Welcome and Host Introductions

Kyle Ashworth [00:00:14] Hello. Hello everyone, and welcome to a special Latter Gay Stories and Mormon Stories broadcast. We are excited to be able to join together with the two platforms to discuss a very important topic, and that is that of President Dallin H. Oaks recent visit to the University of Virginia. If you followed the news and the latest happenings in Mormondom, you will be familiar with his recent visit to the University of Virginia's Law school where he spoke on two different fronts. One was a earlier meeting with the lawyers at the university, potential lawyer, lawyer students, law students at the University of Virginia, and did a little Q and A, which is part of what we will be discussing in this special live broadcast.

Kyle Ashworth [00:01:03] And then a second Rotunda 2021 Joseph Smith lecture there at the University of Virginia campus. So for those of you who are joining us and seeing some fresh new faces on the Mormon Stories channel, you will also, for our Latter Gay Stories audience, see some fresh new faces on this channel as well as we're collaborating our efforts in this specific episode with the Mormon Stories audience. And we have some great guests who are lined up today to discuss a little bit more about this topic. What we really want to do is try to understand, for those of you who have been following this, the recent news as of Friday of last week, we want to try to better understand exactly where Dallin H.

Kyle Ashworth [00:01:46] Oaks was when he said things weren't happening at byu, in particular, at that Q and A meeting with with the attorneys earlier in the day in his visit at the University of Virginia, he had a quote that said that BYU had abandoned the practice of electroshock therapy prior to him taking over as president of byu. So we want to talk a little bit about that. We want to discuss the reality of the situation in the 1970s, particularly what was going on within LDS Mormondom and LGB, perhaps we could say at the intersection of sexuality and reality at LDS street and LGBTQ Avenue. What was happening at BYU within the church in the 1970s, specifically when Dallin H.

Kyle Ashworth [00:02:37] Oaks took over as president of byu. So we brought in what I want to consider some of the big guns. Connell o', Donovan, lgbt, LGBTQ LDS researcher who has studied this topic, who is well versed in what's going on in, in this space. So we want to discuss that with him. We also want to talk about who Dallin H. Oaks is. For many people who are tuned directly into the Mormon Stories audience, we want to kind of give an idea and also to the Mormon audience, a better understanding of who Dallin H. Oaks was. Why was he chosen as the president of byu? What qualifications did he bring into the university?

Kyle Ashworth [00:03:20] What qualifications has he brought into the first presidency? And why of all topics, he has really honed in on the LGBTQ discussion. So with that, I want to welcome all of this group to the Latter Gay Stories Podcast, Mormon Stories Podcast collaborative effort.

Kyle Ashworth [00:03:39] First, we'll just kind of go around the horn here, Gerardo with Mormon Stories. Also, I'll let you kind of do a little bit of an introduction, but Gerardo has become a really great friend of mine. Also another former gay Mormon, I guess, which is the former.

Kyle Ashworth [00:03:56] If we're discussing record, if we're discussing conversion and reparative therapy, I guess you're not a former gay member. So we have Gerardo with us and then also Connell o'. Donovan. But Gerardo, tell the audience a little bit more about you and. And why we're together on this space.

Gerardo Sumano [00:04:19] Yeah, I just want to be really quick. I. So I grew up in Mexico as a member of the church and I knew I was gay from a very young age. And then when my parents found out that I was gay, they were referred or found about Evergreen. So I went through conversion therapy program for around about a year.

Gerardo Sumano [00:04:47] David Matheson, who was one of the most recognized and known conversion therapists in Utah, was my therapist. And then I went on. On my mission. And after that I went to byu, Idaho, where I met my current husband, lost my faith in Mormonism. So I'm very passionate about this topic about conversion therapy. One of the things that actually probably one of the first things that I found out that was very shocking and really pile into like my loss of faith was finding out about electroshock therapy happening at byu. So yeah, this is a topic that. That I'm really interested in.

Kyle Ashworth [00:05:37] As a side note, make sure we show Gerardo's shirt. This is our Latter Gay Stories Love Not Muskets shirt.

Guest [00:05:45] Yep.

Kyle Ashworth [00:05:46] Gerardo owns the same shirt that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland owns.

Gerardo Sumano [00:05:52] And where can you get it? Kyle?

Kyle Ashworth [00:05:54] You can get that on the Latter gay stories website, lattergay stories.org and describe

John Dehlin [00:06:00] it, describe it for our listeners. Basically.

Kyle Ashworth [00:06:03] Yeah. So this is. This is a 1940s era Nazi Germany painting that was modified. This is. The painting is called Jesus Breaks the Musket and it was painted during Nazi Germany time. Christians supporting the Jews, letting them know that even Christ would break the Nazi muskets. After Holland's recent speech at byu, we asked for a license and allowed the to print the shirt with a little bit of flair to it. So we added the rainbow color to it. And it is our Love not Musket T shirt that's currently always selling out. We can only reprint every now and then, so thank you. You should come model for us. That's awesome, Gerardo.

Gerardo Sumano [00:06:43] Yeah, I love the T shirt.

Kyle Ashworth [00:06:44] All right, so that was a complete. Drive in the wrong direction, but thanks, Connell, for sitting through that. We want to welcome to the podcast as well, Connell o'. Donovan. Now, Connell, I mentioned it earlier, you're a researcher and historian in all things LDS and lgbtq, but you work for UC Santa Cruz as well and authored a number of books which have a wide amount of interest in this space. Books and articles specific to the LGBTQ LDS world, but also African American Latter Day Saints. You've also also done a ton of work in LGBTQ archaeology and anthropology. So welcome to the podcasts. Tell us a little bit more about Connell and yeah, let's go from there. First,

Connell O'Donovan [00:07:41] Can you hear me okay, we can hear you. All right. First of all, I have not written any books, so that's incorrect. Lots of articles, though. And I no longer do general LDS history at all. After the November 2015 policy, I quit doing any kind of Mormon story, history, etc. Other than LGBT focused. I went on a mission to Brazil, got married, came out of the closet in 85, and then left the Mormon Church in the late 80s. So I've, I've been non Mormon longer than I've been Mormon. I'm a professional genealogist and historian and I just, I love doing queer history,

Kyle Ashworth [00:08:36] which is exactly why we love having you here on this specific channel and this specific topic. So let's jump into, jump into the topic at hand. Let's first kind of dissect a little bit about Dallin H. Oaks. We, we kind of laid out the, the plan and kind of showed you why we got to this point. So a lot of the stuff that we're going to talk about in, in this discussion is going to come from correlated history, come from experiences of people who were directly impacted by electroshock therapy. And as we just popped up that slide there, a little bit we've detailed. I know Connell has done an incredible amount of work in this space in terms of understanding the LDS Church's messaging.

The 'On the Record' Project and Conversion Therapy

Kyle Ashworth [00:09:25] I too have compiled that as a closeted young gay kid growing up in Mormonism trying to understand who and what he was, the on the Record project was the cumulation of all the things that I had put together and accumulated and read as a closeted gay Latter Day Saint trying to better understand me. And I will with as much praise as possible.

Kyle Ashworth [00:09:51] Let you know how many fingerprints of Conal o' Donovan's are found within on the Record. He has done an incredible amount of work in this space just researching and finding things, and we're going to discuss that a little further. So a lot of the things that we're going to talk about today are found in on the Record and we will refer back to that many, many times because it really is the church's messaging directly from their lips or their periodicals in this space in LGBTQ Mormonism. So we'll discuss a little, a little bit about that.

Connell O'Donovan [00:10:25] But before, could you show that previous slide? That's the three photos of me. So the center one that says, I'm adult survivor of conversion therapy. I went through hypnotherapy at the University of Utah in, I want to say, 1989. I can't remember exactly. And that was the single most devastating experience of my life and continues to have a profound effect on my personal life, my, my romantic life, my sexual life. It was really, really destructive. It was through the, the counseling cent. Dr. Randy Hyde, who, he was an intern there at the U of U and then moved on to Utah county and was an administrative high falutin mental health administrator there in Utah County. And he did that on my back. You know, he got, he got his credentials by torturing me. So I hope you're proud, Randy.

Kyle Ashworth [00:11:44] And I just want to go back to that first picture in the slide. Who is that guy?

Connell O'Donovan [00:11:48] That's me trying to be butch. I lived in Santa Cruz, California for 20 years. And that's, that's actually Christmas morning one day I went right at sunrise and had some photos taken.

Kyle Ashworth [00:12:04] Well, and we thank you, Connell, for sharing that portion of that experience. And I think that's probably why a topic like conversion therapy and electroshock therapy is having this type of a discussion is so necessary because it really shows the real lived and real world experience of how religious organizations, and in this discussion, particularly Mormonism, impacted the very real lives of men and women who were impacted by this topic. Yesterday we had this discussion about Oaks on Mormon stories. We did a four hour deep dive into Oaks visit to the University of Virginia. And maybe, Gerardo, you want to just take us through just a two or three minute recap of what we discussed yesterday to bring those who are just following in on today's broadcast up to speed as to what we discussed and kind of how we unpacked yesterday's second portion of Oaks lecture at the University of Virginia.

Guest [00:13:04] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:13:05] So Yesterday we explored like, like you said, I think several questions we explore. We, we kind of answered some questions as to like why Elder Oaks decided to go to the University of Virginia, why he chose that, specifically that university.

Gerardo Sumano [00:13:26] And we really did a deep dive into his actual talk, the public speech that he gave regarding religious freedom and non discrimination. And you know, there, there's been a lot of talk about his talk and his speech. Right. I've seen people from both sides, some people like Jana Reese saying like there was nothing new about this speech. And some even LGBT people who I, I've seen were really surprised and even maybe happy that that Elder Oaks was in some way reversing course into like what, what, what he has said in the past, what he has done in the past.

Gerardo Sumano [00:14:15] So we, I think we, we all gave really good insight, our own insights into what we thought about Elder Oaks, what his intentions were. It was really good to have two law students who were, who are also queer, who gave their inputs. And then we also had Joe Baxter, who is currently an attorney who is in the lawsuit that is challenging the exemptions that allow schools like BYU to discriminate against LGBT students. So it was a really good conversation.

Who Is Dallin H. Oaks and Why Does It Matter

Kyle Ashworth [00:14:53] All right. The thing I wanted to also just kind of discuss, just for, kind of what I brought up earlier as we started this episode. Who is this Dallin H. Oaks for those. And I know if you have spent time in Mormonism, the name Dallin H. Oaks is super familiar.

