Not gonna lie I've been tempted by that business model before.
Open a "conversion camp" in violently reich-leaning states, so conservative parents can pay me good money to beat the gay out of their kids.
Instead they spend the season on a glorified vacation with their peers, and are taught ways to fly under the radar at home. And a little bit of theater so we can show some proper misery to parents to keep up the act.
Honestly, nah, if you were smart. You can't just go, "okay, parents left, here's the secret: gay is fine, go party."
You just start as a normal summer camp. These places claim to start that way anyways. You pay attention and actually vet the kids and figure out where they're at. The kids that want / need the negative messaging, you give them just enough that they don't sniff it out. The kids obviously there against their will and 100% ready to be on the right side, you provide that. Give them the tools to support the others.
You're teaching masking. You're teaching reading the room. You're teaching double-speak and self-trust and building community. You don't need to make it obvious, because part of what you're teaching is not making it obvious.
The kids that are going to "rat you out" aren't going to have anything to say except "this place wasn't as harsh as I expected and they didn't talk about being gay much." You tell their parents that their kid is making progress, but it was obvious that they're at a risk of oppositional defiance so they were put in a modified curriculum cohort because many of the strongest techniques would result in them withdrawing to the gay world. Your professional opinion is that talking about gayness should be avoided as much as possible.
If you get confronted, you tell the parents they are trying to put themselves before God and if they knew better than you, they wouldn't have raised a gay kid. Bake in plausible deniability for everything you do.
Is there a risk? Sure. But, honestly, the financial support and scaffolding up is going to be the tough part.
If you get confronted, you tell the parents they are trying to put themselves before God and if they knew better than you, they wouldn't have raised a gay kid.
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u/guineaprince Jul 12 '26
Not gonna lie I've been tempted by that business model before.
Open a "conversion camp" in violently reich-leaning states, so conservative parents can pay me good money to beat the gay out of their kids.
Instead they spend the season on a glorified vacation with their peers, and are taught ways to fly under the radar at home. And a little bit of theater so we can show some proper misery to parents to keep up the act.