumas uh and they call it same sex attraction ssa and that could stem in his opinion from a few different things. Desire for adventure, peer acceptance, loneliness or boredom or curiosity, approval or affection for males. And a lot of this is centered on men, although it's certainly women or have been involved in this as well. Yeah, we'll get to that. Yeah, but a lot of them over,

a lot of this over the years is making gay men straight. Oh, yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah. But it's not exclusive to that. No, it's not. general rebellion which is pretty funny and then sexual molestation by another male and i think that is a very like i think that the idea that that leads to being gay is very widespread in culture well beyond the christian right or people who believe in conversion therapy the idea that if you're sexually abused by a man or somebody of your same sex right become gay yeah which is just wrong, but I think a lot of people still believe that. I know that's what I thought when I was a kid. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's not wrong. Well, no, it's utterly wrong, but yeah.

And the whole basis of Nicolosi's theory, he takes back to a study from 1992 called Demography of Sexual Orientation and Adolescence. And this was an actual study from the Journal of Pediatrics that looked at patterns of sexual orientation to high school students in Minnesota. And what they found out was that younger teens in Minnesota in this study were more likely to express sexual confusion about their orientation when they were younger. And as they grew older, they were less confused about their sexual identity and orientation. Right. And that's a legit study. Right. And I think that probably anyone who's ever been an early teenager and a late teenager can be like, uh, that sounds about right. Exactly. You know? But the extrapolation

that Nicolosi did was what the problem is. Right. So, Nicolosi was saying, like, yes, that shows that, like, you're in a dangerous place earlier on, and that if a couple of things happen in a certain way, you can be veered off of this natural path toward heterosexuality into homosexuality. Right. And also more dangerously, that means we got to get them while they're young. Right.

So one of the other things that he really based his practice. on was this family triad of a domineering over attendant mother, a passive, detached father, and a sensitive child. Boogie nights. Kind of. In that was a good one. In that triangle, you would almost certainly have a gay kid if somebody didn't intervene. So he decided, like, this was his career.

was intervening in that kind of stuff. But that, in and of itself, has never been proven to create gay kids. Right. Like, whether you believe in conversion therapy or not, if you have a domineering mother and absent father and you're, like, a sensitive type, who likes dolls even,

doesn't mean you're going to turn gay. Right. This is the basis of that, though, is that, yes, you will turn gay. And still to this day, this idea is allowed to live because science has never fully satisfied the question, like,

Are we born gay? Do we develop being gay? And it looks like it's on a pretty strong track toward a genetic basis of homosexuality. Right. But it's still nothing's definitive. And so people can say, well, maybe we do develop, you know, in adolescence, you know, being gay or whatever.

Because science has not filled this void quite yet. Yeah, and the way Nicolosi would write about this stuff and describe it is in a very sort of professional, innocuous type way, where a casual reader might say, well, this seems totally valid and above board. Yeah, a Newsweek reader or an Oprah viewer. That's right. This is one of the things.

I think this is from one of his books. And this is how he describes the relationship from patient to therapist. The client has come to the therapist seeking assistance to reduce something distressing to him, and the RT psychotherapist agrees to share his professional experience in education to help the client meet his own goal, his own goal.

The therapist enters into a collaborative relationship agreeing to work with the client to reduce his unwanted attractions and explore his heterosexual potential, which, again, it seems very innocuous. And there are plenty of cases where a grown man or woman of their own volition goes and seeks this out. Right. But what they don't say is what happens many times is a parent forces their young child to do this. No, that's a big one. It's a big one.

In this American Prospect magazine, the author was like in his early teens when he went to Nicolosi's therapy. But he said everybody else in the group was in their like 40s or 50s. So it was definitely both. Yeah, yeah. But there's something here that's really important because like you said, if you just read this stuff, it does sound innocuous. It's all very much based on things like cognitive behavioral therapy, like stuff that works, which means that this works in a weird, twisted way. which we'll talk about but not in the way it's ultimately meant to it works in a bent way yeah i mean

do you want me to explain now i feel like i should i take issue of the word works at all it there are situations where it might prevent someone from acting on a homosexual impulse that's what i mean yeah but that doesn't change the nature of their sexuality no no right and ultimately preventing someone or training someone to not act on their sexuality is damaging in and of itself and causes all sorts of other problems. But maybe good enough for a really religious family. Right. You know?

