Introduction
Growing up queer in a strict religious community can make you feel entirely isolated and trapped by expectations you cannot meet. When you reveal your true identity to your family, you risk losing your home, your safety, and the people you love. You might find yourself facing severe institutional punishment disguised as care, shipped away to environments designed to break your spirit through control and isolation.
A teenager survives months of brutal conversion therapy in an unlicensed facility in Utah, ultimately fighting through the legal and child welfare systems to reclaim her identity and force systemic change.
Alex Cooper’s memoir details this harrowing descent into institutional abuse, the grueling daily reality of forced conversion, and the courageous alliances that made escape possible. You will see how legal advocacy and state intervention can dismantle predatory programs and protect vulnerable youth.
- How do families and unlicensed facilities justify extreme conversion tactics?
- What daily survival mechanisms keep hope alive under intense psychological torture?
- How do legal systems respond when minors fight back against institutional custody?
1. Background and Upbringing
Alex Cooper grew up in a traditional Mormon family where adherence to strict rules was expected to keep her safe, yet her strong-willed nature and early ambition for a legal career set her apart.
You grow up in Apple Valley, California, within a household structured around traditional roles. Your mother comes from a long line of Mormon pioneers, while your father joined the church after marrying. Daily family prayers and weekly Family Home Evening lessons dictate your schedule.
When you are about ten years old, your brother sits you down on your flowered bedspread. He asks if you have a testimony, if you believe the church is true, and if Jesus will return soon.
Mormon congregational life centers on structured rituals and community support. You attend local ward networks in Southern California where practices include:
- three-hour Sunday church services;
- home visits from local leaders;
- volunteer-led wards;
- strict dress codes;
- the doctrine of eternal family sealing.
Sister Flores brings homemade snickerdoodle cookies to welcome your family to the approximate population of 300 people in your local congregation. Despite this conventional religious upbringing, you are strong-willed, independent, and prone to questioning authority from an early age. You find traditional school boring and frequently fight with your mother over lessons.
When your father fails to find the time to build a tree house, you organize neighborhood children to cut wood and build one yourself. After watching Law & Order, you nurture ambitions to become a lawyer in New York City.
During middle school orchestra, you compete with Samantha for first-chair cello. You develop intense romantic feelings for her while privately wrestling with profound internal conflict. Such attractions contradict the mandated heterosexual path taught by your church and parents, and you record your thoughts in a journal.
2. Awakening and Exile
During your sophomore year, you meet eighteen-year-old Yvette through the Flores family. Her worldly lifestyle, confidence, openness about her sexuality, and familiarity with Los Angeles starkly contrast with your confined life in Victorville.
Yvette grows and sells marijuana to support herself, drives a red Jeep, and introduces you to big-city life by driving through Los Angeles and visiting Santa Monica and Venice Beach.
When a hickey from Yvette reveals your secret, you confess to your mother that you like girls. Your mother reacts with immediate hysteria and screaming, eventually ordering you to pack a bag and leave the house at fifteen years old.
Discovering same-sex attraction and coming out to her mother shatters Alex's home life, leading her parents to deceive her into entering an abusive conversion environment in Utah.
Religious communities and families adhering to strict faiths like Mormonism lack institutional support or positive frameworks for gay children. Church doctrine states there is no place for gay people in God's plan or the temple, causing parents to view sexuality with intense fear and shame.
Even though Brother Flores is a bishop, neither he nor Sister Flores offer scriptural condemnation or reassuring words. They choose to remain silent and ultimately facilitate your removal to Utah.
On Labor Day morning, your parents drive you to St. George, Utah, under the pretense of sending you to stay with your grandparents to take a break and figure things out. They stop at a brown stucco house, and Johnny Siale physically pulls you out of the car and into the house against your will while your parents hand over school and health insurance papers and leave you behind with total strangers.
3. Life Inside the Siale Household
Surrogate guardians Tiana and Johnny Siale enforce absolute submission and conversion through confiscation of belongings, daily religious interrogation, and severe physical punishments.
Upon arrival, Tiana goes through your suitcase and dismisses your clothes as immodest or inappropriate. She forces you into a garbage bag of oversized T-shirts and long skirts sourced from Deseret Industries.
