Somewhere Only We Know

Chris Colfer's Script on 8 in LA

• Chris: I was a very precocious kid. So one day I ended up looking up the word "homosexual" in the dictionary, something along the lines of a romantic attraction between members of the same sex, and I saw it, dawned on me that that's what I was.
• George: Given your prior testimony about homosexuals, how did you feel when you realized that you were gay?
• Chris: Well, once I realized what a homosexual was, I was scared by that. I realized this was bad news for me. So I hid it as far away from everyone as I could.
• George: Around this time, did anyone talk to you about being gay?
• Chris: When I was in seventh grade, I remember being taunted about being gay.I was called a fagot. I was called a homo, a queer. It was scary going into that building, realizing these kids were taunting me with a word that was so close to the truth. I would go home crying
• George: Did your parents find out that you were gay?
• Chris: When I was 13 years old, my parents discovered my journal and for the first time I had admitted to myself that I was gay. And I had actually written those words. And they found that and read it.
• George: What happened when they read that journal?
• Chris: They were very upset. They were yelling.I remember my mother looking at me and telling me that I was going to burn in hell.It was shocking. I never heard anything like that from my mother. I mean, you don't get much worse than eternal damnation.
• George: And what is NARTH?
• Chris: NARTH stands for the National Association for Reparative therapy for homosexuality. It's a reversal therapy organization based in Encino, California.
• George: How long were you at NARTH? What ages?
• Chris: 14 to 16.
• George: During the time that you were at NARTH, how was your homelife?
• Chris: Uhm, my mother would tell me that she hated me. Once she told me that she wished she had had an abortion instead of a gay son. She told me that she wished I had been born with Downs Syndrome or I had been mentally retarded.
• George: Who did you meet with at NARTH?
• Chris: I met with Dr. Joseph Nicolosi.
• George: Where would you meet with Mr. Nicolosi?
• Chris: I did, actually, fly out to California to do in-person sessions. I recall Nicolosi saying that, you know, "Homosexuality is incompatible with what God wants for you, and your parents want you to change," and that this was a bad thing.
• George: Were you given any advice on how you would be able to suppress your homosexuality, in these therapy sessions?
• Chris: I remember it as a general admonishment, but not a specific technique, no.
• Brad: And Mr Cooper, you may cross examine.
• Kevin: Mr. Kendall. Have you ever lived in the state of California?
• Chris: No, I have not.
• Kevin: You have never read a scientific study addressing the concept of sexual orientation, isn't that true?
• Chris: That is true.
• Kevin: And isn't it also true that you have never studied whether a person's sexual orientation can change throughout the course of his or her lifetime?
• Chris: No, I haven't studied it.
• Kevin: And nothing involved in conversion therapy was yourdecision, it was all your parents' decision. Isn't that true?
• Chris: Yes.
• Kevin: At some point you communicated to your parents objections to the counseling treatment but your parents compelled you to go against your will?
• Chris: That's correct.
• Kevin: Your only goal for conversion therapy was to survive the experience, isn't that true?
• Chris: Absolutely true.
• Kevin: You didn't have the goal of changing your sexual orientation -- I'm sorry, correction. You didn't have the goal of changing your sexual attraction, is that correct?
• Chris: That's correct.
• Kevin: Indeed, you admit that you did not truly want to reduce your sexual attraction to persons of the same sex, isn't that true?
• Chris: That's correct, it is my experience that people don't want to go to programs like NARTH.
• Chris: You acknowledged in your deposition, did you not, that some people report to have effective results with conversion therapy, isn't that true?
• Chris: Yes.
• Kevin: I have no further questions, Your Honor.
• George: And was it successful in that you were able to suppress your homosexuality?
• Chris: No. I was just as gay as when I started.
• George: While you were in conversion therapy, were you introduced to any people who purported -- or were purported to you to have successfully undergone conversion therapy?
• Chris: I remember during one of the group therapy sessions Nicolosi trotted out his perfect patient, the guy who had been cured of his homosexuality. And his name was Kelly.
• George: Did meeting Kelly have any impact on your views of conversion therapy?
• Chris: I remember once, when Nicolosi stepped out of the room, we were talking amongst ourselves. And Kelly told me that later that night he was going to a gay bar and that he was, essentially, just pretending to be cured for the sake of his family.
• George: Why did you stop going to reversal therapy?
• Chris: During this whole thing, my life had kind of fallen apart. I didn't have the world that I grew up in, my faith, which was very important to me, my family, which was even more important to me. Everything had just kind of stopped. And I just couldn't take any more. And I realized, at one point, that if I didn't stop going I wasn't going to survive.
• George: What do you mean by that?
• Chris: I would have… I would have probably killed myself.