Boy Erased

Plot[edit]

Jared Eamons^[a] is the son of Marshall Eamons, a successful car dealer and Baptist preacher in Arkansas, and Nancy Eamons, a hairdresser. He begins his first day at the Love in Action gay conversion therapy assessment program in Memphis, Tennessee.


Chief therapist Victor Sykes tells the group that their sexuality is a choice influenced by poor parenting. He instructs them to perform harsh "moral inventories" of themselves and their families and requires them not to tell anyone else about what occurs during the sessions. While performing his moral inventory, Jared thinks of his life prior to entering the program.


In high school, he was happy, though he broke up with his girlfriend upon starting college. Once there, he became friends with another student, Henry. While staying the night in Jared's dorm room in bunk beds, Henry rapes Jared, apologizes and tearfully confesses doing the same to another young man. Traumatized, Jared returns home.


Henry calls the Eamon home and poses as a school counselor in order to out Jared and ensure his silence. Jared tells his parents this was another student who had told him things about his past and was afraid of Jared revealing his secrets. Jared later agrees that he is attracted to men. After consulting with other pastors, Marshall prays over his son, and then signs him up for conversion therapy, to which Jared reluctantly agrees.


Nancy rents a nearby motel room for her and Jared to stay in until he completes the assessment; however, Jared soon discovers that the therapy has no set end point if he fails to convince Sykes that he has become heterosexual. Some students are confessing and playing the game so they can leave; others truly hope to change.


Jared tells his mother the program teaches the participants to see their parents as troubled and that is why they are not supposed to talk about what goes on to them, to safeguard the program's continued funding. Nancy insists Jared let her read the program's handbook, which contains questionable psychology and many grammatical and typographical errors.


It appears that Jared will be at the institution for some time. After failing an exercise, attendee Cameron is humiliated by Sykes in front of the group and intimidated with a fake funeral service. He is beaten with Bibles by both the therapists and his own family and is forcibly dunked in a bathtub as a horrified Jared looks on.


Returning to his moral inventory, Jared thinks of a brief encounter he had with an art student in college. He uses it when it is his time to confess, but Sykes finds holding hands with a boy to be an inadequate admission and pushes him to give more explicit details. Jared says he will not lie, so Sykes pushes him to talk about Henry. He is shocked and refuses, so Sykes then attempts to make Jared "use his anger" and say he hates his father. Jared refuses to do this, as it is Sykes that he is angry with.


Jared storms out of the room, retrieves his phone and calls Nancy, begging her to pick him up. Sykes, his assistants and the other attendees corner him behind a locked door despite Nancy's presence. Cameron stands up for him and helps get Jared to Nancy, who takes him home.


Nancy is horrified that she has allowed her husband to enroll Jared in an unvetted program without researching its practices. Marshall remains adamant about Jared remaining in the program, but Nancy steadfastly overrules him. Soon after, Jared learns from the police, via his mother, that Cameron committed suicide while still in the program's care. Marshall approaches Jared to console him, but Jared turns away.


Four years later, Jared is living in New York City with his boyfriend. He writes an article that exposes the realities of the Love in Action program. Jared returns home to convince his father to read the article and tells him he is the one who must change, not Jared. He invites his father to join his mother in visiting him at Christmas.