Love in Action curriculum materials, including "A Tangled 'Ball' of Emotions" ("panic," "despair," "loneliness," and "loss" among them, with "denial" in the center The main objections to non-binary orientations were based in physiology and psychology, religion, and beliefs about morality and politics. Non-conforming behavior underwent a dramatic shift as the word "homosexuality" (coined in 1869)-a counter to heterosexuality-became popular. In the late 1800s attempts intensified to prevent, cure, or punish erotic and sexual desires that were not female-male. When and why being LGBTQ+ became something that needed "fixing" has a checkered history. In the United States, responses to gay, homosexual, queer, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, and gender non-conforming identities have fluctuated from "Yes!" and "Who cares?" to legal sanctions, medical treatment, violence, and murder. Smid eventually left Love in Action and married a man. While there, Conley spiraled into depression and suicidal thoughts. Conley's memoir of his time there, Boy Erased, chronicles how the camp's conversion therapy followed the idea that being gay was an addiction that could be treated with methods similar to those for abating drug, alcohol, gambling, and other addictions.
With the help of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., Garrard Conley gave us the workbook he used in 2004 at a now defunct religious gay-conversion camp in Tennessee, called "Love in Action." We also received materials from John Smid, who was camp director. The museum recently collected materials to document gay-conversion therapy (also called "reparative therapy")-and these objects allow curators like myself to explore how real people experience these risks.
Race, disability, and sexuality are among the many ways people are socially marked that can make them vulnerable. It is dangerous to be different, and certain kinds of difference are especially risky. Title page to Garrard Conley's workbook from the gay-conversion camp Love in Action