The house is populated by seven kids seated at the kitchen table, including Johnny and Tiana's children, relatives, and troubled youth. Older relatives like Sifa and Calvin walk on eggshells to avoid provoking Johnny's anger. Johnny and Tiana previously worked as youth mentors or security guards at residential treatment centers. Neither holds professional licenses for counseling, but they position themselves as experts to desperate parents.
You try to escape while out in public, but local residents and bystanders do nothing to intervene. When you scream for help inside a McDonald's as Tiana drags you away, none of the patrons look up.
When Johnny intercepts a note asking for help at Albertsons, he takes off his belt and beats you in the car parking lot.
The daily regime is strict and unrelenting:
- Wake up and help the kids get ready for school
- Do household chores and cook meals
- Attend morning group meetings to study scriptures
- Complete homework packets from the alternative school
- Participate in family prayer, personal prayer, and scripture study
- Attend church on Sunday
Johnny leads daily group sessions at ten A.M. every day for group meetings, sitting on the couch while the kids sit on the floor. He uses the Book of Mormon to interrogate your choices and enforce the plan of salvation. He tells you that being gay means you will end up in the telestial kingdom and that God will make a copy of you so your parents will not miss you in the celestial kingdom.
Your grandparents sit two rows behind you during three hours at our church meetings on Sundays and refuse to make eye contact as part of the treatment agreement.
4. Psychological Torture and Survival
Confinement in the treatment environment permanently alters your emotional landscape. You experience a deep state of emptiness and emotional flatness after months of isolation and psychological pressure.
Prolonged physical immobilization with weighted backpacks and systemic psychological pressure push you to desperate suicide attempts and forced confessions.
Tiana Siale introduces a black nylon backpack filled with smooth gray garden rocks. She forces you to wear it continuously from morning until bedtime to physically represent the consequences of choosing to be gay.
- Put on the backpack filled with rocks upon waking up.
- Wear the backpack continuously while doing chores, group meetings, and daily activities.
- Remove the backpack only when going to bed or showering.
Tiana also institutes a new punishment where you must stand facing a bare hallway wall from breakfast until bedtime. You are allowed only three bathroom breaks and time to sit for meals until you reveal details about your former girlfriend Yvette.
- Stand facing a designated spot on the hallway wall from breakfast through bedtime.
- Wear a backpack filled with rocks during the entire duration.
- Limit breaks to three bathroom visits and sitting down only for lunch and dinner.
Tiana forces you to stand five inches from a bare hallway wall wearing a heavy backpack of rocks all day. You cope with the torment by counting numbers into the thousands and reciting mental imagery.
Mormon missionaries frequently visit the Siale house, passing within inches of you as you stand facing the wall with your backpack. Despite witnessing your situation, none of them question the Siales or offer help.
Extreme isolation and continuous abuse within residential punishment environments drive you to desperate suicide attempts. On December 16th, your sixteenth birthday, you swallow a full bottle of prescription pain relievers and a third of a bottle of naproxen. Tiana forcefully revives you using a metal spoon and cold water.
Following your overdose, Tiana takes you to your annual bishop's interview. You tearfully confess the abuse, the backpack, the wall, and your overdose, but the bishop dismisses your concerns and states that the Siales are good people.
Severe psychological pressure and physical torment eventually force you to surrender your resistance and confess to fabricated details just to gain brief moments of relief. You offer everything you know about Yvette to Tiana, who then feeds you false, graphic details to tell the police over the phone.
When an 18-year-old newcomer named Dante hides your journal and attempts to run away, Johnny makes all the residents write confession papers detailing each other's secrets. You write down that Dante and Calvin sneak cups of kava, try to get residents to run away, and that Sifa sneaks out to see his girlfriend.
5. School Alliances and Legal Rescue
Enrolling at Snow Canyon High School allows you to build a support network with allies like Delsy Nielson and Jason Osmanski, leading to pro bono legal representation and a daring escape.
After months of isolation and forced homeschooling, you are enrolled at Snow Canyon High School under strict supervision by the Siales. Tiana takes you to buy a new backpack, jeans, and T-shirts so you can start classes. Despite initial terror and tight surveillance, the school environment allows you to encounter open-minded individuals.
