Pray away movie
Netflix’s Pray Away shows us the horrors of religious conversion practices - here’s why we need a ban without exceptions
Netflix’s new documentary Pray Away follows the actions of Exodus, a religious group who told LGBTQ+ members – and their families – that they could change who they were.
This significant film follows survivors and former leaders of the group, many of whom have now renounced the ‘church’.
While it can be easy to think of conversion practices as something of the past, they can – and do – still happen to lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer, intersex and ace people across the United Kingdom today.
So, what actually are conversion practices?
Conversion practices are any intervention that seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Conversion practices work towards one aim, and that goal is to ‘cure’ someone from being lesbian, gay, bi, trans, ace, intersex and/or queer.
Conversion practices are one-directional: the intention is to receive a person to change or cancel their sexual orientation or gender identity. This is the opposite of ap
No force is more powerful, and easier to use against someone, than faith. In this case, “Pray Away” focuses on a slew of Christian messengers who used to preach and embody gay conversion therapy ideals, leading various organizations with their destructive, heteronormative idea of family, faith, and freedom. Hundreds of thousands of people have embraced this thinking that looks at homosexual urges as part of a psychological problem, a result of some trauma, a leftover from some bad relationship with a parent. Many of the people interviewed in this somber documentary bought into this teaching while facing their own backstories of self-loathing; &#;Pray Away&#; is about giving them screen-time to affirm how all of it is a painful lie.
Director Kristen Stolakis profiles a handful of people who experienced this horrific, traumatic journey, and acted as advocates to construct people &#;ex-gay.&#; John was a major public figure for gay conversion—he even appeared on Newsweek with his wife Anne, an ex-lesbian—and reveals here just how much of it was a lean , i
Pray Away
A nimble blending of past and present footage and testimonies from key firsthand sources offers a devastating exposé of a controversial and ongoing movement in this documentary. Pray Away opens to the sound of pouring rain and closes on disturbing statistics about the lasting impact of conversion therapy; in between, the mood remains purposefully melancholy. Interviewees bring the statistics to distressing life with honest revelations about deeply personal experiences. A former teen subject of the therapy describes her self-harming in detail, a previous national spokesperson lets the camera into a private counseling session that has for nearly a decade helped her grapple with her former role in the movement, and others lay bare the anxiety and depression that resulted from years of denying their have truths. As one man, who had been the most general face of successful conversion therapy for years before he was photographed at a gay bar, put it, changed behavior (getting married, not acting on his homosexual impulses) never equaled changed feelings. Now, these former "ex
Kristine Stolakis is a director whose films intimately examine how noun, politics, and prejudice unfold in real people’s lives. Her debut feature PRAY AWAY takes you inside the history and continuation of the “pray the gay away” or ex-gay movement, and is a Multitude Films production. Her directorial debut THE TYPIST (Hot Docs ) cracks expose the untold story of a closeted Korean War veteran tasked with writing the military dishonorable discharges of outed LGBTQ seamen. It was released by KQED and is currently a Vimeo Staff Pick. WHERE WE Rise (DOC NYC ) chronicles a group of Mormon women fighting for equal rights inside their church, and was released by The Atlantic and nominated for a Student BAFTA. Her filmmaking approach is shaped by her background in anthropology, journalism, politics, and community art. She holds an MFA in Documentary Film from Stanford University, where she currently lectures, a BA in Cultural Anthropology from New York University, and has received further training at UC Berkley’s Investigative Reporting Program. She proudly hails from North Carolina and ce