Yeah, well, that's what I read is that over time, as the Christian Wright adopted the idea of, you know, championing the ex-gay movement, that part of that was accepting gay people who refrain from gay sex. Right. So if you were like, I'm gay, I'm never going to be straight. tried right but i don't have sex with men but i won't commit the sin of welcome in church yeah yeah yeah so what i was saying though is with with nicolosi's thing the there's something fundamentally wrong with it and that if somebody came to you and said i'm tired of being white right or black

or Hispanic or straight i can't stand it yeah you wouldn't say oh well let's figure out how to make you not black or white or Hispanic or straight right let's figure out how to change you they would say any therapist worth their salt would say well no there's a lot of great things about being white or black or Hispanic or straight and let's focus on that so that you can own your identity the conversion therapy does the opposite says yes let's figure out how to get the gay out of you right let's change your identity because this group of society has said that it's unacceptable that's right and that is an extraordinarily damaging position to come from and that is the basis of conversion therapy.

Yeah, and as we'll see later on, the AMA's official stance is that it is, and we'll read the quote later, that it is a damaging prospect and creates real harm. An American prospector magazine. So this approach by Nicolosi has four steps to it. The first one is interesting because it's the disclosure of the therapist's

personal, professional, philosophical, and religious views on homosexuality. which includes Nikolosi says the gay affirmative therapist also discloses his philosophical views to the client but from a gay affirmative perspective does he just put that in there to like cover his bases no it's true though

because you wouldn't send your son or daughter to a gay affirmative therapist to to convert them into right I think this is what he's saying you've been to therapy before right Sure.

Have you ever noticed that when you first, your first session, the therapist tells you a lot about themselves and what they think about mental health or life or whatever? Yeah, and I'm always like, wait a minute, what about my problems? Yeah, I thought we were talking about me. I'm getting charged for this? I don't care about your family. Right.

That's what he's saying that they do, but because this is about being gay, that's what they're going to talk about, is their views or whatever. Interesting. They're going to share their opinions of it and that they think that there's problems with it. You know what my line is at the therapist

when they do all that stuff? I'm like, great, that's really interesting. At the end, I'm like, you want to start the clock now? Right. Nice. Either that or I can pro rate. Number two of the four steps is encouragement of the client's inquiry.

So basically asking the client the questions, examining their feelings to try and discover like what lies been done. Right. Number three, resolution of past trauma. If it is in fact one of the reasons they suspect this person has gone down the road to homosexuality. And then education regarding features of homosexuality, which includes everything from what motivates you to do this, to you know that if you are gay, then this lifestyle ends in a very bad way for you.

Right. that there's a lot of physical harm, social harm. Emotional harm. Yeah. Right. So what's weird, though, is like I can't, Nicholas is like a tough person to paint with just one brush. Even though I totally disagree with what he dedicated his career to,

he doesn't seem, at least from what I've read, including that American Prospect article from somebody who was a patient of his for years. Right. He doesn't seem to have been like any sort of evil man or anything like that. I don't know if he just thought like this was a real thing and he was really helping people or what. But for example, there's this one quote from Gabriel Arianna

who said that he had been like experimenting with sexual encounters with other men as a teenager. And he said that he'd been meeting men off of the Internet. And he told Nicolosi, like he's like, I trusted the guy enough to share this in therapy. And he said that Nicolosi told, he said, he told me to be careful meeting men off the Internet. but that I shouldn't dwell on it or feel guilty.

He said my sexual behavior was of secondary importance. If I understood myself and worked on my relationships with men, the attractions would take care of themselves. I just had to be patient. I mean, that's a pretty great thing for a therapist to tell a patient. Right. Don't dwell on it. Don't feel guilty.

Just, you know, accept it and move on and learn from it or whatever. But then the second part. Right. That's where it goes down now. Yes. And so the thing is, though, with conversion therapy in most cases, Because Nicolosi is, like, he's almost a shining example in a weird way, whereas other people associated with it are,

it's very easy to paint them with just one brush. Yeah. You know. So we should talk a little bit about the argument against, a little bit more about the argument against, which includes a little bit more history. You know, we talked about the earliest stages of conversion therapy in the late 1800s.

