“God’s love is bigger than any institution’s walls, wider than any doctrine’s boundaries, and deep enough to hold all of who we are.”
― Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez, Conversion Therapy Dropout: A Queer Story of Faith and Belonging

If you’re looking for a new biography about finding yourself, I recommend Conversion Therapy Dropout: A Queer Story of Faith & Belonging by Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez. I very seldom read any nonfiction, but when I pick one up, I turn to nonfiction about religion.

Conversion Therapy Dropout is the story of Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez, a queer, adopted, Mexican-American born and raised in the Midwest. From birth, Timothy struggled to find where he belonged in the world. Split between two families, he was searching for acceptance for his whole person. His adoptive family is very religious, so that meant that he spent a great deal of time in Evangelical Christianity. As a result, he decided to devote his career and entire life to the church.

A traumatic experience at the age of 19 that resulted in him being outed as gay led Timothy to conversion therapy. Hoping to pray the gay away, Timothy jumped between churches and jobs looking for people to accept him. After spending eight years in conversion therapy, Timothy suffered a nervous breakdown. He decided to leave conversion therapy and thought that meant his church career was done.

After leaving conversion therapy, he began fighting the ways churches use faith to shame LGBTQ+ individuals. He wanted to stop churches from using shame and control on the queer community. This quest for acceptance and belonging for himself and others aligns with his hope for finding a holy space where outsiders can belong fully as themselves. Immersing himself more in the queer community, Timothy spent time looking for ways to combine his queer identity with religion and church in a positive way. He spent years looking into how queer people can bring together their identity and faith without having to sacrifice who they really are which tied directly with his time working behind the scenes for influential Christian churches.

Conversion Therapy Dropout had me feeling a wide range of emotions. While Timothy does talk about theology, he doesn’t weigh down his readers with scripture. He instead sprinkles in messages of hope and empowerment throughout the book. An emotional read about the journey to heal from religious and psychological trauma, Conversion Therapy Dropout ends with hope for the future of the church and the community of people who believe.