Kyle Ashworth [00:15:10] But I wanted to give a little bit of a background as to who he was, what he did, why he got to where he was at. He was a 25 year old lawyer who graduated with a degree from the University of Chicago School of Law. So a really young, bright, intelligent young man who clerked after his graduation for the US Supreme Court, Justice Earl Warren. He spent most of his time in Chicago up until he ended up becoming a professor at the University of Chicago just a few years after his graduation. I think it was only like three years after his graduation from the University of Chicago.

Kyle Ashworth [00:15:47] And then in 1968 was an interesting newfound piece of information that I didn't really realize. But he became the on the founding member of the editorial board of Dialogue Journal of Mormon Thought, which I thought was super interesting that I didn't know that portion of President Oaks. He was a typical Latter Day Saint with a lot of callings, I would say normal callings within Mormonism. He was an Elders quorum president, served in stake callings. He was a Stake missionary and then also eventually an advisor to the quorum of the 12 and then an apostle. But he, during the time of his opportunities where he would advise the quorum of the 12 and work directly with members of the church, he became good and fast friends with people like Ernest Wilkinson, Markey Peterson, Spencer Kimball, Legrand Richards.

Kyle Ashworth [00:16:43] And ironically, he would eventually replace one of those apostles as they passed away and a vacancy became available in the quorum of the 12. But in 1971, President Oaks became the president of BYU at the resignation of Ernest Wilkinson. He served as president of BYU until 1980 and then in 70.

Kyle Ashworth [00:17:09] Oh, also yeah, until 1980. But in 1979-1984, this was another little tidbit that I didn't know about President Oaks is he did serve as the Chairman of the board for pbs, the Public Broadcasting System. And then eventually after that, service and service within a Utah State Supreme Court as a Utah State Supreme Court justice, he eventually became an apostle. And in 1984, he left being a Supreme Court justice from the State of Utah to go into the apostleship.

Kyle Ashworth [00:17:44] One thing that I think is interesting, if you want a little tidbit of Mormon history, currently the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is Russell M. Nelson. At the death, upon the death of Markey Peterson and LeGrand Richards, two apostles were called. But because Dallin H. Oaks was a member of the Utah State Supreme Court, he hadn't yet put away all of his obligations with the Supreme Court. So Russell M. Nelson was called first and sustained first.

Kyle Ashworth [00:18:18] So that's why he is currently the president of the church. And then a couple months later, Dallin H. Oaks was finally he was called, but not set apart. So he took a position behind President Nelson. Had Dallin H. Oaks not been a member of the Supreme Court, Utah Supreme Court, he likely would be the current prophet of the, of the Church today, ahead of Russell M. Nelson. Just thought that was an interesting tidbit. So, gentlemen, is there anything that we left out that you knew about Elder Oaks or maybe some, some interesting stories that, that you're familiar with or did I leave anything else out?

Gerardo Sumano [00:18:57] I, I, I did, I did. Just wanted to point out that every historian or researcher that I, I've seen, I read. I'll give you an example. Like Greg Prince and even papers from BYU that discuss the intersection of lgbtq, LGBTQ rights and religious freedom, they are always mentioning Darling H. Oaks as being part of the architect of how the Church was going to respond to, you know, to the social changes that were happening that were more accepting towards homosexuals.

Gerardo Sumano [00:19:37] So it is a topic that Elder Oaks has been really involved in and that he constantly is talking about. Whenever you see Darling A Chokes talking about religious freedom, he'll probably be mentioning LGBT issues in, in that talk too, because that's usually what. What he's his main expertise. I, I don't know if expertise because he even said on the Q A that there were. There's a lot of areas on. On the law that he's interested in. But as he became the apostle, religious freedom became his main focus, specifically towards what it means for homosexuals and LGBT rights.

Kyle Ashworth [00:20:25] And I think the important part of this discussion today is that we are going to dissect not only the messages of Oaks throughout this time, but I also want to really lay out a good historical or chronological pathway so we can understand the dates and the times and how each person kind of filled in. And then also where he was serving in a particular point, whether it's ecumenical or within the public service, as he was belaying or relaying some of these messages. So let's start with the University of Virginia Law School. Let's go to his Q A because it was there that he said this monumental message.

Kyle Ashworth [00:21:07] And we can listen to it and understand what Oakes was saying. Directly from Oaks. He was given a question from a student and we discussed this yesterday in the first part of this broadcast. Discussed a little bit about the student who was asking. But the video that we have here does have. It is transcribed. So if you can't hear it very well, you can read it on the screen. Let's listen to in this Q and A what President Oaks was asked and then his response to that.

Kyle Ashworth [00:21:38] And what have you done to address some of the things you've done in the past, including the things that you said, and overseeing the enforcement of electric shock and vomiting conversion therapy for elderly

Guest [00:21:47] students at, let me say, about electric shock treatments at byu. When I became president of byu, that had been discontinued earlier and it never went on under my administration. Go back to one side

Kyle Ashworth [00:22:02] and what have you. All right, Connell, initial reactions.

Connell O'Donovan [00:22:15] I, I want to scream. I'm a non violent person, but it makes me want to slug him. Honestly. He knew. I, I know he knew what was going on. And even if he didn't know, as the president of the. The university at that time, literally the buck stops at him and he should take responsibility for that. And, and, but then, but to not do that, to, to, to take this, all these horrific things that were done to queer students on campus and then to say that didn't happen under my administration. By the time I got there, it was gone. That just compounds the horror of it all. And it just makes me so angry. I just, I can barely speak.

Kyle Ashworth [00:23:23] I think so many in this audience will understand exactly what you're talking about and those same emotions and feelings. Before we jump into kind of dissecting this, let's talk just for a second about the optics of this whole situation. We have a member of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the next in line as prophet president of the church, who is in this Q and A. So first, maybe the question is, obviously this whole experience in messaging is terrible optics for the church.

Problems with Oaks Speaking Unscripted on LGBTQ Issues

Kyle Ashworth [00:24:06] Maybe let's just discuss kind of a roundtable. Is this a problem for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to send out people like Dallin H. Oaks unscripted and have them off the cuff make these messages?

Kyle Ashworth [00:24:22] And does that impact Mormonism for better or for worse? I want to just kind of unpack this and see was this a smart move for Elder Oaks? Is this a good move for Mormonism to have their leaders in these Q and A type sessions? Gerardo Connell, what do you think?

Connell O'Donovan [00:24:39] Historically speaking, whenever they've had these unscripted moments, they've generally shot themselves in the foot. I, I've seen it over and over and over again, you know, with Hinkley, with Richard G. Scott, very various Mormon leaders who, when they're not carefully scripted, when they don't have the teleprompter telling them exactly what to say and they're just going off the cuff, they often say these things that, that are untrue, honestly, and then they get caught later. And then, you know, that, oh, the church spokesperson has no comment or whatever. You know, they, they quickly try to bury it. You know, I, I, yeah, that's my input.

Kyle Ashworth [00:25:34] Gerardo, what do you think?

Gerardo Sumano [00:25:38] Yeah, as you asked the question, I was just remembering a, a Q A session of Will Jeffrey, our Han, I think had at, I don't know exactly what university. I think it was Harvard, but I'm not sure where. He was asked about Prop 8 and he explicitly said that the church didn't spend one single red scent on Prop 8, which we know that's a lie.

Gerardo Sumano [00:26:08] What I listened to that as a, as a missionary when I was on my mission and I didn't know a lot about it, but I kind of just went with it. I think it's, it was harder to, to prove that the church, you know, because financial dealings in the church are not transparent. So although everybody knows that the church actually did and. And there's been some evidence that they did, it was kind of harder to prove. But this one, to me just was just, I don't know, just like different from all the other ones because it's. This one is really. You can just easily go to Wikipedia and just find part of part, just really easily find the dates where electroshock therapy was done at byu.

Gerardo Sumano [00:26:56] And we have to thank a lot of that research to Connell. He'll talk a little bit later about how he uncovered a lot of these things.

Kyle Ashworth [00:27:05] And I think the important part for this discussion is, yes, we were talking about the big lie in the meat of this discussion. The second part of what Oakes talked about in this Q and A, I think is equally problematic. And that's where he and I don't know that we have a clip of it. We talked about it at length in yesterday's Mormon Stories episode, but where he, and not even essentially he just blatantly come out and said, in terms of messaging, I say one thing to the Mormons and I say another thing in public, and that's just who I am. And that's my responsibility

Kyle Ashworth [00:27:42] as a member of the First Presidency or as a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which I think is super problematic when it comes to trying to better understand topics, just like LGBTQ Mormonism, when you. Okay, perfect. We do have the audio of that. Let's play that so the audience can listen to this portion.

Guest [00:28:06] Try to answer your question from the Hawaii remarks. Bear in mind that my audience, there was an audience of Latter Day Saints. When I teach people who follow Latter Day Saint doctrine than I have when I speak as the representative of the church on what positions the church ought to take in society as a whole. And so I think the correct answer to your question, the accurate answer to your question is, number one, I understand better the situation of the church relating to society now than I did then, partly by working on a lecture that I'll give tonight. I refer you to that lecture for part of the answer to your question.

Guest [00:29:06] The other part is asking you to understand that the church has its unique doctrines. It does not try to make room for all society, but we do make rules and set limits for our own membership, and they're responsible either to receive that teaching or not. But don't judge a public or don't judge a private sermon by public issues.

Oaks' Responses and Accountability to LGBTQ Members

Kyle Ashworth [00:29:37] All right. So President Oaks has asked, what have you done to make this space better? What have you done since 2019, when you didn't have a single nice thing to say about the LGBTQ community to then show up on this campus and begin to make concessions. All right, what do you think? Was that the right response? How did you take his response? And if you were his public spokesman or his PR guy, Are you pulling your hair out at this point? What's left of it?

Connell O'Donovan [00:30:05] Connell, shut up. That was mean.

Kyle Ashworth [00:30:09] I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Connell O'Donovan [00:30:13] I had a hard time hearing it, so I, and I didn't know any of the context of it, so I kind of got lost in what he was saying.

Kyle Ashworth [00:30:21] So two parts, I think, the way he answers that. And we do agree that the audio is really terrible because it was just recorded on the fly, but he's responding first, saying, as a Latter Day Saint, I'm going to, as a leader in the church, I'm going to teach one thing to the members and the next thing to other members or the general public. And you're just going to have to be okay with that because I'm basically saying I need to hold the Mormons responsible for Mormonism, and, and if the message is different to them than it is to the general public, then I'm accountable for that.