But it really kind of picked up steam in the United States in the 1960s, when the civil rights movement, you know, when gay people started coming out of the closet more, presenting themselves more in public, gay bars popping up, things like that. Stonewall? Stonewall, of course, which, you know, anytime something like that is becoming a little more accepted in the mainstream, there's going to be another side that really roots down and digs in, and that's sort of how the modern gay conversion therapy movement was born was out of homosexuality becoming more accepted.

Yeah. I read a really interesting journal article from 2007 by Robinson and Spivey. It was in gender in society, the journal. And they basically looked into the ex-gay movement, not necessarily the psychology community's basis of it, but the later on the adoption of it by the Christian right. And they explained why the Christian right would be interested in that. And they were interested in it and dug in, like you said, because they saw homosexuality and feminism in particular

as signs of a decadent society that would eventually cause us to crumble and collapse. And this is, according to Robinson and Spivey, I haven't actually interviewed any one on the Christian right who believes this. But they are academics, and this was a peer-reviewed journal, that masculinity is that, antidote to that right it's the antidote to homosexuality it's the antidote to feminism and that it was up to each man

to be a strong leader among women and children and to be as masculine as possible that's how you how you did that yeah i mean i i i went i heard sermons every sunday well not every sunday but i heard sermons on many sundays where uh they were still saying wives submit to your husbands yeah um straight out of the bible um you know yeah and and like most of the antidote is dads you're being way too passive you need to step up and be the leader of your family but also moms right you can help by saying oh you have a question ask your father i defer to your father go ask your father right and just yeah being passive well which goes back to that triad you mentioned earlier about the domineering mother yeah passive father equals gay that's basically the basis of the whole thing from what i could

tell, as that at least among the Christian right, that if the father is not the dominant in leading figure in the family, that's where the trouble comes from, and that can produce homosexual children. Interesting. Yes. So something we failed to mention is part of the AMA's change in 1972, or was that the APA? APA. APA, was they said, and this is an important distinction,

is that homosexuality, they deemed a normal variation, not deviation, but a variation in human sexual orientation. And like other normal sexual orientations can't be changed. In other words, you can't make a straight person gay anymore than you can make a gay person straight, is what that equals. And because of that, as we'll see later on, that became the basis for this idea that conversion therapy is, in essence of fraud.

Right. Because it purports to do something that can't be done. That's right. Should we take another break? Oh, man, really? They're coming hard and fast. We can wait if you are. Like men swinging sides

and sweaty shirts on the field. Yeah, let's take another break and we'll talk about what might happen in conversion therapy right after this. Oh, the stuff we learn from Josh and Chuck. Stuff you should know. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician.

And I'm Hurricane Dabolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I have scurvy at 3 a.m? On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health. But also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2?

Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world that, like, your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but like, you don't even know. You don't know. You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in.

Listen to health stuff on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the Central Texas Plains, teens are dying, suicides that don't make sense, strange accidents, and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened.

Listen to Paper Ghosts, the Texas Teen Murders, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market. What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside.

He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't? CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE, index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Chuck, I'm excited about this part. you're excited about the horror show of conversion therapy it's not all horror show some of it is just outright laughable yeah so uh statistically also also i'm sorry everybody i want to say something too okay we typically try to be super objective uh-huh this one is very tough we have science on our side too this was really hard for me to research yeah nothing is ever hard for me to research this one was it was like turning over a log and finding it like maggots right

driving underneath. That was what researching what this one was like. I just kept putting it off. I would just keep leaving it and just going and watching like the office or something like that. Just anything but researching this. Because it's super sad. It is. It's... The children are taken at their most vulnerable

time in adolescence when they don't know what's going on and they're told that they're wrong and they're sinning and they're dirty. That is a part of why it's sad. Another part to me of why it's sad is that the idea that grown-ups would direct this much thought

and attention and effort into slamming their head up against a wall to try to change someone else to a way they think they should be. That I think is... That's at least a sad to me as the children being misdirected like this because a kid can go on and grow up

and be like, geez, my family was super messed up. I'm really glad I don't speak to them anymore because I'm much happier over here. Right. Well, that can happen in the ideal circumstance. Sure. Or the ideal circumstances that the family's just like, hey, we're really screwed up.

We're really sorry. Right. We love you no matter who you are. Yeah. But the idea that there's a group, a social movement dedicated to just eradicating another group of people. Yeah.

