Conversion Therapy

Frum and gay 5/5

First, a word to those who think I made the whole frum and gay story up: First of all, think what you want, I really don't care either way. The points hold regardless. It happens to be, this exchange did happen- I am creative but I don’t think I’d ever think of such a story myself. And I've had people reach out with much sadder, crazier stories prior to this one (you know who you are), but I published this one because I think there is a lot to learn from it, and, well, those involved specifically asked me to.

Okay, that's out of the way. Now to conversion therapy:

I'm sure many people have heard about the idea of conversion therapy, used to help people with specific 'pleasure' preferences. Most often, this is used to try to help those who are gay and want not to be, and these days, that is usually for religious reasons.

Many people (including plenty who've emailed me since I started this series) know someone who was gay, tried conversion therapy, and… it “worked.” Others know people who are gay, tried it, and… it didn’t work, and in some cases caused real harm. And then there’s the majority, the crowd with strong opinions: some have seen it work (or “heard” that it worked) and are convinced the anti-conversion therapy “science” is just another liberal, woke hoax. Others have seen (or “heard”) that it doesn’t work and assume every story of success is fabricated out of conservative ideology, a hoax in the other direction.

If you know anything about global-warming, you’ve seen this dynamic before.

Except here, unlike global warming, where there is at least some nuance (I won’t say which side I lean towards, but if you know me, you can easily guess), in this case there’s actually a lot of nuance, and most people on both sides truly aren’t lying. Let’s break it down:

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I’m not happy putting this behind a paywall. This part is important for those who want to understand this topic, and I promise it doesn’t feel great to limit access. But I also can’t in good conscience leave it out in the open for anyone. There are real tznius considerations here, אין דורשים בעריות בשלשה. If I were taking that literally, I probably wouldn’t post any of this. But in 2025, with everything online and available anyway, pretending the solution is silence isn’t realistic.

I kept the price as low as possible ($5/mo is the minimum).

And just to be clear - nothing here is some hidden or inaccessible information. Anyone can find all of this elsewhere. It just might not be laid out in a way that is frum + clear + practical.