He was told he was broken. He was promised a cure. It was all a lie.  Lucas Wilson, author of "Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors' Stories of Conversion Therapy," takes us inside the real experiences of queer people forced to try and change their so-called "same-sex attraction." Lucas shares both his own story and those of survivors, revealing the psychological, moral, and spiritual harms of conversion therapy. He also explains why stories, not just statistics, are the most powerful way to confront the discredited practice. As the U.S. Supreme Court gears up to overturn conversion therapy bans, these stories matter now more than ever.  ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Lucas Wilson is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Toronto Mississauga. As a former evangelical and a survivor of conversion therapy, he is the editor of Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy (JKP Books, 2025). He is also the author of At Home with the Holocaust: Postmemory, Domestic Space, and Second-Generation Holocaust Narratives (Rutgers University Press, 2025), which received the Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award. He is also the co-editor of Emerging Trends in Third-Generation Holocaust Literature (Lexington Books, 2023), a collection of academic essays about the writings of grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, which has been named an “essential” title by Choice Reviews. His public-facing writing has appeared in The Advocate, Queerty, LGBTQ Nation, and Religion Dispatches, among other venues, and his academic work has appeared in Modern Language Studies, Canadian Jewish Studies, Flannery O’Connor Review, Journal of Jewish Identities, and Studies in American Jewish Literature and in edited collections published by The MLA, SUNY Press, The University of Alabama Press, and DIO Press. He is currently working on two interrelated monograph projects that examine evangelical homophobia and transphobia in the U.S.

Fireside with Blair Hodges

Blair Hodges

Relationscapes: “Surviving the ‘Cure’ of Conversion Therapy,” with Lucas Wilson

OCT 28, 2025-1 MIN
Fireside with Blair Hodges

Relationscapes: “Surviving the ‘Cure’ of Conversion Therapy,” with Lucas Wilson

OCT 28, 2025-1 MIN

Description

<p data-rte-preserve-empty="true" style="white-space:pre-wrap;">“Relationscapes” is the current podcast by Fireside host Blair Hodges. Enjoy this sample episode! Be sure to subscribe directly to Relationscapes now, because this episode will fall out of the Fireside feed next month!</p>