Kyle Ashworth [00:30:57] Or that's just how, how it works. The other half of that is he says, I'm not going to apologize, I'm not going to give in on some of the old messaging, but what I'll do is just continue talking about the, the subject. And so that's kind of a general gist of what he was saying.

Connell O'Donovan [00:31:13] I, to me, it's just that's what a politician does, speaks to their audience, you know, and I, and I get that, but also, he shouldn't be a politician. You know, if you're gonna say that you're, you know, speaking for God or whatever, or, or just that you have some sort of moral authority, your message should be consistent.

Kyle Ashworth [00:31:39] Yeah, I understand that. So let's discuss, I mean, what does the church benefit? What does this topic, or how does this topic benefit when a message is being hidden or contorted based on the audience? Do we really get to the heart of Mormonism? Do we get to the heart of this message? Do we get to the heart of advocacy and better understanding if the message is being twisted so much?

Gerardo Sumano [00:32:09] I, I, I, I think I can speak a little bit, a little bit about this. I, I, I have been pretty open about growing up. While growing up, my dad has, has had, had pretty high positions in leadership in the church. He's currently a Bishop, and he used to be in stake presidency. But something that I, he really taught me was that probably one of the most important missions for the church, and that has always stayed with me, is to protect the good name of the church.

Gerardo Sumano [00:32:47] And, and that's why they hold disciplinary councils, and that's why they excommunicate people, and that's why they sometimes have to hide things that are not super good. That, that in. I think in his mind, that's how he justifies the church not being fully transparent. Because that's the number one goal is to protect the good name of the church.

Gerardo Sumano [00:33:07] And it's explicitly written on the handbooks for bishops and state presence, now that those are out and easily accessible to the public. But Elder Oak's statement just speaks to this, speaks to like they're trying to portray an image to the outside public about a happy, good, good family. You know, like that go to church on Sundays, you know, they come onto Christ website that are like teaching you how to be like Jesus, closer to Jesus. And then this messaging that is harder to take, especially for the newer generations or people like us who have experienced the trauma of, of this messaging, they want to keep that inside, indoors, behind closed doors, and just reserved for the members that can take it or like even Elder Oaks says they even can reject it. But we have to say it to our members.

Kyle Ashworth [00:34:09] Yeah, let's listen to this again. We have another, more leaked audio from a separate meeting when Oaks was presented with a very similar situation. And I mean, I really want to try to understand, is this just how backdoor Mormonism works? Is this how our church leaders function? When you go into a private meeting and discuss things that you're not going to discuss publicly and even if that discussion contradicts each other. Let's play the second clip. This was leaked audio that came out of a youth fireside in 2017 in Kansas. Similar mode, similar tone. I just kind of want to get your reactions to this as well.

Gerardo Sumano [00:34:59] Oh, we can't hear the audio. Oh,

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:35:07] again, because if somebody, for example, and this is a, a current example, by the way, this is the reason why we have that request not to record. Because if somebody records and puts on the Internet something that I say, I am not free to speak candidly to a group like this out of my heart, because somebody has recorded it and will take it out of context and say, centered around the world, and it'll be in my voice. And in today's technology, they can change the meaning. They can edit it and fix it up so that I appear to be saying something I didn't say.

Video Clip 1 [00:35:57] And so we have that announcement before each meeting where general authorities and Area 70 speak, asking that it not be recorded. We don't have that request for general conference because at General Conference we record and have a master. So if somebody tampers with what is said at General Conference, we've got an instant reputation. We don't have that for what's said at state conference or in the youth meeting. That's the reason why we have decided recently to have that statement read in any meeting where we are present.

Video Clip 1 [00:36:33] Now, to get back to speaking very candidly, one thing that distresses me is to see people classify themselves often as early as age 12 as being lesbian or bisexual or homosexual. That is a self defeating characterization because it changes the way people relate to you, it inhibits your growth and it stands in contrast to saying to a circle of people that love you and will understand. I'm troubled by same gender attraction.

Unpacking the General Conference Messaging

Kyle Ashworth [00:37:16] All right, now there is a lot to unpack here and I want to unpack it in two parts. First, I want to unpack this in the messaging side of this. Again, this can't. Look, the optics of this is terrible for Mormonism.

Kyle Ashworth [00:37:30] But how so I want to, I want to explore that section of it. And then the second part of it is we don't hear that Dallin H. Oaks over the General Conference pulpit. And he kind of explained why because, well, first off, I think we have a problem because a lot of our audience who is listening now are listening from all around the world. I've seen Sweden and Australia and these countries who are represented in the live chat.

Kyle Ashworth [00:37:53] So unfortunately, as Elder Oaks just spoke spoke of in that clip, his messages get sent all around the world. So we're evidence of that, that this message has now been sent all around the world. But we didn't distort the voice. We didn't change it to make it sound like he's saying something different. So I want to discuss this a little bit. Is this problematic again for the church to have an apostle who was recorded without his knowledge saying things that he would never say over a General Conference pulpit, he would never say in public. In fact, he said times the contra something completely contrary. So Gerardo Donovan Connell, what do you initial thoughts or feelings about that particular message?

Connell O'Donovan [00:38:33] First of all, it's been a long time since I've even looked at this or thought about this. But I know there's been a study done about General conference speeches and how they get edited and changed. And I know There have been instances where multiple versions of what a talk has been have been released by the church after they've edited and re edited and they don't match up with the audio video talk that was given. And in some instances they've even gone to the extreme of having general authorities re record their talks as though they're speaking at General Conference, but they're actually in the empty tabernacle or whatever giving a now approved version of the talk that they had given previously that the church didn't want out. So I mean that's. This whole thing is just. It's a mess.

Kyle Ashworth [00:39:35] Well, I think you bring up a great point because in 1976 we all are familiar with Boy K Packers to Young Men Only talk, the great little factory talk.

Connell O'Donovan [00:39:45] Yeah. This is where I, I think I, I remember being present. I think I was sitting up next to the organ because they have overflow seats up near the choir and it was a priesthood meeting and I was a deacon and you were scared out of your mind. I didn't understand what he was talking about. Like a little factory. What. Anyway, sorry.

Kyle Ashworth [00:40:15] So yeah, case in point. That was, that was the Priesthood Session, 1976. The church was so embarrassed years later after because of Boyd K. Packer's discussion. If you go on the church's website today, the. The idea that Boyd K. Packer even spoke in Conference in 1976 is completely gone. The talk is gone. It's been completely deleted. He appears as if he was never even in the building in October of 1976. I think it was October of 1976 in that general Conference meeting. The church has completely wiped and scrubbed it out of its existence. There was an evil and I think I even have in my mission scriptures the to young men only pamphlet that still exists that came off of that talk.

Connell O'Donovan [00:40:59] Yep. I have a copy of it too in my archives.

Gerardo Sumano [00:41:03] Yeah, yeah. I remember reading it in Spanish too in Mexico. Yeah. So I, I think Connell is just talking about this idea that Elder Oaks was, was saying. Right. Like if we say in General Conference we have full control. We don't change things and we have, we can prove what we actually said. If someone says we said something. But like Connell is saying like they are even on record changing stuff on their talks on General Conference. Even like deleting some part of, part of the video. You know, like the one, the one about homosexuality being like from a 70s saying like homosexuality is an addiction.

Kyle Ashworth [00:41:47] No, this is, that's Hartman Rector. That's turning the hearts talk. That was a 22 minute conference talk. He was a, a general authority. He was an apostle. 22 minute conference talk that's been whittled down to 11 minutes. Hartman Rector become a general. He was an apostle.

Connell O'Donovan [00:42:05] I don't think so. Okay, anyway, yeah, it was, it was whittled down to how long?

Kyle Ashworth [00:42:14] 11 minutes. So half, half the talk. And he goes, and I've got this in on the record as well. And you can listen to the side by side, you can watch what the church deleted and as in according and then what's been kept in the written version. But just unbelievable like this, this isn't completely foreign to the church. This seems to be part of the process. And, and that's kind of what I want to try to understand here with Oaks. He, he says it blatantly in the public with this UVA speech, but then we have leaked audio of him doing the same thing, except he then gives examples of the harsh rhetoric that he's going to tell people in private.

Kyle Ashworth [00:42:52] And I, and I think that's where this becomes so problematic in the, the topic of LGBTQ Mormonism is. You are telling me stake and ward leaders something that seems so harsh and, and, and difficult for them to, to, to marry or merge with the General Conference speech. Most of the, most of the,

Guest [00:43:16] the

Kyle Ashworth [00:43:17] excommunications, the punishments that come through Mormonism or from Mormonism to people of our community to the LGBTQ community is happening at the stake in the ward level. So when you have a general authority, the next in line prophet who's visiting and giving these types of messages, I think it becomes problematic because that is the way those bishops and stake presidents are going to handle their ward and stake disciplinary councils because they heard it from a general authority who visited. And I think that's super problematic for Mormonism because, because the official stance of the church is different and you would never get Elder Oaks saying, don't ever come out. Don't mire yourself in a label like being gay directly from a pulpit. And maybe even further, not just an Elder Oaks, but what about a President Nelson or someone else in the church? I think that just becomes problematic. I don't know. Any other comments, thoughts?

Gerardo Sumano [00:44:17] My only thought just to, to end with this, but I, I think the main reason why, oh, it's super interesting to me that he mentions the non recording thing in the middle of his response to the question about identifying as lgbt. So he started giving the answer and then you, if you listen to the whole audio which you can find on, on the record, you'll see that he starts answering the question, and he starts realizing he's starting to get a little bit harsh on the rhetoric. And so he decides to stop, give his message about not being recorded and saying, like, please don't record this.

Gerardo Sumano [00:45:01] And then he goes ahead and talks about, like, using labels is wrong. And what. Just something interesting is that what he's saying there directly contradicts what the church says on its website right now on Same Sex Attraction, the. The new website that they have up that says that people members of the church can identify as LGBT without repercussion.

Guest [00:45:32] Can I.

John Dehlin [00:45:33] Can I just add one quick thing, Kyle?

Kyle Ashworth [00:45:35] Yeah, go ahead.

John Dehlin [00:45:36] This is John. So I think it's really important to contrast his explanation for why they shouldn't take too seriously what he said at BYU Hawaii with what he says in the public. He's basically saying, we speak one way to our members and another way publicly. When you combine with that, his admission that he doesn't want things privately recorded, it seems like what he's really saying is we want to be able to speak very candidly privately to our membership in ways that would be perceived as very disturbing to the general public.

