This netflix documentary, "Pray Away," is hard to watch, cringeworthy, painful even. But it hits the mark on the danger, damage, and deception (look Mom! I'm Alliterating!) of the Christian-driven "ex-gay" movement. In many ways this is a thirty years sequal to the PBS documentary "One Nation Under God."
The film points out near the end that, regardless of the fact that even though sexual attraction may shift somewhat over the course of a lifetime-- statistically much more common in women than in men,-- sexual orientation is not something a person can consciously choose to change. Behavior may be chosen. Sexual attraction not really. The entire "ex-gay" movement grotesquely misrepresents the issue by treating it as "a lifestyle choice," a matter of chosen behavior. Meanwhile, everyone going through their indoctrination faces similar realities that the same-sex desires in their head do not go away. So they lie, pretend, cover-up, talk the talk, desperate for acceptance and affirmation, meanwhile dying on the inside as they are subjected to never-ending scare-tactic messages about how reprehensible and destined-for-Hell homosexuality makes people. The attempted suicide rate for participants of these groups is roughly double that of lgbtq people overall.
Sadly, regardless of all the movement leaders who eventually get honest with themselves and leave the movement, there is a steady supply of new posers eager to take their place.