 First edition | |
| Author | Alex Cooper Joanna Brooks |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Memoir |
| Published | 2016 |
| Publisher | HarperOne |
| Pages | 256 |
| ISBN | 9780062374608 |
Saving Alex: When I Was Fifteen I Told My Mormon Parents I Was Gay, and That's When My Nightmare Began is a 2016 memoir by Alex Cooper with Joanna Brooks.
Alex Cooper, a Mormon 15-year-old, comes out as a lesbian to her parents and tells them she is in love with a girl named Yvette. They throw her out of the house. After Alex stays with a sympathetic neighbor for a while, she is then taken by her parents to a conversion therapy program in Utah run by Johnny and Tiana Siale (who are good friends with Alex's grandparents whom Alex's parents stated that she was going to be staying with) where she is held for eight months against her will.
Cooper is forced to face a wall while wearing a backpack full of stones to "feel the burden of being gay", beaten by Johnny if any escape attempt happens, kept from school, and verbally abused. In addition, if they went to church with the Siales, Alex and anyone in their program are told not to interact with them in any way. She attempts suicide by taking every pill in the house. Also at the house are two boys who Johnny makes hit each other to be more manly, and Johnny joins in on the hitting if they don't hit hard enough.
When Cooper is allowed to enroll in high school, she learns of a gay–straight alliance club that is overseen by her English teacher where they sympathize with her plight. With their help, she is connected with a Salt Lake City attorney named Paul Burke who agrees to represent her pro bono. When one of the teachers calls to inform the Siales that she was late to their class, they pull her out of school and have her face the wall in the usual manner. Once the Siales are sound asleep, Alex successfully escapes from the house, hides near a bus stop until the buses start running, and rides it to the school. Once the school opens, Alex tells her English teacher what happened. This leads to Alex living in a local youth crisis center for a while after being taken there by a friendly police officer.
When it came to the trial, Burke represents her, earning her the right to refuse conversion therapy. Afterwards, Alex opts not to press charges against the Siales as it would not help her move on with her life. Both of the Siales lose their jobs and have their kids taken away from them. Alex reconciles with her parents. [1] [2]
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The book was reviewed in Publishers Weekly , [3] Kirkus Reviews , [4] School Library Journal , [5] and Huffington Post . [6]
On September 18, 2019, Lifetime aired an adaption of this memoir called Trapped: The Alex Cooper Story as part of its "Ripped from the Headlines" feature film series. The film stars Addison Holley as Alex Cooper, Nicolette Pierce as Frankie Jackson (who is based on Yvette), Sara Booth as Tiana Simms (who is based on Tiana Siale), Ian Lake as Johnny Simms (who is based on Johnny Siale), Kate Drummond as Mrs. Cooper, Wilson Cruz as Paul C. Burke, Steven Cumyn as Mr. Cooper, and Elisa Mooncherry as Carol Lynn Nielson (who is based on the English teacher that helped Alex). [7]
Restoration Path, known as Love in Action (LIA) until March 2012, was an ex-gay Christian ministry founded in 1973.
Katie Rogers is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera Brookside, played by Debbie Reynolds and Diane Burke. The character debuted on-screen during the episode broadcast on 7 December 1987. Reynolds played the character until 1989 when Diane Burke took over the role and remained until 2003 when Brookside was cancelled. Katie was introduced as part of the Rogers family consisting of parents Frank and Chrissy Rogers and their three children Katie, Sammy and Geoff Rogers.
Carol Lynn Wright Pearson is an American poet, author, screenwriter, and playwright. A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Pearson is best known for her book Goodbye, I Love You, a memoir of her marriage to a gay man who died of AIDS in 1984. She frequently addresses the topics of LGBT acceptance and the role of Latter-day Saint women.
Alberta Gay was the mother of five children including recording artists Marvin Gaye and Frankie Gaye. Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, she married the minister Marvin Gay Sr., after relocating to Washington, D.C., in her early twenties.
Joanna Brooks is an American author and professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University. Brooks is currently the associate vice president of faculty advancement and professor of English and comparative literature. She is a frequent media commentator on faith in American life, particularly in relation to her own Mormonism. Politico named her one of 2011's "50 politicos to watch" for her Twitter feed, @askmormongirl.
Lynn K. Wilder is a Christian author and former Brigham Young University (BYU) professor. She became well known for discussing how she left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the 2011 video-documentary Unveiling Grace.
Leelah Alcorn was an American transgender girl whose suicide attracted international attention; she had posted a suicide note to her Tumblr blog about societal standards affecting transgender people and expressing the hope that her death would create a dialogue about discrimination, abuse, and lack of support for transgender people.