John Dehlin [00:46:21] And so don't record our private conversations because they're embarrassing and disturbing to us. And then know that when we speak publicly, you won't be hearing what we actually tell members behind closed doors. And so the combination of the clip of him acknowledging that he speaks differently privately than he does publicly, with the clip of him saying, don't record this privately, it pretty much shows that they don't want it leaked out publicly what is said behind closed doors because it's embarrassing to the church. It's clear that when they speak to the public, they're trying to manage their brand, manage their image, minimize negative repercussions for what they in fact, actually teach privately. And so for me, sharing those two audio clips side by side is really, really important.

Kyle Ashworth [00:47:13] And I think just to add on top of that, this isn't just an Oaks issue either. In two, I believe it was 2012 or 13 when WikiLeak Mormon WikiLeaks released closed door Apostle meetings. President Ballard was caught in that discussion talking about this very topic, LGBTQ discussions. And he said, there's a reason why we use the word same sex attracted instead of same gender attraction. He's like, clearly we know the difference between the two, but to our membership, the word same sex sounds more derogatory. And when we want to use when we want to make this topic sound more disgusting wasn't his word, but I

Gerardo Sumano [00:47:51] think he Says repulsive.

Kyle Ashworth [00:47:52] Repulsive. We're going to use the phrase same sex attracted because we've made that, that correlation that that's more evil and disgusting. So I agree with that. I think that this is an absolute, this isn't just a optics problem, but this is part of the system of the way this organization is working and laying this out. Great thoughts. Any other last thoughts before we actually jump into electroshock therapy? And really the great big message was this, the big lie. Did President Dallin H. Oaks know about electric shock therapy at BYU prior to, during or after his tenure as president of the school? How do we jump in? Maybe let's start with first Connell telling us, let's just give a little history what we know about the electroshock therapy program. What have you studied and learned in your just decades of research in this space?

Did Church Leaders Know About Electroshock Therapy at BYU

Connell O'Donovan [00:48:52] Well, I'll start with one of the first, first times I attended Affirmation, the support group for LGBT Mormons. And this would have been 87, 88. I had just been asked to be the greeter for the Wasatch chapter of Affirmation. And so I, I, you know, that was, I would greet new people who showed up. And I remember a young man, he was older than me, but, but I was in my early 20s, so he's late 20s, early 30s, named David, who showed up at meetings and he would, he would always sit in the back of the meeting. He wouldn't really talk to anybody. And then as soon as the meeting was over, he'd leave.

Connell O'Donovan [00:49:42] And like on this third time that he showed up, I finally approached him and he literally backed away from me and said, don't come any closer. And I said, sure, yeah, what's, what's going on? And he rolled up his shirt, shirt sleeves to show the insides of his arms and they were like angry hamburger, raw meat.

Connell O'Donovan [00:50:10] And he said, I went through electric shock therapy. I don't recall whether it was at BYU or if he did it with doctor Card or whatever, but I just, I know that he had gone through electric shock therapy and as part of that, he had control over how strong the electric shock was to himself and he had just ripped up his arms with it. Like I said, it looked like just raw hamburger. And, and it had been years since he had been through this and he could not physically touch another human being because of this. He could not be around him. It was so traumatic for him.

Connell O'Donovan [00:51:00] And I just remember thinking, well, I can't, I won't say this on the air, but holy karumba. This Is this is disgusting. So I, I, I was really interested in the, the topic mainly inspired by the trauma that he had gone through and then also because of my own hypnotherapy that I had been going, had gone through.

Connell O'Donovan [00:51:28] So I started and there were rumors that this study had been done at BYU with, for Max Ford McBride. And I was working at the University of Utah at the time in the admissions office. I was the secretary to the director of admissions.

Connell O'Donovan [00:51:50] And as part of the admissions we get. Well, sorry, long story. Forget that. I went to the library and because I knew it was a dissertation. And as part of accreditation as a university, you have to make all your PhD dissertations publicly available for intellectual discussions amongst all scholars.

Connell O'Donovan [00:52:22] When you fail to provide those dissertations, you lose your accreditation. So I go to Marriott Library and there's an index. And there in the index, there it is. Max Ford McBride, 1976. Visual stimuli and electric shock therapy. And then there's a summary, just a one page summary.

Connell O'Donovan [00:52:48] And I was like, oh my gosh, this really does exist. I started to look for a copy of was in the catalog of the University of Utah, but the copy was missing. It had been missing for years. The Library of Congress copy was missing from its shelves.

Connell O'Donovan [00:53:07] I contacted byu, their library, it was missing from their shelves. So someone, and I'm not saying this is, you know, one person or it's coordinated, but randomly over the years, people had taken the copies that were publicly available off the shelves and gotten rid of them so that no one could see these, the copy, no one could see the dissertation.

Connell O'Donovan [00:53:37] And I tried and I tried. Then as a secretary of the admissions office, I, well, I had contacted the psychology department at BYU and had been dismissed like, yeah, it's out there, go find it. And then I, as a secretary, if you've watched MASH, you know that it's Radar O'Reilly who actually runs the entire unit, right? So I was like, ah, I'm the radio radar O'Reilly of admissions office. So I need to contact the radar O'Reilly of the Psych department. So I found one of the lowly secretaries, this woman, and I talked to her and I said, listen, you need to provide me with a copy of this dissertation as soon as possible.

Connell O'Donovan [00:54:30] I'm going to give you three months. If I don't have a copy of it in three months, I'm going to take it to a lawyer and we're going to start examining your accreditation as a university for not providing this dissertation. And she said, you will have it as soon as I can get a copy. And within three weeks she had sent me a Xerox copy of this dissertation by Max Ford McBride from August of 76.

The McBride Dissertation and Its Findings

Kyle Ashworth [00:54:56] All right, let's talk a little bit about that because for so many who are probably watching or listening, this is brand new news. Who this Max Ford. What do we know about Max Ford McBride?

John Dehlin [00:55:07] Hey, Kyle, can I just add one thing? I just want to really establish. This is kind of ham fisted. President Dallin H. Oaks was president of BYU from 1971 to 1980. Okay. I just want to really make sure everyone understands that those are the years basically throughout the 70s. And if you just kind of do the math, this dissertation was published in 1976, which means that it would have been approved and run during the time the Dallin H. Oaks was president. I just want to explicitly answer and emphasize that everybody is asking. I don't think we've made that very clear. So Oaks 71 to 80 dissertation, 1976, smack dab in the middle of Dallin H. Oaks administration. Okay, keep going.

Kyle Ashworth [00:55:58] So, yeah, I just want before we have the ability to read a little bit of the introduction of this dissertation. But what do we know about Max? Max Ford McBride. He goes by Ford. What do we know about Ford McBride?

Connell O'Donovan [00:56:12] I don't know.

Kyle Ashworth [00:56:15] Well, that was easy.

Connell O'Donovan [00:56:16] Sorry, I don't. I don't.

Kyle Ashworth [00:56:20] I actually, it seems like in my. In the back of my memory, I believe he lives in Provo currently and is still a psychologist. But let's go to the study description.

John Dehlin [00:56:35] Do you want me to talk through it, Kyle, or do you want to do that?

Kyle Ashworth [00:56:38] Yeah, yeah, go ahead and talk through that.

John Dehlin [00:56:40] I prepared these slides. You may not know exactly what was prepared. So this is. So for those who are listening,

Guest [00:56:52] the

John Dehlin [00:56:52] title page of the dissertation says effect of visual stimuli in Electric Aversion Therapy. A dissertation presented to the Department of Psychology at Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Max Ford McBride, August 1976. And then if we read the abstract of.

Connell O'Donovan [00:57:15] Can I interject here really quick? So that's a very convoluted academic way of saying we're going to use pornography to see how that affects electric shock therapy. When we do this so that there. These gay men are going to watch straight porn and will make them feel good. You know, there'll be some euphoric stuff going on. And then when they are looking at male nudes, they are going to be shocked so that they associate the shock with male nude bodies. But I just wanted to Clarify that. That's what that means.

John Dehlin [00:58:03] Yeah, you just did a great job of explaining aversion therapy, which is where you give a negative sort of punishment so that the, the people can associate the negative punishment with whatever the stimulus is. It's a way to try. And they. It's basically. It comes out of Skinner and Pavlov, behavioral psychology. Basically, look, looked at rats and pigeons and dogs and tried to figure out how to train rats and pigeons and dogs to do desired behavior. And so once Skinner, Pavlov and Skinner kind of helped develop these techniques within the field of psychology, psychologists in the 50s, 60s and 70s said, hey, let's just apply these types of techniques to humans.

John Dehlin [00:58:48] And that is the spirit of these studies. And so if you actually read the abstract, this is going to be slightly repetitive of what you just said, Connell. But the description or the abstract of the study says two experimental groups of seven subjects each received behavior therapy for male homosexuality, which incorporated aversive conditioning and assertion training. So the aversive conditioning part is the shock therapy. The intent of the study was to determine whether use of nude male and female pitchers are a necessary requisite for successful treatment.

John Dehlin [00:59:30] Indices of change included subjective rating of male and female slides used in treatment, plethysmographic impact measured by penile volume change to a standard set of male and female slides not used in treatment, and a self report questionnaire that measured sexual orientation.

John Dehlin [00:59:57] And if we actually, we have a video that kind of explains. But really quickly, I'll. Just. Before we go to the video, I'll just read a couple more things from the study just so that we can understand kind of scientifically what they're doing.

John Dehlin [01:00:11] So according to experimental group assigned, they rated either nude or clothed female and male pictures on a scale from 1 to 10, a rating of 1 signified sexual repulsion, 5 signified sexual neutrality, and 9 high sexual attraction. So they basically show nude photos, male and female, to the participants and they rate their level of traction attraction to the photos.

Connell O'Donovan [01:00:39] This then this is on campus.

John Dehlin [01:00:42] Yeah.

Connell O'Donovan [01:00:43] Where pornography is not allowed.

John Dehlin [01:00:46] Probably in the Kimmel Tower. Right.

Guest [01:00:47] Or.

John Dehlin [01:00:48] Or no, maybe it's in the, in the Counseling and Psychological Services center. In the Wilkinson Center. In the.

Guest [01:00:55] Yeah.

Kyle Ashworth [01:00:56] And I think.

John Dehlin [01:00:57] Go ahead.

Electroshock Therapy at BYU: Evidence and Details

Kyle Ashworth [01:00:57] Definitely something we should talk about because the fair Mormon version of these events specifically say that were there was no nudity ever used at BYU in these studies, that the idea of pornography being used at BYU is an absolute falsehood.

