WATCH: ‘Drag Race’ alum Dusty Ray Bottoms & others share their harrowing conversion therapy experiences
Williams Institute, there are an estimated 698,000 conversion therapy survivors living in the U.S. today, 42% of whom have reported considering or attempting suicide in the past year.Last December, a report in Time warned that some version of the practice still exists in almost every state—despite being banned and discredited in 22 of them.
An estimated 35,000 young queer people will be subjected to conversion therapy over the next five years.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.When survivor and filmmaker Zach Meiners learned his own former “therapist” was still active, he was inspired to reach out to others like him, to use his storytelling skillset to amplify and empower their voices and “expose the secretive and often deadly industry.”The end result is the eye-opening new documentary Conversion, a deeply personal yet wide-reaching film that actually lets the survivors tell their stories.Meiners shares his own experiences, alongside other courageous individuals who have managed to take this dark time in their lives and turn it around to help others.
Among them is Elena Joy Thurston, founder of the Pride And Joy Foundation which works to reduce the rate of suicide and homelessness in the LGBTQ+ community.And then there’s Dustin Rayburn, perhaps better known to many as Dusty Ray Bottoms, the talented NYC-by-way-of-Kentucky queen who competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10.
By bravely sharing their story on national television, Meiners felt inspired to reach out, thus kicking the documentary into motion.“When I first shared my story with conversion therapy, I had never talked with someone who had also gone through conversion therapy,” Rayburn told INTO in late 2022. “So it wasn’t until that played on national television that people were messaging me, ‘yo, me too.’ That’s when I had my first “me too” moment with that.