I find that very hard to swallow. Yeah. Agreed. So apparently statistically about or close to 700,000 people in the United States have undergone conversion therapy. And we should mention that it's a real problem in places like Africa and Asia and South America. Yeah, where you can still be in prison for being gay. Yeah. Like Uganda is a big place for that.

Conversion therapy is like on the rise in those places and other places. Right. But we're talking about the United States in this case. 700,000 people. And like we said, sometimes it is in the, with a licensed therapist, sometimes it's done by a religious advisor in a basement or at a church. You know what that reminded me of is another thing we need to talk about sometimes is exorcisms, like church exorcisms. Are we done exorcisms? We did like straight up Roman Catholic exorcisms.

Oh, okay. I'm talking like the kind that somebody does in the basement of their house. Gotcha. supposedly an exorcist or something like that. Sure. Backdoor exorcism. Basically, yeah. Black market.

You'll see. You'll be like, oh, man, we should be talking about this. All right. Well, I agree already. I trust you. Okay. So the AMA says that conversion therapy programs may utilize harmful psychological techniques. We were talking earlier about aversion therapy and given chemicals.

They can still be given noxious stimulus. And I didn't see exactly what that entailed or could entail. There was a guy named Robert Gilbraith Heath who was the father of implanting electrodes into the brain to deliver shocks. And one of the things he directed that toward was curing gay people. I don't think anyone in their basement is implanting electrodes or whatever. But there are things like giving people like nausea-inducing medications is one. showing them pictures that might nauseate them and then figuring out how to associate that

with masturbating the thoughts of other men or something like that. Yeah, I mean, we should talk about a few of these specifically. I mean, all you have to do is look up on a search engine conversion therapy horror stories and there are plenty of people out there saying what happened to them. Yeah, look up also conversion therapy super happy fun stories and you're going to come back

with almost nothing. Google zero results. There was one teenager who said that he was forced to wear a backpack with 40 pounds of rocks, 18 hours a day, to just signify the physical burden of being gay. One person's family gave them a fake funeral, closed casket funeral in front of him where they said that he died of AIDS and they said their final goodbyes because he went down the sinful path. Pretending he wasn't there, like that he was dead and in the casket, talking about him in third person. That's right. His family. One reported being told to strip naked in front of a mirror

and say disparaging things about themselves. I just do that normally, though. Well, I did read one account where they basically said the whole idea is to break you down to nothing in the worst way possible and then build you back up again and the image that they want. So I get the impression that that is one route, but that is not necessarily what you're going to get at any place you go for conversion therapy.

There's other ones that say, That's the problem is we don't know because so many people don't talk about it. Right. There's some that you would go to that say, okay, we're not going to abuse you or anything like that. But the basis of our beliefs in this is that you are gay because either you had an absent father, a domineering mother, some combination of the two. Or you always wanted to be loved and, you know, popular among your male peer. and you didn't get that. So now you are misdirecting this need, this unmet need,

toward having anonymous gay sex on the dance floor with some dude in Miami or whatever. So we need to figure out how to meet that need and have you hang out with guys who will tell you how cool you are and how popular you are. Yeah, like tailgating or something. Kind of.

And while we're at it, we're going to do that by accenting the mass We're going to teach you how to be masculine so that you can hang out with dudes in the real world and they will think you're cool. So things like we're going to teach you how to change the oil in your car. We're going to teach you to sit without crossing your legs. No joke. There was a guy who's kind of a man spread on the subway. There's a guy who's kind of a prominent thinker. I think he was, I saw him as a sexologist, maybe a Christian sexologist. Gerhard van den Ardouet. It's pretty great. I think I nailed it. He said that homosexual men need to unlearn avoidance of getting their hands dirty, doing manual work, like chopping wood, painting a house, using a shovel. I say no thanks to all three.

I'd chop wood. That's kind of fun. It is fun. And that not necessarily just here's an act, start chopping wood, you're going to just suddenly become cured, but that that is part of it. Right. And in this thought, this tack where they're not abusing you, they're not degrading you or anything like that,

they're teaching you masculinity and manliness, that the ultimate aim and goal of that is to go get married and have a kid. Right. Or kids. Right. And that that is a big part of conversion therapy. It was for a very long time,

was saying you might still be gay or whatever, but you're not really gay. You're now married and you have a kid, and that is what you're dedicating yourself to. That's right. You're a wood chopping, football throwing dude. With a pencil-thin mustache.