John Dehlin [01:01:16] Yeah.

Kyle Ashworth [01:01:16] True or false.

Guest 2 [01:01:18] So.

Gerardo Sumano [01:01:18] So they have. Basically they based that claim claim on an interview they did with a Psychology professor who did electroshock therapy on. On gay students at byu. But the professor says that he was never like, he did it by himself. Just he recruited students. He recruited people from his own students. People would come to him because of word of mouth. He would not accept people coming from. Referred from the honor code or ecclesiastical leaders. So. And he says he was not aware of any other electroshock or aversion therapy experiments going on in the 70s while he was doing this. So. But it seems like there was a division between the professor, this professor that fair Mormon uses as a source and what was actually happening outside. You know, the professor side.

John Dehlin [01:02:20] But this abstract answers that question. It says nude male and female pictures. So clearly, clearly nude female and male pictures are being shown.

Guest [01:02:33] Yeah.

Kyle Ashworth [01:02:33] And I think it's just unbelievably disingenuous for the apologist side of Mormonism to say nothing more than just sport. In fact, I think they say things like Sports Illustrated, just physical fitness magazines, sports magazines, things like.

Gerardo Sumano [01:02:50] Yeah, the professor said that whenever. If it was any kind of nudity, it would be art, kind of like. Like Michelangelo's kind of statues, but nothing else. That's what the professors says.

Guest [01:03:04] But.

Gerardo Sumano [01:03:05] But he also says that nothing else went on, and we know that it did.

Kyle Ashworth [01:03:10] Yeah, let's go to the. Let's go to the video. Let's get an understanding from first or. Unless you were gonna hit.

John Dehlin [01:03:14] Oh yeah, just very quickly. So the. The study continues. After the slides are rated, a phallometric test was employed to measure. This is from the dissertation, so I'm just giving the technical description from the dissertation. Then we'll show the video. To have a human describe, a phallometric test was employed to measure physiologic physiological arousal to male and female stimuli through a VCS tape.

John Dehlin [01:03:41] That's a cassette. A video cassette tape, which gen Zers won't know what that is. It's a precursor to streamed video on Netflix. A brief explanation was given concerning how the apparatus operated and how it should be fitted on the penis. It was then privately fitted by the subject and worn unobtrusively under his clothes. All participants viewed a series of 30 male slides and 30 female slides. Subjects in both groups viewed the same slides, which were viewed through a gookie hand slide reviewer. Subjects were instructed to fantasize whatever was sexually arousing using the picture as the main stimulus for fantasy development.

John Dehlin [01:04:23] Female standard VCS were viewed first. Male standard VCS were then viewed. When there was no measurable arousal shown in the pleisthysemographysmograph thank you. The CER phase was accomplished through the use of respondent procedures. The therapy VCS 35 millimeter slides of nude males in different poses.

John Dehlin [01:04:50] Enclosed males in poses for a different group was paired with the UCS or the electric shock. Each CER trial was comprised of 30 male therapy VCS individually shown. Subject was instructed and encouraged from time to time to project his typical homosexual fantasies and thoughts to the scenes depicted in each slide. Three CER trials occurred each section for six to ten sessions. So we know there were six to ten sessions.

John Dehlin [01:05:17] Pain thresholds to shock were established. The procedure was used. The procedure used was similar to the one employed by Epstein and Ropenain in 1970. At the beginning of each session, pain thresholds were set. A graded series of discrete shocks were delivered to each subject at the belly of the bicep. Duration of shock was approximately 3 seconds with an in tertial inter trial interval of approximately 10 seconds. The intensity of the first shock was 0.5 Ma and the intensity of each successive shock was increased by 0.5mA until either the shock was rated as barely tolerable or painful or a maximum level of 4.5 MA was reached.

John Dehlin [01:06:06] If during the conditioning procedure the shock level became more tolerable, it was increased in a stepwise manner to avoid habituation. Conversely, if the shock level became intolerable, it was decreased in a stepwise manner. And then finally, the criteria for terminating, criteria for termination of this phase was determined by completion of at least six sessions or reported inability or pronounced difficulty fantasizing to male stimuli or or reported difficulty establishing or maintaining interest in the slides and reported indifference or repulsion towards the mail slides. So keep doing this until you are no longer, you know, Keep doing this until you report indifference or repulsion to the mail slides.

John Dehlin [01:06:55] We'll keep shocking you until you're repulsed or indifferent to the mail slides. These criteria were determined by subjective verbal reports from each subject. So I mean, and then I think just the most important part is to show the consent form that people had to sign.

John Dehlin [01:07:14] This is the consent form from McBride 1976 and I'll just read a little bit of it. I, the subject witnessed the fact that I have had explanation to me all of the various ramifications of experimental aversion techniques used to counter condition inappropriate emotional propensities like those of my own. I fully realize that these procedures are experimental in nature of their design and application and that their application to me will likely produce a great deal of discomfort and that perhaps, and this is important tissue or organ Damage could result.

John Dehlin [01:07:53] Nevertheless, I allow to. I agree to allow Dr. Eugene Thorne and his clinical associates to administer these experimental aversive techniques to me in a way that in their judgment would seem appropriate to therapeutic objectives.

Connell O'Donovan [01:08:11] So Dr. Thorne was the head of the psych department and Ford McBride was under his supervision.

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:20] So. Okay, I'm just realizing this and I'm. I'm a little bit shocked because.

Connell O'Donovan [01:08:26] No pun intended.

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:28] It. It is.

Guest 2 [01:08:32] It is.

Gerardo Sumano [01:08:33] It is. Dr. Thorne who was interviewed by Fair Mormon and Dr. Thorne. I was just barely listening to that interview. And Dr. Thorne and the. The person asked. The. The person from fair Mormon asking. Dr. Thorne, he. He asks him several questions. He asks, do you use pornographic or nudity? And I already said what Dr. Thorn said. And he says, did you. Did you place this electroshock therapy in the genitals of. Of. Of your subjects?

Guest [01:09:14] And

Gerardo Sumano [01:09:17] I'm going to confirm this just really quick. But doctor, I'm pretty sure it's Dr. Thorne who says, no, that would be outrageous. That's not the exact word he uses. But he says that that would be crazy.

Connell O'Donovan [01:09:29] Right?

Gerardo Sumano [01:09:30] We would put it on their arms, on their. On their. On their legs, but never. Never on. On their. On their genitals.

Connell O'Donovan [01:09:39] So. Gerardo, the platysmograph is a cuff that went over their penis that would measure erections. That. That's what this is they talked about. The electric shock did go just to the bicep.

Guest 2 [01:09:54] Okay.

Connell O'Donovan [01:09:55] It was not. They did not shock the genitals.

Gerardo Sumano [01:09:58] Okay. Okay. That makes the subjects.

John Dehlin [01:10:00] And Gerardo, just to your point, here is the signatures of committee approval. And Dr. Eugene Thorne is the committee chair of this study. And he is right there on, you know, his signatures right there.

Kyle Ashworth [01:10:14] I just want to point out dates again in terms of this discussion. President Oaks said when he took over BYU in 1971. This has already been dismissed, abandoned, disassembled. It did not exist. We have the McBride study from 1976 with the receipts with the signatures of members who were at BYU at the same time President Oaks was president.

John Dehlin [01:10:41] Yeah. Yep. All right. Do you guys want to play the video now?

Connell O'Donovan [01:10:47] You need to return to the. The consent form. There was. Still. Didn't. Wasn't. There was one last little piece that.

Guest [01:10:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:10:54] Yeah. Okay.

Connell O'Donovan [01:10:55] Oh, it was just about the pornography that.

John Dehlin [01:10:58] Yeah.

Connell O'Donovan [01:11:00] Some of these. The last sentence in the second paragraph. Some of these materials could be construed to be socially or morally offensive.

John Dehlin [01:11:09] I'll read it. I also witnessed the fact that the visual, auditory and other sensory modality stimuli used to counter condition my Inappropriate emotional propensities. That's loaded language. Have been either provided by me or I have agreed to use them as directed by Dr. D. Eugene Thorne and his clinical associates. Some of these materials could be construed to be socially or morally offensive. And I do want to read the last part. Finally, I released Dr. D. Eugene Thorne and his clinical associates from all legal liabilities that could result from treatment provided me from them and from any communication of my case materials to other clinically oriented individuals. So it's making sure there's no liability for any damage that may occur.

Connell O'Donovan [01:11:58] Yeah.

Guest [01:12:01] Wow.

Kyle Ashworth [01:12:01] Unbelievable.

Gerardo Sumano [01:12:05] I just hadn't made the connection because I was listening to Dr. Thorne who. Who on Fair Mormon. I think this was in.

Guest 2 [01:12:12] Back.

Gerardo Sumano [01:12:13] Back in 2012. And he's just saying pretty much how everything was so good. Electroshock therapy or aversion therapy was with everyone just entered into full consent. They could leave whenever they wanted. No one was harmed. They asked him specifically if, like, if. If someone like, had any organs or any like, part of their skin damaged and he says no, that would be crazy. So. So it's just really interesting to actually see the paperwork that, that the students or whoever was part of the. The experiment had to.

Guest 2 [01:12:54] To agree.

John Dehlin [01:12:56] And I just, I will talk about this later, but I just don't see how Elder Oaks can say that this stopped in 1969. I don't see how there's any way that that could be said. And now that it. If, if it weren't known then, it's clearly known now. And I don't know why this wouldn't merit a really public and candid apology. But we'll come back to that. We'll come back to that. Yeah.

Kyle Ashworth [01:13:23] Let's listen to the firsthand account because I think this really explains in a very concise and precise way of the way this program rolled out and not only how the electroshock treatment worked, but the receipts, the location, the times, how this all unfolded. And then we'll discuss that as after this little clip.

John Dehlin [01:13:45] And this video comes from Latter Gay Stories YouTube channel. So thank you, Kyle, for helping make all this available.

Kyle Ashworth [01:13:52] Yeah. And it originally was produced in 1996 under A. The title of Legacies. And it interviews a handful of men who had experiences or understanding of the shock treatment that was happening, the electroshock therapies that was happening specifically at byu.

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [01:14:13] And now here's another true story. I was in my junior year at byu and of course you want to do. It was almost like being like an apprentice or learning how to treat Patients. And one of the things that we could do and we could volunteer for it was to do the electric shock therapy therapy for people who wanted to change their sexual orientation.

