I truly don't understand the hard stance that otherwise reasonable people take against the LGBTQ community. If God is loving and merciful, our (mis?)understanding of his "will" for someone's sexual/gender identity shouldn't stop our calling to radically love and accept everyone. This doc should be convicting and inspiring for anyone who works in ministry to turn the church into a place of safety, growth, and love, not judgment and fear.

To paraphrase the old joke: some people had a problem with being gay so they thought: I know! I will become part of a Christian help group. Now they have two problems.

The LGBTQ concept leads to a conundrum that no one has been able to resolve. Since being gay is supposedly a biological imperative from the moment one is born, then any discussion about how legal, moral, permissible it is touches childhood. And that includes stuff from life style changes to elective surgery. It's about the right to choose for children, who are historically prevented from having it. There is a deep divide between what it means to be a protective parent and what it means to be disempowered by society's norms. And that society is fractured, too, it's not like there is a consensus on what is right and wrong.

So in this situation it's not uncommon to have people be gay and feel they don't want to be, however sad that is. I expected this show to be strongly against that idea, but it wasn't. Instead it showed how people either started help groups in good faith or just did it for the money and prestige and how it affected them and others. It may feel uncomfortable to discuss organizations dedicated to changing what you feel is your sexual orientation, but the choice to change one's gender is as valid as the choice to change one's sexual orientation. You can't allow one and deny the other.

I am glad the film did not go full anti-anti and showed multiple viewpoints. It is still a gay... awareness raising film, let's call it that, but it shows actual people having actual problems and trying to find solutions.

You choose to serve one ideology or another. And if you do it publicly and communally, it is very difficult to change your mind. These poor people were trying to reconcile their wants with their needs and their declared ideology and their changing beliefs, every move of them scrutinized and dissected and captive in a web of personal, communal ties and lies. And it broke them. And this continues to go on, no end in sight. There is no "final solution" for this. One has to accept themselves and fight to be accepted by others.

Bottom line: it's a film about people trying to not be themselves, with large groups of people pulling on them in both directions. Not a comfortable position to be in. It is pro-gay (wouldn't have been allowed on Netflix otherwise),but it's pretty balanced.

I was expecting many stories from those who had to experience "conversion therapy" and what they went through. This played more like buyer's remorse from "ex-ex gays", with some random storyline thrown in about a maybe former Trans person who hosts parades for ex trans people...or something (I do not understand why that was thrown in here. It played out like filler.)

Conversion therapy stories are important to tell, but the way this was presented did not capture the damage that's done when this whole "pray it away" philosophy is crammed down people's throats and forced upon the young. I'd say watch it just so you know this was and still is a thing. But it's not giving the whole story.