Oh, no, no, not that. So in 1974, we should talk about George Wreckers. He was a psychologist who tested whether or not this was an effective treatment. And he had a four, this wasn't his boy, but this was his client. I guess client's a weird way to put it. This child was forced to go to this person. at four and a half years old, and this is a boy manifesting, quote, childhood cross-gender identity.

And they said this is based on the clothes that this boy wears. And now, of course, looking at this, it was probably a transgender child. Yeah, or gender fluid. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to tell because this was 1974, and the way they wrote about it. It's hard to kind of piece it together. Yeah, and it's also like just how much of this behavior did this child exhibit. Like, it makes it seem like this is all the...

kid did was act like a girl when he was a boy right what else was the into what else you know yeah it's just such a narrow picture of the subject of course so in the end uh wreckers um did something super damaging he trained the the boy's mother to be the therapist like here's what you need to do so this kid can get 24-7 therapy from you and basically uh punish feminine behaviors reinforced masculine behaviors uh at all times and they said that hey this is working because every time this boy gets punished for doing something feminine, he stops and like chops wood or throws the football and gets a reward. So because he's four and a half years old, he's doing the things that their parents congratulate him for and reward him for.

Right. And not doing the things that he's getting punished for. Exactly. The punishment is what stood out to me. It's just so sad that the mother was instructed to reject him to basically ignore him when he acted like a girl, but not ignore him like pretend it's not going on. Like let him know that she is giving him the cold shoulder and that that's how he learned. Right. That is just devastating. It's heartbreaking. And what's heartbreaking is this was used as an example.

Like, see, this works. This four-and-a-half-year-old is now acting more masculine and is not going to grow up to be gay. And this child died by suicide at the age of 30. Yeah. Like that's the end result of this road. That's where it ends up. And that's what I meant earlier when I said, like, it does kind of work

because it follows psychological techniques that actually work, but it works in kind of a bent way where, yes, you can train somebody, you can mold a four-year-old to behave in a certain way by conditioning them. It's possible.

You can get somebody to do just about anything like that. But the ramifications, the results, the damage to the individual's identity that will eventually come out later are widespread in sweeping. Yeah.

And that's the point. That's why you shouldn't monkey around with somebody's identity using proven psychological techniques. That's what's so evil about the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, my daughter's four and a half. I had a hard time even getting through this stuff. And then also, if somebody comes, this is the other thing, too. If you're a conversion therapy advocate or activist or practitioner, and you say, no, there are people out there who are distressed, who are experiencing psychological distress for being gay.

Yes, that's true. I guarantee that there are people like that out there. But directing them toward working on not being gay is not the answer. Yeah, go to regular therapy. And learn to love that you're gay. And go find a church that accepts gay people. There's step two. Yeah, because they're out there.

Let's talk about the science of it because the... We are so contributing to a decadent society. In 2009, there was a report from the APA Task Force on appropriate therapeutic responses to sexual orientation. Quite a read. And this was the actual final stance was sexual orientation change efforts can pose critical health risks to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Critical health risks. Not emotional, not, I mean, it's part of emotional health too. Sure.

But critical health risks. And if you read the review of research and peer-reviewed literature and the findings of what it can result in, it reads like the worst pharma ad, disclaimer you've ever heard depression guilt helplessness hopelessness shame self hatred hostility dehumanization betrayal social withdrawal

substance abuse stress sexual dysfunction loss of faith and suicidality and on that last note homosexual teens attempt suicide more often than heterosexual teens and then among those homosexual teens

you're twice as likely to try that if your parents have rejected you and three times as likely if you have undergone conversion therapy. Three times as likely? Yes. Compared to a heterosexual team. That's right.

Man. Well, you have it. That was just the APA. A bunch of different associations, like legit medical and psychological associations, have come out and condemned in no uncertain terms conversion therapy. Right. And all of these condemnations basically follow two different texts. One, there is no science backing up the idea that you can change somebody from homosexuality to heterosexuality.