Video Clip 2 [01:14:44] And at the time, of course, I knew that I was gay. I had experiences and everything and I had no desire myself to change my orientation. However, I thought it was really interesting that there were people who did. And I was very closeted at the time. Even though I did have a lover at the time, I was really closeted.

Video Clip 2 [01:15:06] And so we did the therapy as we referred to it then in the basement of the Smith Family Living center on the BYU campus. A lot of times like BYU security would catch people like in compromising positions or whatever. And they had the choice of either being kicked out of school and their families called and informed about what they had done, or they could undergo this therapy. And so we had quite a few people who were going through it. And then there were other people who felt like so much guilt over their sexuality or had been promised that they, if they went, underwent this therapy that they'd be able to marry and have children and they would just be turned away.

Video Clip 2 [01:15:58] Of course they had to have the desire to change. Therefore, if the therapy failed, then it was always their fault because they didn't have enough desire to change. But anyway, they would come in usually three times a week.

Video Clip 2 [01:16:14] I would be behind a glass, one way mirror, quite a large mirror I'd be sitting behind there and. And they would be on the other side of that. And they had the choice. They could look at pornographic magazines or we would show videos up on the wall.

Video Clip 2 [01:16:37] And we would tape electrodes to their groin and about three or four inches down from that on their thigh. Then we would also tape up on their chest. And we taped somewhere else too. I think it was, it was up close to the armpits.

Video Clip 2 [01:16:59] And then we had another machine that would monitor their, their breathing and their heart rate. And what we would do is we would let them look at this stuff. And when we, we. And, and if they were looking at homosexual pornographic material, we would wait until we could tell a difference in their heart rate.

Video Clip 2 [01:17:23] We had a dial that we turned and that would determine the amount of current that would go into the shot. And if they were a new patient, then the current would be very low. And we would wait until we saw that they were getting aroused and then we would push a button and the, the voltage would go into the wire.

Video Clip 2 [01:17:43] And from the reaction that I saw them and also the muscle spasms that went on, I'm sure that it was painful. And then after we did that, then we would. Then we would. The movies would automatically switch over and we would show a man and a woman having sex and we would play very soothing music in the background to try and get the mind to relate to that. When we got into the higher voltage with the people who had been doing it longer, you could see burn marks on the skin. And quite often they would also throw up during the therapy.

Video Clip 2 [01:18:26] I mean, this is just speculation, but most of the students there at BYU had never seen any pornograph after undergoing that kind of pain over a period of a couple of months. Anybody would say would admit that they had completely changed.

Video Clip 2 [01:18:46] What they did was they kept records for as long as the people were at byu. And then after they left byu, there was no records kept to see what kind of success rate they had had. And the statistics from just the byu. I mean, these people were lying. I mean, they were desperate to get their degree and to get out of that situation. They had been blackmailed into that situation in the first place. We did have some people who became completely asexual after undergoing the therapy, but no, we never changed anyone from gay to straight.

Guest [01:19:26] This is the way it must happen. This is the way it.

Survivor Accounts of Electroshock Therapy

Kyle Ashworth [01:19:32] Connell, your many opportunities to interview people in this space who experienced electroshock therapy, how familiar is that account with those of the experiences that you were able to document?

John Dehlin [01:20:03] You need to.

Connell O'Donovan [01:20:04] I just. I. Sorry.

Kyle Ashworth [01:20:05] There we go.

Connell O'Donovan [01:20:06] Okay.

Kyle Ashworth [01:20:09] I.

Connell O'Donovan [01:20:09] So I have a. I just noticed that he, I think, said there were electrodes, the shock electrodes on the genitals. And, And I do have a hard time believing that. I don't. I. I don't think that that could have happened.

John Dehlin [01:20:24] Is it possible that there were different versions of the study time and that maybe in the 60s and early 70s there were different iterations of the.

Connell O'Donovan [01:20:33] Of course there abs. I'm sure there were. The, the only one I've been able to document, like I said with receipts, has been the, the Ford McBride study. But. And, and this doesn't even sound like it was a study that Ray was participating in. If this was just run of the mill therapy that they were doing with whatever student happened to come in.

Connell O'Donovan [01:20:58] So that, and that's a whole other thing then. And another reaction I have. I want to slap Ray for participating in this. And there's almost a little smirkiness about him in describing his participation. I'm just like, wow, you.

Connell O'Donovan [01:21:20] You saw all this horrible stuff going on and you kept going with it. That. That makes me angry. Yeah. So the the only person that I have actually talked to about, the only. The only person I was able to find who participated in Ford McBride study was a man named John, who participated, and then later on he wrote a play about it called 14, because that's the number of subjects in. In the experiment. But it. And it just, you know, it messed him up horribly. But I did meet a lesbian once years and years and years ago, and she said she had gone through aversive conditioning at BYU in the mid-70s. That's the only woman that I know of that had claimed that that happened.

Kyle Ashworth [01:22:20] And I think that's probably a really great topic too, because we don't talk much about the women's side of it. We often think that this is just a male driven therapy program, but it's a patriarchy.

Connell O'Donovan [01:22:33] Women don't count. Sorry, I'm being flippant.

Kyle Ashworth [01:22:37] Okay, so now. Now we're even the bald joke. And

John Dehlin [01:22:43] I have a question. I remember talking to Carolyn Pearson about the electroshock therapy and her. I believe I remember her reporting to me that. That she had. She had heard accounts of some of these participants, eventually in these electroshock therapy studies, dying by suicide.

Connell O'Donovan [01:23:05] That's in her. That's in her book, Goodbye, I love you.

Guest [01:23:07] She.

Connell O'Donovan [01:23:08] She talks about that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:11] Yeah. So one of the reasons why we may not have living people to. To tell the stories is because they're no longer alive, right?

Kyle Ashworth [01:23:20] Well, yeah. And behind the scenes, Connell and I have discussed this. The advent of Affirmation, which he open this episode with. The history behind the beginning of Affirmation started with the apparent suicide of two men. And then Robert McQueen, his history in this space, said that there were five men that had completed suicide as a result of this. So there's seven there.

Kyle Ashworth [01:23:51] I wish we had more of those receipts. I wish we knew more of the stories of those who. Who did take their lives during this period, which, again, I think we need to make absolute clear with clarity, this was during the time President Oaks was the president of byu. And I think it begs the question, if there were seven suicides that took place at BYU as a result of some of these treatments, that wouldn't be newsworthy, right? I mean, someone should be paying attention to five or seven suicides, I would think.

Connell O'Donovan [01:24:26] Yeah, but I mean, suicide is such a taboo topic, especially back then. We're getting more comfortable talking about it and admitting it. But, you know, back then, if someone committed suicide, it was not in the obituary it made. It may not even actually be. Well, I'm not sure about the legality of a doctor lying on a death certificate. But, you know, to make the family feel comfortable, people did whatever was necessary so that you weren't embarrassed by.

Church Surveillance and Institutional Secrecy

Kyle Ashworth [01:25:06] And I think that is a good point because I discussed this with the president of Affirmation, Nathan Kitchen, yesterday, and he brought up a really great point about the visibility of these names. This topic was so taboo and it was so there was such a level of ostracism around this topic that few people even use their real names in discussing a lot of their experiences. They, they. I mean that. That's maybe a testament to where we're at today. We're finally able to. To be really open and out in public and discuss these, these topics with real names, with real people, with real lived experiences, because that wasn't something that existed.

Kyle Ashworth [01:25:43] And I've noticed in the chat, in our Facebook and our YouTube chat, in this particular event, how many people were Talking about the 1970s era where the church was creating secret surveillance programs. They were using the law enforcement to root out homosexuals everywhere. Campus cops, the BYU honor code that we want to get to and discuss a little bit. But there were so many ways the church was trying to root out gay people that it just wasn't safe to come out at all.

Guest 2 [01:26:14] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [01:26:15] And the way the church was also talking about the subject publicly and well, at least at BYU and sometimes in General Conference, you know,

Guest [01:26:28] it.

Gerardo Sumano [01:26:28] I think it is hard, you know, because something that Dr. Eugene Thorne talks about on, on the podcast is that during, during that time there was so much polarization on the subject of homosexuality and not many people, especially conservative people, did not agree with it having been removed from DSM as a pathology. So, so they still like. And because he was there for so long, like they still had those beliefs that it was something that had to be cured. But there is a question that, like if it's the. The univers, the Lord's university, guided by someone who was going to be the. An apostle and why. Why was this not seen, you know, like, and unknown and, and, and prevented.

Kyle Ashworth [01:27:29] I think it's a great point.

John Dehlin [01:27:32] I was just going to add. I was so disturbed to learn that, that basically they would. They would see if they could catch a BYU student who was gay or lesbian behaving inappropriately that, that when they'd be reported to the honor code officer, to bishops or whatever, that the, that the bishops and. Or, you know, BYU leaders would basically say, you need to go to this therapy or you'll be kicked out of the university. So basically People were channeled to the study from church leaders, and they were channeled to the study under threat of being kicked out of the university. That's the sort of coercion that feels really, you know, it's coercion into a program that.

John Dehlin [01:28:20] Where you have to sign a consent form acknowledging that you could have organ damage or tissue damage as a result of the study. The ethics of that are triply troubling given that people were coerced and kind of forced into the study under threat of being kicked out of the university.

Kyle Ashworth [01:28:40] I had a active Latter Day Saint who really tried to push back on what we've just been discussing over the last few minutes, saying there is no evidence that these secret surveillance programs existed. There's no documentation. This is all hypothetical and speculative. And I just pointed them to chapter six of the Miracle of Forgiveness. Spencer Kimball outlies, or puts it right in words in chapter six.

Kyle Ashworth [01:29:04] The. The underground systems that they were creating to root out via surveillance, gay people. And, and the other point that I wanted to bring up too, that we started with, it wasn't just men, but it was women as well. I interviewed Judith Mayer, who is an artist who painted some of Mormonism's most iconic art in the Gospel Library Kit. She's a lesbian. She was a lesbian when she attended BYU, closeted, obviously, in the 60s and 70s. But she was hired to spy on lesbian women or people that they. They thought. So she was an ra.

Kyle Ashworth [01:29:45] They hired her to spy on lesbian women, purported lesbian women, and then report that back to President Dye, Gerald Dye, in this university, university administration office, or what would eventually become the honor code office. So I think this is interesting space where it's, it's well documented, just also well hidden. And try maybe the church is again pulling an Elder oaks and trying to do their very, very best at throwing this all away.

