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Chloe Grace Moretz
Chloë Grace Moretz has opened up about how two of her brothers’ struggled with coming out.
The actress said her siblings tried to ‘pray the gay away’ because of the peer pressure they faced growing up.
Moretz was talking to the BBC to promote her upcoming film, The Miseducation of Cameron Post.
In the film, she plays a young gay woman sent for conversion therapy during the 1990s.
Conversion therapy is known for its brutal methods of attempting to ‘cure’ LGBTI people.
“I have two gay brothers. We were raised in small town in northwest Georgia [in a] very Christian baptist town,’ Moretz said in the interview. ‘So when my brothers came out, it was fairly jarring to the community.’
‘We were very blessed to have my mother who was very progressive, but nonetheless, they dealt with a lot of self-hate when they came out.
‘And they tried to – which is very common in the community that we grew up in – “pray the gay away” on their own before coming out to the family, which I was unaware of during the time. [It’s] shocking.’
‘It manipulates you into hating the way you were born’
Moves to ban or heavily restrict conversion therapy have gained traction in recent years.
But the practice remains legal in the vast majority of states in the US.
Moretz spoke of how she methods conversion therapy practitioners use.
‘The current form of conversion therapy is that – it’s a quiet conversation to help manipulate you into hating the way you were born.’
The 21-year-old also spoke of how important LGBTI community was to her, and her ways to raise awareness of LGBTI issues in her work.
‘I’m very much an activist,’ she said. ‘I’ve been an advocate and an ally for the LGBT community for a very long time […] And the content I’m putting out is some form of activism.’
The Miseducation of Cameron Post was released in the US earlier this month. It will be in UK cinemas on 7 September.