Teacher Delsy Nielson serves as the advisor for the Gay-Straight Alliance and debate team, spending every lunch period in her classroom to provide refuge for students who are different, artists, and outcasts. Jason Osmanski introduces you to Delsy Nielson's classroom, which features literature like To Kill a Mockingbird and inspiring quotes on the walls. As an openly gay student who faced severe bullying and administrative hurdles, Jason organized support networks, gathered sixty student signatures in one lunch period, and worked to establish a Gay-Straight Alliance despite local resistance.
Institutional religious teachings against homosexuality created a systemic family climate that justified conversion therapy and rejection of queer youth. Historical church literature and leadership statements categorized homosexuality as curable, sinful, or a crime against nature, which drove families to send children to reparative therapy and harsh disciplinary environments. Jason discusses how Southern Baptist sermons and Mormon teachings influenced his personal despair and suicidal ideation before coming out. Decades earlier, in the 1970s, psychologists at Brigham Young University ran electroshock therapy experiments on gay students.
Paul Burke, a partner at a prominent Salt Lake City law firm with deep ties to the LDS Church, agreed to take your case pro bono after being contacted by Jason, offering to help with custody issues and child welfare authorities. Jason called Paul Burke from Delsy's classroom, and Paul offered to represent you pro bono to help you escape your abusive situation.
A four-minute tardiness duration that triggered an automated school notification alerted the Siales to a phone call with your lawyer, leading to the immediate discovery of your secret communications and reinstitution of severe physical punishments. After receiving a tardy notification, Johnny and Tiana Siale forced you to wear the heavy rock-filled backpack and stand facing the wall again.
Driven by desperation and suicidal despair, you execute a silent middle-of-the-night escape from the Siale household to reach school and your allies. At 4:30 A.M., the time on the microwave clock when you initiated your escape, you slip out through the kitchen sliding glass door without shoes, run through the neighborhood, and wait at a bus stop until the first city bus arrives. A compassionate bus driver allows you to board without paying fare and safely transports you toward Snow Canyon High School in the early morning.
Reaching Snow Canyon High School before seven thirty, the time Delsy usually arrived at school to prep lessons, allows you to secure immediate institutional and legal intervention through Delsy and Jason. You take refuge with Delsy Nielson, who stands in the front office and tells the staff that anyone who notified the Siales of Alex's presence would go to jail, while Jason coordinates with the Division of Child and Family Services.
6. Legal Battles and Protection
Entering state custody and youth crisis centers enables you to fight off attempts by the state to label you ungovernable and secure a court settlement prohibiting conversion efforts.
State officials and guardians ad litem often rely on the label of ungovernability to blame youth for family conflict. This tactic deflects attention away from parental abuse and attempts at reparative therapy. One study notes that nine out of ten LGBT kids entering the legal system had been characterized as ungovernable.
You can fight these systemic labels through formal legal instruments. On June 20, 2011, Alex produces a sworn affidavit under Case No. 1051684 establishing her identity as a lesbian and formally objecting to the juvenile court's order terminating Paul C. Burke's representation.
- State your age and self-identify your core truth clearly in writing.
- Document the history of mistreatment and the identity of chosen legal counsel.
- File a sworn affidavit objecting to the termination of independent representation.
Legal strategy expands to uncover institutional misconduct. During an October 28 deposition, Paul Burke questions Tiana Siale using subpoenaed training manuals from residential treatment centers. Tiana's lawyer forces her to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when Paul asks her if forcing Alex to stand against the wall at home was abusive.
- Subpoena employee manuals, policies, and training materials from residential treatment facilities where abusers worked.
- Compare home disciplinary tactics directly against professional workplace standards of abuse.
- Force witnesses into corners where they must choose between admitting abuse or invoking the Fifth Amendment.
Negotiations establish strict boundaries for any return home. In a downtown St. George law office on May 23, 2011, before a scheduled May 24, 2011 hearing, mediation is convened by the attorney general's office. You dictate the exact terms of safety before agreeing to family reintegration.
- Ask the young person what they want and write down their specific conditions.
- Establish ground rules that prohibit parents from attempting to change the child's sexual orientation.
- Require family counseling, parenting classes, and support groups like PFLAG.