Right. And number two, there is science backing up the idea that trying to do that causes damage to the individual. So don't do that. And as a matter of fact, some countries and states in the United States have said, this is outlawed. You can't do this anymore, everybody. which is really touchy stuff because, again, the Christian Wright kind of adopted it. And we don't really infringe on religious beliefs,

but that's how strong these condemnations have been that they're saying we'll kind of start to wade into that with this one. Yeah, and we'll talk about the legalities of recent years in a sec. But before that, between the 70s and the APA's stance, changing things a little bit, then through the 80s and 90s where conversion therapy was really sort of hitting

its peak, I think, in America. There were a few high-profile cases that were exposed that have helped sway things a little bit back to sanity in more recent years. Yeah, so before those high-profile cases, and I mean right before them,

I think in 1998, a coalition of church groups got together and sponsored an ad campaign, something like a $600,000 ad campaign in things like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, all this. And this ad featured John and Anne, I believe, Ann Polk, both of whom were formerly gay, but we're now ex-gay. And married.

And married and had a kid. And said, gay conversion helps. And at the time, there wasn't a lot of ink on the other side saying, actually, this is totally discredited. And it captured everybody's attention. And this was when the Christian Wright came in and said, we're going to make this huge push in the culture war, and it really worked. That's when that Newsweek story came out.

Yeah, they were on the cover of Newsweek. He was the leader of an ex-gay organization called Exodus International. John Pawk was. Right, and it brought a lot of attention. Yeah, he was the poster boy. Yes. And Exodus International in particular became one of two main umbrella organizations. They were kind of like the, I saw it put the Spirit.

version of the ex-gay movement, and then something called NARTH, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality was like the scientific branch of the ex-gay movement. Right. And so Exodus International became a very well-known, prominent organization in the late 90s, but within two, three years,

two. It would be, it would basically be the poster child for how conversion therapy doesn't work. Right, because John Polk is gay. In 2000, just two years later, he was photographed coming out of a gay bar in Washington, D.C. At the time, he refuted that. He didn't refute that he was there. He said, what you always say, I didn't know it was a gay bar. I went in there asking for directions. No, I saw he went into use the bathroom. So, no, either way. I just read the articles. And then they were like, but you're in there for a couple of hours. Like, did you get the

directions and use the bathroom? It clearly says blue oyster in neon. Have you not seen the Police Academy movies? That was the name of it in the Police Academy, right? The Blue Oyster Bar. Oh, goodness. And John Paulke, we should say now lives life as a gay man and is a chef. He's been on like some celebrity chef shows.

Is that right? Uh-huh. Cool. And he is... Living his best life. He's living his best life from what it looks like. So he's no longer. married any longer to Anne?

Actually, that I don't know. Because there are some, but we'll keep going. I don't think he is, but there are a couple of people that are. There was, in 2003, Michael Johnston, he was another person touted as an ex-gay success story, founder of National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day, he actually was found out to be having sex with men that he met online. and infected them with HIV. Jeez.

Very big deal. And then there's Ted Haggard, of course, in 2006. I remember this. Yeah, he was a preacher and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, or was at the time, I guess, very much an anti-gay leader in the religious circles. And this one sort of unfolded little by little, like, hey, this guy came out and said, this guy had a relationship with me for like three years. we did crystal meth together

and then Haggard came out and said So cliche You know what I have to admit I said I bought crystal meth But I didn't use it I threw it in the trash Because I wouldn't succumb to the sin

Is that what he said? Yeah he says he did buy crystal meth And because I assume that was proof And he said that he didn't use it at all He threw it in the trash before he used it Where the other guy was like No we did tons of meth and had gay sex a lot Oh I know he's talking about

On like day four of us staying up he like freaked out and threw it in the trash but then he went back and got it and the proof was that he paid for it by check maybe no no probably not i don't think meth dealers take checks anymore do you think so uh and then that was uh he was outed by a having a relationship with an underage boy a sexual relationship this was ted haggard again yeah and the boy uh sued and it was settled uh by the church with a dollar figure i think it was like 180 grand and he was ted haggard again yeah and the boy uh sued and it was settled uh by the church with a dollar figure i think it was like 180 grand And then finally in 2011, Ted Haggard comes out and is like, all right, so I did have a relationship with a boy, but we never touched each other. I just masturbated in front of him. I threw him in the trash. And in 2011, he said, you know what, I'm bisexual. I'm going to admit it. I am bisexual, but I am going to choose to live my life as a faithful heterosexual husband to my wife.

