Books About Conversion Therapy

A Very Non-Exhaustive List of Survivor Books

I’ve wanted a list of books for survivors to read for a long time. Sometimes, our weekly survivor meetings simply aren’t going to be enough for someone to heal from the trauma of what we endured. For me, reading a well written book about someone with a similar past often helps me feel seen in a deeply personal and uniquely healing way.

My advocacy is informed by three major sources:

1. What I needed when I was fresh out of conversion therapy

2. What I’m hearing other survivors say when I’m in community with them

3. What I’m readying from scientific journal articles by any peer-reviewed publication

When I was fresh out of conversion therapy, I wanted someone to talk to. I knew other survivors, but all of us were still trying to find ourselves.

Often, our path towards personal healing felt perplexing, precarious, perilous, and practically unknowable.

And since I had no money for ethical and affirming therapy—I was already behind in paying for my conversion therapy bills—I went to the library searching for a book to help me find a story of someone who understood what I’d just been through.

Maybe I was just bad at looking for books back in 2005, but I couldn’t find anything written by survivors of conversion therapy. Even today with our vast search engines of the internet, I’m still struggling to find resources for our subcommunity of survivors. Fortunately, my personal advocacy has led me to find the US and Canada based organizations Conversion Therapy Survivor Network and CT Survivors Connect. They have connected me with a host of survivors and even more online support groups.

Sidenote: if you’re a Facebook person and want to join every online support group I know about, here they are Australian Conversion Therapy Survivors, Conversion Therapy Survivor Network, CT Survivors, CT Survivors Connect, Ex-Ex-Gay. Oh! And here’s the CTSN Discord.

But what if you’re high on anxiety, people scare you, and you aren’t ready to talk with actual living and breathing human beings about your experiences with conversion practices and the psychological damage you endured? Queue my list of survivor written books!

While I haven’t finished reading all of these, I think each one definitely deserves its own post.

If you know of a book missing from this list, please let me know!

Anything but Straight
Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth
by Wayne Besen

Closeted: My Life as a Gay BYU Student
by Jonathan Alder

Finally Free
A Surrender to Authenticity
by Seth Showalter

Reflections and Memories of An Amish Misfit: "My therapist says that’s not true, but I digress"
by Mary Byler

Saving Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began
by Alex Cooper with Joanna Brooks

Shame-Sex Attraction
Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy
by Lucas Wilson

Terms of Estrangement
by Gregory Elsasser-Chavez

Worthy: The Memoir of an Ex-Mormon Lesbian
by Chris Davis Proud

I hope you enjoy reading them and share you connections with the authors. I’m in the middle of writing my own memoir and the process is excruciating. I’m eternally grateful for these amazing humans who put their hearts and souls out into the world. While reading their books, I’m reminded of the countless prayers, micro and macro aggressions, and emotions that I endured in my own life. The healing from these books simply can’t be matched and I hope you enjoy them too.

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