Judge Karla Staheli issues a final order acknowledging the Siales' treatment as abusive and neglectful. The court forces Alex's parents to allow her to date females and join the school's Gay-Straight Alliance.
- Comply with DCFS service plans including family therapy and parenting classes.
- Prohibit parents from discussing sexual orientation except with consent or in therapy.
- Ensure parental permission for the child to join school Gay-Straight Alliances and PFLAG.
National civil rights figures also provide validation. Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, sends an email to Alex on September 7, 2011, praising her resilience and stating that her fight inspires advocates across the country over 300 miles away from Salt Lake City.
7. Recovery, Activism, and New Beginnings
Dropping criminal charges allows Alex to focus on emotional healing, while systemic legal victories and relocation to Portland open the door to a new life of advocacy and fulfillment.
You can reclaim your energy by declining to pursue a public criminal trial against abusers. Alex emailed her lawyer Paul to decline going forward with the prosecution after realizing the dark waves of anger and soul-eating bitterness the process caused her.
Ritualistically destroying traumatic records, such as abusive journals, can serve as a psychological milestone in leaving the past behind. One December night, Alex placed her old journal in a planter box behind her grandparents' house and burned it into ashes using a cigarette lighter.
Pro bono legal advocacy and community support networks drive massive systemic changes for LGBT rights even in conservative regions. Utah became the seventeenth state to legalize same-sex marriage in December 2013, and Paul officiated the state's first lesbian wedding.
Relocating to a supportive environment and engaging in meaningful advocacy work helps survivors build fulfilling independent lives. Alex's team once reached a goal to get sponsors for ninety-five girls in the Philippines, and Alex personally sponsored four girls in Colombia and Sierra Leone.
LGBT teenagers face disproportionately high rates of homelessness, abuse, and mental health challenges, particularly in conservative communities. In Utah, an estimated five thousand youth experience homelessness every year, with at least forty percent identifying as LGBT and the majority coming from Mormon homes.
Mormon mothers of LGBT kids formed an organization called Mama Dragons to defend and protect their children from abuse and misunderstanding.
Resources exist to help families support their LGBT children and connect with national organizations working to end conversion therapy.
You can access critical support networks and crisis services:
- Visit the Family Acceptance Project website at http://familyproject.sfsu.edu.
- Access information available in English, Spanish, and Chinese.
- Utilize materials specifically designed for Mormon or LDS families of faith.
- Support the National Center for Lesbian Rights' #BornPerfect campaign.
- Check state protection status for gay teenagers at http://www.nclrights.org/our-work/bornperfect/.
- Visit The Trevor Project website at http://www.thetrevorproject.org.
- Call the helpline at 1-866-488-7386.
- Access twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week text, chat, or talk services with trained volunteer counselors.
- Review education and training resources for adults working with LGBT youth.
10 Key Ideas
- Alex Cooper grew up in a traditional Mormon family in California where adherence to strict rules shaped her early life before her ambition for a legal career and realization of her same-sex attraction set her apart.
- Discovering same-sex attraction and coming out to her mother shattered Alex's home life, leading her parents to deceive her into entering an abusive conversion environment in Utah.
- Surrogate guardians Tiana and Johnny Siale enforced absolute submission and conversion through the confiscation of belongings, daily religious interrogation, and severe physical punishments.
- Prolonged physical immobilization with weighted backpacks and systemic psychological pressure pushed Alex to desperate suicide attempts and forced confessions.
- Enrolling at Snow Canyon High School allowed Alex to build a support network with allies like Delsy Nielson and Jason Osmanski, leading to pro bono legal representation and a daring escape.
- Entering state custody and youth crisis centers enabled Alex to fight off attempts by the state to label her ungovernable and secure a court settlement prohibiting conversion efforts.
- Dropping criminal charges allowed Alex to focus on emotional healing, while systemic legal victories and relocation to Portland opened the door to a new life of advocacy and fulfillment.
- Legal advocates and child welfare systems can intervene to dismantle predatory conversion programs and protect vulnerable youth when minors fight back against institutional custody.
- Pro bono legal advocacy and community support networks drive massive systemic changes for LGBT rights even in conservative regions like Utah.
- Critical support networks and crisis resources exist to help families support their LGBT children and connect with national organizations working to end conversion therapy.