Connell O'Donovan [01:30:17] There was also, I have on my website the LGBT history of Mormonism that I've put up there. There was a class at byu. It was just a Justice Administration and, and there was a number that went along with it. You could get credit for doing spy work against LGBT BYU students. And one of these men took advantage of that and he started entrapping people who were attending affirmation, who were BYU students. He put in. He put in an ad in the paper saying, oh, I'm a gay Mormon and I really need help some, you know, please contact me. And so these unsuspecting men would go ahead and, and contact him. And, and he got credit for it. This. He got university credit for For. For doing this spy work.

Kyle Ashworth [01:31:32] We've got your website, the address to your website.

John Dehlin [01:31:35] We've got a visual of it. It's connellodonovan.com and/lgbtmormons.HTML. yeah, it's. It's called the Abominable and detestable Crime against Nature. A revised history of Homosexuality and Mormonism 1840-1980 and we'll add that to the show notes.

Kyle Ashworth [01:31:58] Yeah, incredible. Maybe should we spend the next couple of minutes. All right, let's. Electroshock therapy. Anything that we. We didn't talk about that we should have brought up in this topic especially in relation to President Oaks statement that this was completely disabandoned prior to him taking over as president.

An Apology and Its Significance

Connell O'Donovan [01:32:21] No, I can't think of anything else.

Kyle Ashworth [01:32:23] I think we're good.

Gerardo Sumano [01:32:25] There's one. Just one thing about Gerald Die. So he was named by Darling Oaks as the head of what is now called the honor code office. He was. He was called back then the university standards office and he. He was the head of it from n 1971 to 1980. Place put in place by. By Elder Oaks. And then when Elder Oaks stopped being the president of university he stopped being head of it. And he's on record on. And he's quoted on a book stating that electroshock therapy happened at BYU during his time as the head of the honor code office in some homosexual, in some cases of homosexuality. I just wanted to bring that up.

Kyle Ashworth [01:33:22] Let's talk a little bit about the. The players at the table. We haven't talked much about Robert Card who has been disaffectionately known as the shock father who had a wild history at BYU and then some of the other psychologists that also played a part of. In pushing the narrative. I'm not saying the electric shock therapy portion of this but the narrative behind change therapy or mixed orientation marriages or the Spencer Kimball method of bloody knuckles, calloused knees, bruised forehead methods of solving homosexuality within Mormonism. So we have Dr. Robert Card, Dr. Alan Bergen, Dr. Lindsay Curtis. We've talked about Dr. Thorne, Victor L. Brown who is the presiding bishop. Dean Byrd is another name. We haven't discussed much. What do we know about these. These gentlemen? What insights can you add Connell to some of those names within this space?

Connell O'Donovan [01:34:26] So I focused mainly update 1980 on my queer history of Mormonism. So I don't know much about what happened later. And then as far as Dr. Alan Bergen who who was at BYU, I have since befriended him. He had a gay son who. Who died who had been an email friend of mine. And

Guest [01:34:55] he.

Connell O'Donovan [01:34:58] Bergen's son, was really traumatized by his father's role and what had happened at BYU in the mid-70s and into the 80s. And since. Since his. His son's death, Alan Bergen has made a complete turnabout and has formally apologized for his role in anything that he's done to hurt the LGBT community. And he is fully, fully supportive of us now. And I just want to acknowledge that, you know, and he's. He's getting older now and. And is having health issues, but I. I was. I. I was so grateful to get to meet with him. I held a lot of anger against him for many years. And so it was good to let go of that and. And know that he had come around and is woke, as we say. So I just wanted to put that out there.

Kyle Ashworth [01:36:01] I think that's important because the Bergen family has a lot of history in this space, and Alan was quite influential. He left Columbia University. Columbia University to work at byu. And not specific to the LGBTQ issues, but they were the events of the time and then surrounding Dean Byrd, Robert Card, Curtis Brown. I mean, all of these big names that were. That were championing or heralding this new method of conversion or reversion therapies. It was easy to get caught up in that. And it was on the Latter Gay Stories podcast, through our podcast, that Alan Bergen made that official apology. And it was one of the most touching things I had read in this space, because for so many queer Latter Day Saints, they only want an apology.

Kyle Ashworth [01:36:50] They are looking for the church to become accountable for the treatments, the electric shock therapies, the aversion therapies, the therapies that happen in stake, in bishop's office and stake President's offices, over those tables, in those personal interviews. So many are just looking for an apology and then moving from those spaces into better understanding. But the Bergen apology, I think, was. Was fantastic. And you can read that if you haven't read that yet. It's also in on the Record, and it's just. It's just beautiful and kind, and it's the approach that more Latter Day Saint leaders need to take in this topic. So I thank you, Connell.

Kyle Ashworth [01:37:31] Not in specifically speaking on behalf of the Bergen family, but I think they would appreciate that. That message there that you gave, I think that was sweet.

Connell O'Donovan [01:37:41] And I keep thinking what Oakes could have done, the power that he had to do something really positive when he was asked that question, and he could have said, you know, stuff went on. I'm embarrassed. I'm in shit. I'm ashamed of it. Or even if he really honestly didn't know that it was happening during his administration, still to a point, apologize and say, I. I don't know that it did. I don't think it did. If it did, I'm really sorry, you know, that we've. I've. I've come a long way. The church has come a long way. It could have been a really super powerful moment of healing and growth and, and progress. But, you know, it just that we have to have this damn podcast here to talk about him lying about it just. Oh, it's really aggravating.

Kyle Ashworth [01:38:40] And I think that's exactly why we. We're having this discussion. And, and it's the problem. We had an Oaks who gave, in my opinion, a cons. Kind of a conciliatory speech. He was able to rally around that message that you just talked about. Connell maybe putting laying down our weapons of war and some of these battles that are not worth winning or fighting and coalescing behind a common message that, that there are real people behind this topic. And I thought his University of Virginia speech had the ability to do that because there were some really decent conciliatory messages in there. There were other things that I, as a.

Kyle Ashworth [01:39:21] As a gay person, wasn't in love with either. But that, That I suppose is the politics of the message. But then when the leaked audio comes out and you listen to what he was talking about before this speech, I think that's what makes this, this episode so damning.

Kyle Ashworth [01:39:39] And I couldn't agree more. What an. What a lost opportunity for Mormonism. What a lost opportunity for President Oaks, who has the stain of these electric electroshock therapies on his hands as president of byu, to not look at that and say, wow, we have a tough history in this space and we have done so much better. We haven't done good enough. I mean, there's a variety of apologies that could have taken place, but it was a missed opportunity. It was actually. It was a terrible way of rolling that out. Thoughts, John or Gerardo? I will.

Gerardo Sumano [01:40:17] I completely agree with you, Kyle.

Guest 2 [01:40:20] It.

Guest [01:40:21] It.

Gerardo Sumano [01:40:22] I think it's just. Instead of helping or even just being neutral, it adds to the hurt and, and the.

Guest 2 [01:40:34] You.

Gerardo Sumano [01:40:34] You know, the damage that the Church has done in. In many people like us in our lives. You know, like I, I went through conversion therapy. Connell did as well. And just this, that. The fact that the church doesn't want to recogn or the. The church doesn't want to recognize its er. That Elder Oaks had the chance to, to give an apology or, or like even Connell said, just admit that he didn't know about it, say that he didn't know about it, just take a different position. He just decides to be defensive about it, say that he didn't have anything to do with it, or like that it didn't even happen when we know he did. And so it just adds to the hurt of many of us.

Kyle Ashworth [01:41:23] And I was just trying to pull that up as you were speaking because I wanted to get, and I wanted to let the audience hear what he said because we know, I mean, we know the leaked audio and media outlets all over. I just got a notification today that a newspaper in LA just picked it up as well. But I just wanted to read what the church spokesman said because Oaks didn't address it completely.

Gerardo Sumano [01:41:56] This is after the Tribune reached out to the church and was asked for, for a comment because for the article they were going to write.

John Dehlin [01:42:08] Did you post this on your Facebook page, Kyle?

Kyle Ashworth [01:42:11] Yeah, I did and I just found it here. Oaks. So this is Doug Anderson, church public spokesman Oakes says. Oakes declines to comment on the discrepancy between his memory and the research. Then Doug Anderson pointed to the 2016 public statement saying either the church denounces any therapy, including conversion and reparative therapies, that subjects an individual to abusive practices, not only in Utah, but throughout the world. Just a standard Statement from the 2006 Conversion Therapy Discussion that the church had released. But to me, I mean, that's just amazing. The message was he. He declines to comment on this discrepancy between his memory and the research. So disingenuous like Connell brought up, I think this is another missed opportunity.

Kyle Ashworth [01:43:06] Not only if, if in the heat of the moment in Virginia, he doesn't understand the question, he answers it the wrong way. Here was an opportunity to redeem himself and to explain. Exactly. After resting and having a refresh and a reset and he doubles down again and he says there's a discrepancy perhaps between memory and research, but we affirm that it didn't exist. Unbelievable, in my opinion.

John Dehlin [01:43:35] Yeah, there's really no excuse for a lack of apology there, given how many people were hurt and the evidence that's so clear.

Connell O'Donovan [01:43:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:43:45] But because Elder Oaks is on record as saying we neither seek nor give apologies, he's, he's acting consistently with his, with his, his public position, which is that if you're an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, you do not ever apologize.

Kyle Ashworth [01:44:06] I don't know how we make progress in this space. I don't know how the Mormon Church makes progress in this space under those terms. It's. That's a difficult thing. It's a difficult road to hoe. Any final thoughts? What haven't we talked about that we should have talked about? Any other things you wanted to add Connell to the electroshock experience? And where do we go from here? Where does Mormonism go from here, in your opinion?

Connell O'Donovan [01:44:34] I'm a non believer, so to me it's irrelevant. Sorry.

Kyle Ashworth [01:44:38] But I think it's relevant to the audience, to the LGBTQ audience, because the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, especially in Utah, has such a. Such a hold, not only at a legislative level, but a public level, within an ecumenical church and at home. How do we make progress in this space with such a monster who is unwilling to deviate from the message?

Gerardo Sumano [01:45:11] I think, you know, it's hard because as. As you were talking right now, Kyle, it just reminds me that there, There, there might be LGBTQ youth in the audience who is. Who are listening to us, you know, who are still trying to figure out where they stand in their beliefs with the church.

Gerardo Sumano [01:45:33] The way we have been conditioned from many of us from birth to believe in the church and, and, and our families taking us to church and teaching us what the church teaches, those. Those are really hard things to deprogram ourselves and detach ourselves from, from the way we've been conditioned to think about ourselves, about our identity.