Boy Erased: A Memoir is a 2016 memoir by Garrard Conley recounting his childhood in a fundamentalist Arkansas family that enrolled him in conversion therapy. According to The Week, it aims to bridge the cultural divide—"one that makes gay conversion therapy seem a natural choice in some places and unfathomable in others". It was adapted into the 2018 film Boy Erased.
Students identifying as LGBTQIA+ have a long, documented history at Brigham Young University (BYU), and have experienced a range of treatment by other students and school administrators over the decades. Large surveys of over 7,000 BYU students in 2020 and 2017 found that over 13% had marked their sexual orientation as something other than "strictly heterosexual", while the other survey showed that .2% had reported their gender identity as transgender or something other than cisgender male or female. BYU is the largest religious university in North America and is the flagship institution of the educational system of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints —Mormonism's largest denomination.
In society at large, LGBT individuals, especially youth, are at a higher risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Though causes of mental health risk are complex, one oft cited reason for these higher risks is minority stress stemming from societal anti-LGBT biases and stigma, rejection, and internalized homophobia. A 2016 empirical study found a correlation between the percentage of members of Mormonism's largest denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in a U.S. state and the suicide rates of that state, stating the reason was due to the church's stance on same-sex sexual relations. However, the study could not examine what percentages of the deaths were LGBT persons or the percentage that were Latter-day Saints. A 2002 research report found a negative correlation in suicide between LDS Church youth members and nonmember youth in Utah, finding higher levels of religiosity appear to be inversely associated with suicide, though the study does not take into account sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.
Although the historical record is often scarce, evidence points to LGBT individuals having existed in the Mormon community since its beginnings, and estimates of the number of LGBT former and current Mormons range from 4 to 10% of the total membership of the LDS Church. However, it wasn't until the late 1950s that top LDS leaders began regularly discussing LGBT people in public addresses. Since the 1970s a greater number of LGBT individuals with Mormon connections have received media coverage.
Boy Erased is a 2018 American biographical drama film based on Garrard Conley's 2016 memoir of the same name. It was written and directed by Joel Edgerton, who also produced with Kerry Kohansky Roberts and Steve Golin. The film stars Lucas Hedges as Jared Eamons, a fictionalized version of Conley, the closeted gay son of Baptist parents, who is forced to take part in a conversion therapy program. Edgerton, Joe Alwyn, Xavier Dolan, Troye Sivan, Cherry Jones, and Flea also appear in supporting roles.
Janis Irwin is a Canadian politician who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 2019 Alberta general election. She represents the electoral district of Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood as a member of the Alberta New Democratic Party. She serves as the Official Opposition Critic for Status of Women and LGBTQ2S+ Issues, and is the Official Opposition Deputy Whip.
Brooklyn Owen is an American LGBTQ activist and student from Jacksonville, Florida. She came to national attention in 2018 when the story of her being ostracized by her Southern Baptist parents for being gay compelled a GoFundMe campaign for her education to go viral. The fund was intended to just cover her tuition at Georgetown University. When it surpassed the goal, she used the surplus to create a scholarship fund organization to help other LGBTQ youth in “volatile home situations”. As of 2019, she is the youth ambassador for the Human Rights Campaign, an intern with Representative Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), and president at Unbroken Horizons Scholarship Foundation, Inc. In 2021, Owen announced that she was running for the Florida Senate, for the seat held by Audrey Gibson, who is term-limited.
T Kira Madden is an American writer. She is the author of a memoir, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, and the Founding Editor-in-Chief of No Tokens Journal. In 2021, she received Lambda Literary's Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers.
Trapped: The Alex Cooper Story is a 2019 American biographical drama television film directed by Jeffrey G. Hunt. Produced by Lifetime as part of its "Ripped from the Headlines" feature film series, it aired on September 28, 2019. The film stars Addison Holley, Nicolette Pearse, Sara Booth, Ian Lake, Kate Drummond, Wilson Cruz, Steven Cumyn, and Elisa Mooncherry. The screenplay by Michelle Paradise is based on the 2016 memoir Saving Alex by Alex Cooper and Joanna Brooks, which documents Cooper's experience in being sent to a conversion therapy home and the brutalities she endured while there.
Because of its ban against same-sex sexual activity and same-sex marriage the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a long history of teaching that its adherents who are attracted to the same sex can and should attempt to alter their feelings through righteous striving and sexual orientation change efforts. Reparative therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual, or their gender identity from transgender to cisgender using psychological, physical, or spiritual interventions. There is no reliable evidence that such practices can alter sexual orientation or gender identity, and many medical institutions warn that conversion therapy is ineffective and potentially harmful.
This is a timeline of LGBT Mormon history in the 2010s, part of a series of timelines consisting of events, publications, and speeches about LGBTQ+ individuals, topics around sexual orientation and gender minorities, and the community of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.