I wonder if after he admitted that, um, it came out as bisexual, what that felt like. If he felt like a weight was lifted or if the anxiety associated with it was just so much or what his wife knew or didn't know or thought about it, I'd be very curious to know what that, you know, what life has been like for him after that. I mean, he's a preacher again.

Because, I mean, more power to him. If he's like, I'm a Christian and I'm just not going to have gay sex, that's as much of personal choices having gay sex, you know? I mean, the whole underage boy thing, That's a huge problem that I think, I'm hoping, was addressed. But I wonder what his life is like now. Oh, I mean, he's, like I said, he's preaching again, I think, in Colorado.

He's probably a stuff you should know, listener. Haggard, right in. We'd like to hear from you, sir. You want to talk about the law? Because right now... Oh, wait, there was one more. Chuck, there's a big one. Who?

Alan Chambers? Yeah, so John Polk, when he was outed, cruising the Blue Oyster in D.C. back in 2000, he was running Exodus International. Yes. He was replaced a couple years later by Alan Chambers. And about a decade after Chambers took over Exodus International, he said, I'm gay, I've been gay, conversion therapy doesn't work, we're shutting down Exodus International. Yeah, and I apologize to the LGTBQ community.

Yes. So within about a decade or so of the Christian right adopting the Exodus. gay and conversion therapy pillar post as part of the platform for their culture war, the biggest organization, one of two biggest organizations dedicated to conversion therapy said, it doesn't work, we're sorry gay people for all the damage we've done.

That's a pretty big turn of events. It is. Yet it still continues. So that led to, yeah, so that led to a bunch of laws that are trying to keep it from continuing. Yeah, and the laws are basically usually around minors. saying you cannot force a minor to do something like this.

Not, hey, the whole thing is outlawed. If you're an adult and you want to go do this, then that's up to you. As of 2019, this year, 18 states in Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico have similar bands enacted. And also, it's important to point out that those bands are about the legitimate scientific community, like you will have your license revoked. It doesn't say anything about a preacher that you go to or a youth counselor or any, you know, sort of non-licensed church theorists. Right. It's only scientists or licensed counselors or psychologists or psychiatrists or doctors, I'm sure, who can lose their license if they practice it.

That's right. But yeah, that's because there's religious freedom. I guess you can still do that to minors, though, if it's a religious group doing it? that is what i'm not sure about so for them well it depends on the state so there was a group or there was a counseling um organization called jonah and jonah is this goldbird and burke yes they ran jonah which stood for i can't find it anywhere i got to hear jews offering a new alternative for healing okay um they were not only found practicing in new jersey conversion therapy so they both lost their licenses they were also sued in a civil suit by former patients for fraud and lost it's interesting if you think about it like wait a minute if this is not possible right you're charging people for it right that's fraud so they they had like a three and a half million dollar settlement levied against them but and lost their licenses but then they just set up shop

under another name apparently the same year yeah of the the verdict in the civil suit but for the most part, if you're a state and you pass a law banning conversion therapy to minors among medical practitioners or counselors, the courts are going to uphold that law. Yeah, it's been upheld in California and New Jersey. Most of the challenges are on the grounds of free speech. And the New Jersey, when they upheld the New Jersey, or maybe it was Maryland, the judge said, we're not infringing on your free speech you can say whatever you want

but you can't practice this therapy that's different than free speech you can believe what you want and say what you want but you can't do this as part of your licensed therapy it's the same thing as like if you if you carry out quack cancer

treatments that is harmful like you're poisoning your patients or whatever and like they become they lose the the use of their arms and legs because of a treatment that you gave them for cancer that the American Medical Association has specifically said is damaging and harmful, you're totally going to get held accountable for that. You're lucky to just lose your license in that case.

This is the exact same principle. Yeah, for sure. So because it deals mostly with minors or exclusively with minors, the courts have upheld it. but New York City actually is widely considered to have overstepped its bounds and actually misstepped in this kind of culture war about conversion therapy in banning the practice among minors and adults. Right.