Gerardo Sumano [01:45:59] The church has made a little bit of progress by trying to focus more on. On the divine identity of individuals, teaching, trying to teach LGBT youth that they are sons and daughters of God and that's what they should be concentrating on.

Gerardo Sumano [01:46:19] But it goes both ways because that could be used as a weapon because the church gets to describe what that means and what, what. And what that's supposed to lead people to do. And while there is so many advocates out there who are still members of the church, but they want to see more progress, I think it. We all have to consider the implications of everything that we're advocating for. So if we are out there advocating for staying in the church or the church making progress, we need to see how the church is using its rhetoric to either control or hurt or damage some LGBT members.

Kyle Ashworth [01:47:08] I like it. John, clinically closing thoughts on what impact does this have on a community when the. Sometimes I hate saying this, but sometimes it's the abuser. When the abuser continues to abuse and. And to talk in terms of the abuser and the abused. How do we rise above this? And how do we take statements that are patently false, just blatantly false, and still try to support a community that's marginalized?

Closing Reflections and the Path Forward

John Dehlin [01:47:40] I mean, I think they say sometimes that sunlight is the best disinfectant. And I'm really grateful, I'm really grateful that this happened because one of the most damaging teachings within Mormonism is that, you know, the, the prophet seers and revelators speak for God and that they're the most honest and honor honorable men in the church.

John Dehlin [01:48:05] And, you know, you know, I, I forget things all the time. My memory is bad. This, the point here isn't to jump on a 90 year old man or an 89 year old man and say, no one can ever forget anything and let's pick on an old, old guy who forgot something. I don't think that's what we're doing. And it's not even to sort of just find an excuse to pick apart the church leaders. But if I'm thinking about these LGBT youth, and it's somewhere between 5, 5 to 10% of more active Mormon youth right now fit somewhere along the LGBTQ spectrum. What this, what this story helps to do is to give us some very clear ammo where we now have Elder Oaks publicly denying something basically that, that this, that this research happened while he was president, and we know that it happened right smack dab in the middle of his administration.

John Dehlin [01:49:04] And if we can spread the word about this, this story, which we're doing here, it can help active Mormon parents teach their children, if they're willing or have their, their children find out, their LGBTQ children find out. If their parents or the church aren't willing to tell them that they should take what Mormon apostles, prophets, seers and revelators say with a grain of salt, that they don't have to believe everything they teach, that sometimes they make mistakes and sometimes they even publicly lie.

John Dehlin [01:49:44] And hopefully that the, the sunlight and the transparency, thanks to Connell o' Donovan being willing to come on, thanks to you, Kyle, being willing to cover this because of, because we're covering this, it's going to help maybe some LGBTQ youth, just Mormon youth realize that they don't have to always believe and follow. And then, and then from that, hopefully parents can be more affirming to the Mormon parents can be more affirming to their, their LGBTQ youth, and they can start directing their LGBTQ youth to places like Encircle, where they're going to find an affirming environment that's supportive and they can get the support they need.

John Dehlin [01:50:28] Ultimately, I think the number one cause of, of, you know, suicidal ideation and, or death by suicide within Mormonism is parental or familial rejection. That's what the, that's what Caitlyn Ryan and the Family Acceptance Project has shown. And so if we can get more and more and more believing Mormon parents, and this is what you do so well, Kyle, if, if more and more believing Mormon parents again can understand that these leaders make big mistakes sometimes, and if they can inoculate their LGBTQ believing Mormon youth against thinking of these leaders as speaking for God, I think that's where, where the most positivity is going to come.

John Dehlin [01:51:18] Parents, Mormon parents believing and embracing and celebrating their LGBTQ youth is and all Mormon believers learning to, to downgrade the teachings of Mormon prophets, seers and revelators from the word of God to the opinions of men that sometimes are just not true, factually untrue.

Kyle Ashworth [01:51:43] And I think that is the great divide that's happened in this space is we have went from a culture of believing exactly what you just talked about, of policy and pulpit to people and personal revelation. And as we focus more on the person and the real lived experiences of the LGBTQ community, that's where we start seeing the progress. And I think very bluntly, that's also where we start seeing the disaffection where a parent can look at their gay son or daughter and say he or she or they are none of the things that the prophets and apostles told us about these people and in this particular topic.

Kyle Ashworth [01:52:19] And that's where this great divide has happened and that's where the change will happen as well, in my opinion. But we can't do it without great people stories, individual experiences like we've shared today, the decades of research that Connell has added into this space, which I think is absolutely invaluable and just a nod to you, Connell, as a closeted gay Latter Day Saint who was all in 100% trying to do everything possible.

Kyle Ashworth [01:52:48] I fell into your research and I studied so much of what you wrote and I tried to correlate and studied so much of what you were able to accumulate. And I was just trying to put all those pieces together because I was none of the things that the church leaders talked about. I was not a contagion. I didn't feel like a disease. I didn't feel like a sinner next to a murderer. I didn't, I didn't feel like any of those things.

Kyle Ashworth [01:53:14] And it was because of the good that you did in this space in highlighting exactly that. I think John just was so eloquently displayed. It made a difference for me and it changed my world and in a very real effect has given me a platform to try to help other queer Latter Day Saints in. Or not even just Latter Day Saints, just other LGBTQ people. In navigating this space in a much more healthy way, with or without Mormonism. I just want people to know that they're not alone, they're not broken, and that there are solid and wonderful days ahead. But I wanted to thank you, Connell, for doing that for me.

Connell O'Donovan [01:53:52] Thank you very much. That. That just makes my day. We're not broken. Electric shock therapy was about fixing our brokenness, and we weren't broken to begin with. And instead, they took these beautiful people and broke them. And, you know, it's just. It's horrific. But, you know, my message will always be love, always, love, love, love, love, love. And if you stray from that, then you. You're. You're on the wrong path. And, yeah, shock therapy is not about love. There's nothing loving about that. And so if you're LGBT iq, you A plus youth who is in Mormonism, in the LDS Church, struggling, just remember, love yourself. You're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. There's the. The church is broken. By promoting these messages of our brokenness, that just proves that the church itself is broken. And so don't give up.

Kyle Ashworth [01:55:33] I'm here. I'm here for the long haul. The LGBTQ community was worth the investment. And I think just the smiling faces, the happy experiences, and the progress they make are evidences of everything that you just spoke of. So thank you, Connell. Thank you, Gerardo and John, for your great work in this space. And we can't do it without you. The listeners and supporters of podcasts like Mormon Stories and Latter Day Stories, we absolutely run off of.

Kyle Ashworth [01:56:05] Off of your spirit, your strength, your dedication to lifting the marginalized, but also to make informed decisions based on informed consent. And as John talked about, bringing so much of this out into the sunlight. And I know for. For both podcasts on behalf of latter Gay stories and Mormon Stories, we appreciate all of the.

Kyle Ashworth [01:56:29] The individual support, both financial and. And physical and emotional support that goes into producing episodes like this and. And content like this that helps us to. To bring. To pass that very message that Connell talked about, that especially within queer spaces, that there is no brokenness in particular to the individual LGBTQ person. So thank you. And, John, maybe we'll just end this by how. How can our latter Gay Stories listeners and those who are catching us on Mormon Stories support the Mormon Stories podcast and some of the efforts that you're doing.

John Dehlin [01:57:07] I'm just, you know, I'm, I'm happy for this episode. Just to echo your, your thanks to Connell o'. Donovan. Connell, I've referenced your, your research over the years and it is, you know, we would not be where we are without you. We.

John Dehlin [01:57:26] Whenever we do anything these days, we, we stand on the shoulders of giants. And you're, you're one of maybe nowadays amongst the younger populations, your name isn't maybe as well known. It's certainly not as well known as it should be. And I'm just really grateful that I, that I, along with Kyle and Gerardo, were able to play a small part of, of alerting the younger generations to your monumental work. And we will be including links in our show notes so that people can become more familiar with your groundbreaking work and hopefully give you some of the attention and the credit that you deserve for, for what you've given us all. So thank you, Connell.

Connell O'Donovan [01:58:17] Thank you, John. I appreciate that. I, I should note I do not have control over that website any longer. I lost the password to it 10 years ago. I have not been able to update it. Some of the links are broken. So I apologize for that. I wish I could figure out a way to migrate it to a different server and make sure that it was once again complete and working fully.

John Dehlin [01:58:42] But do you, do you, do you have control of the domain name?

Connell O'Donovan [01:58:46] Yes. Yeah, that's. I do pay for that.

John Dehlin [01:58:48] I could help you do that.

Connell O'Donovan [01:58:50] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:58:50] Someday if you wanted that.

Connell O'Donovan [01:58:52] Yes.

Kyle Ashworth [01:58:53] I just wanted to end on a note from the Bergen family. Marion, which is Alan Bergen's wife, just jumped in into the chat. Thank you. You're doing great work. And she thanks us for the kind words for Alan Bergen. And again, I just wanted to give another plug for on the Record because that's where Alan Bergen posted that apology concerning his time from spent at byu.

Kyle Ashworth [01:59:19] It just profound and in my opinion, just one of the most beautiful things I've read in terms of an apology in this space. So thank you again to the Bergen family. Thanks to the audience. We've had a robust audience throughout this whole few hours of this event. We thank you for your participation. We thank you for the comments that you've made. We've paid attention to these as we kind of went through the discussion and tried to answer a lot of those questions. But let's continue to have a discussion about this.

Kyle Ashworth [01:59:45] Share episodes like this Share this particular episode I think it's super important within the realm of Mormonism. Those who are are seriously trying to better understand the details of this space. We absolutely know for a fact that during President Oaks time as President of byu, electroshock therapy not only existed but in its own right was thriving. And we have that evidence. And it's just unfortunate there was a missed opportunity for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to clean that slate the best they could, follow that repentance process and allow greater light to shine into these spaces. Gentlemen, again thank you for your participation.

Kyle Ashworth [02:00:30] Again, thank you to those who have participated in this chat and continue to follow content like this on the the Mormon Stories site, which we thank for this opportunity to to do a collaboration with and with Latter Gay Stories as well.

Kyle Ashworth [02:00:44] We we each have YouTube Facebook pages and audio podcast channels that you can find more content just like this. But again, thank you to each of you for participating and we'll look forward to another Latter Gay and Mormon Story episode in the future.

John Dehlin [02:01:02] Thanks everybody.

Connell O'Donovan [02:01:06] Are we.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.