As moving as it is infuriating,” “Pray Away” sees director Kristine Stolakis taking a sobering look at the ongoing toll of conversion therapy. The doc explores the “ex-gay movement,” and how former leaders of Exodus International, the largest conversion therapy organization in the world, have since come out as LGBTQ.
“If you didn’t want to be gay, there was a way out for you,” one character remembers thinking. Preaching and teaching conversion therapy was a form of spreading the good news — showing others how to pray the gay away. “We were doing what we believed god wanted us to do,” we’re told. It’s painful to watch old footage of figureheads from the movement extolling the virtues of conversion therapy and speaking to their own transformations. Same-sex attraction is treated like a disease that can be cured. In reality, these “ex-gay” leaders were of course still gay, and wrestling with feelings of inauthenticity and the fear of being discovered. “My role was to get the message out: homosexuality was changeable. I ached to be loved and to love a man,” one man emphasizes.
Besides the battle they were waging inwardly, Exodus’ leaders were also doing a great deal of damage to other LGBTQ community members. Very few practitioners had any relevant qualifications, and it wasn’t uncommon to have absolutely no training in psychology, counseling, or human sexuality. A number of people receiving “treatment” overdosed or attempted suicide. Much of the doc sees former leaders reckoning with how their involvement with the organization impacted others. One man recalls being told that he had “blood on his hands” after coming out as gay, and being overwhelmed by the realization of just how much harm he had done, describing the feeling as “devastating” and “crushing.”
Guided by a strong sense of compassion, “Pray Away” addresses these painful tensions without ever losing sight of the real enemy: homophobia and its toxic, widespread effects.
“For me, ‘Pray Away’ was a personal journey to understand my uncle, who experienced conversion therapy and its traumatic aftermath after coming out as trans as a child. He spent his lifetime believing that being straight and cisgender was the only way to be psychologically healthy and spiritually accepted,” Stolakis shared in an interview with us.
The filmmaker explained, “It wasn’t until I discovered leaders of the movement, people who claimed that they had themselves changed from gay to straight who were teaching others to do the same, that I understood the depth of his hope and his resulting trauma when he, of course, was unable to change himself,” she revealed. “Who are these people who say they’ve changed? Why do they claim this? This was the beginning of what’s become a four-year journey of making ‘Pray Away.’ As time has gone on, the film has become an inside look at the ‘pray the gay away’ movement that I hope ultimately shows the public the harm of the practice, despite the good intentions of many of who were and remain involved.”
“Pray Away” is now streaming on Netflix.