And that got New York City sued. And New York City was like, well, the Supreme Court's actually gotten pretty conservative lately. I don't know if we should test this and they repealed the ban. Yeah, as a strategy. Right, to keep it from getting tested in the Supreme Court. Court, but the Supreme Court could say, no, all laws against conversion therapy are unconstitutional. You can't outlaw it or ban it in any form. Yeah, and I think the Supreme Court already refused to hear one case. Which actually upheld the state's outlaw of conversion therapy. Right. Yeah. Very

interesting. There's a movie I haven't seen yet called The Miseducation of Cameron Post. It's a 2018 film from the 2012 novel by Emily Danforth. I haven't seen it yet, but it's about a girl. Huh. Who undergoes conversion therapy, and it's Chloe Grace Morts, Moritz. You know her? I do. I can't put the face with the name, but I know both. Yeah, you've seen her for sure.

Sure. If you want to know more about arrested development, conversion therapy, all that stuff, you can, well, I guess start researching online, see what you think. And since I said, see what you think, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this complaint. pedantic complaint I write to complain Josh in the episode on historic districts you kept referring to them

repeatedly with the indefinite article Ann rather than A and historic district I said and that's what he says that sounds unusual I don't usually do that I guess I was just being unconsciously correct

so is that correct yeah so what's the rule what I don't even know it huh what I just said that's the rule That's the rule. What I say? Mm-hmm. Okay.

I try not to exercise it too much. Okay, good. Only when I'm right. Joe says this. I realize this infuriating practice has become popular in recent years in the U.S. I feel passionately that it must be discontinued, especially primarily by those voices or attended by large audiences like you. You are no doubt aware of the letter H as a consonant. Necessitating.

Geez. Nice. The use of the indefinite article A rather than Ann. Citation, all grammar books ever. I should limit the scope of my gripe with an important caveat, cockneys. They should probably continue to say and because they pronounce it historic. This guy doesn't even know that the rhyming slang episode is coming out. How weird.

But guys, that's not really right today. I love the show. I wanted to tell you, I wanted to wait for a halfway plausible pretense to make the email a little more fun, which I hope this has been. Any chance on an episode of how pedantry works? Keep up a good work, Joe. Thanks, Joe. He's spoken fun. Turns out he's good peeps after all.

Yes. Is the N before an H, is that a thing? I didn't know that, is it? Yeah, I think, I don't know if it's proper or not, but I understand where it comes from because the vowel that comes right after the H is usually so heavily pronounced in relation to how it's pronounced

when it comes after other consonants, like an historic. An historic district sounds okay. An honor, an honor, a honor. Which one sounds better? Like I was bestowed an honor. Yeah, no, say it the other way. But you wouldn't say dog vomit coming in high school, I had an history teacher that was great.

You know, it's really weird. Did Joe tell you to say that? No, I just thought of it because in historic. I had a history teacher. I had a historic. Yeah, both work. How about this? We're both right, Joe.

Try not to focus on such stupid stuff. I'm curious if there is, I really want another rule now because I know it's a consonant, but If people are saying it these days, is that just some sort of fighting the system? That's the descriptivist way. The prescriptivist is like, no, it's this way. Joe's the prescriptivist here. We're descriptivists. All right.

I think we've proven ourselves that. Maybe we should launch a side podcast called The Descriptivists. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah? Almost has like a Civil War era folk band feel to it. We'd have to go curly cues, though. That's fine. We're not going to do that.

We could get fake ones that we just took on and off for. publicity for us right scout mob right uh if you want to get in touch of this like joe did have a little quibble a little gripe or praise or whatever you can go on to stuff you should know dot com and check us out our social links are all up there you can also send us an email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts my heart radio visit the iheart radio app apple or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the podcast Health Stuff,

we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. I'm Dr. Priyankawali, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dibolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I have scurvy at 3 a.m? And on our show, we're talking about health in a different way, like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of,

of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Listen to health stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the central Texas planes, teens are dying. Suicides that don't make sense.

Strange accidents and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight. out of Breaking Bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to paper ghosts, the Texas teen murders, on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On an all-new episode of I-HeartRadios Las Culturistas, Jennifer Lawrence is dishing.

Jennifer Lawrence. Let's go, let's go! From her hilariously awkward run-ins with A-Lister's. I don't know what I was expecting, but he was just like, Nice to meet you. To her unfiltered take on beauty treatments. I'm so upset I think the Botox before that. And a jaw-dropping reveal you won't see coming.

I don't know if I can announce this, but I'm just gonna. Open your free IHeart radio app. Search Las Culturista and listen to the full podcast now. This is an IHeart podcast.