Smid served as the model for Joel Edgerton’s character Victor Sykes in the 2018 film Boy Erased, which was adapted from the same-titled novel. The November 2018 Radiolab podcast “UnErased: Smid” discusses Smid’s life story.
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Victor Sykes
Joel Edgerton directed Focus Features’ drama film “Boy Erased,” which is about a young gay guy named Jared Eamons who enrolls in Love in Action’s gay conversion therapy evaluation program in hopes of being converted to heterosexuality. Victor Sykes, Director of Love in Action, is in charge of the counseling department. Victor and the other Christians in the group make fun of Jared and the other program members because they are gay. The film progresses as Jared attempts to escape from Victor and his friends. We were drawn to Victor and decided to find out if the character was based on a genuine person. But this is what we can say about it!
Does Victor Sykes Represent a Real Person?
In actuality, Victor Sykes is modeled after a real person. The character was inspired by John J. Smid, the former director of the ex-gay organization Love in Action, located in Memphis. He was born in Denver, Colorado. Prior to joining the religious group, Smid was married to a woman with whom he had two daughters. After “deciding” in 1979 that he was gay, he got divorced from his wife. In the late 1980s, Love in Action was first exposed to him when he was drawn to the evangelical Christian ideology. He married his second wife in 1988, and he became executive director of Love in Action in 1990.
Smid created and oversaw Love in Action’s “Refuge” program, which focused on gay conversion therapy for young people. In 2005, Smid made the following statement on conversion therapy: “I hope we can help men and women overcome…mindsets counterproductive to their walk in Christ.” Garrard Conley, a young participant in Smid’s gay conversion treatment, was the inspiration for the film’s main character, Jared Eamons. Smid stated in a testimony, “I had developed a compulsive habit of masturbating that carried into my marriage.” In “Boy Erased: A Memoir,” the book that used as the basis for the film, Garrard wrote about Smid.
“Rising out of this sin, Smid now believed a higher power had elected him to lead other gays out of their addiction into successful marriages,” the author adds in her extra remark. 2008 saw Smid’s resignation from Love in Action, reportedly as a result of internal disputes, bad press, and legal issues. The gay conversion treatment program he developed for Love in Action ended in 2007.
What’s become of John Smid?
After departing, Smid apologized for taking part in LGBT conversion therapy at Love in Action. On his website, he wrote in 2010, “I hope we can both be freed from the bonds of unforgiveness if you have been hurt by me or harmed at the hands of my leadership. Please come to me and give me the chance to personally apologize.” The most focus was given to Love in Action, which ran the “Refuge Programme” for youths. If I could go back in time and implement the Refuge Programme again with the knowledge I had now, it would be the one thing I would change. He went on, “I apologize for the further harm Refuge inflicted to young people who were already in a precarious situation.”
Smid eventually had to admit that his conversion treatments didn’t genuinely change a person’s sexual orientation. “The transformation for the vast majority of homosexuals will not include a change in sexual orientation,” Smid stated, citing Garrard’s book. “As if this is all it takes—Smid’s admitting to the obvious lie he’d sold me and my family —to repair the damages inflicted on all of us,” writes Garrard in the book that served as the inspiration for the film. Smid’s 2012 memoir, Ex’d Out: How I Fired the Shame Committee, talks about his attempts to break away from the ex-gay movement in order to lead a more “authentic life.”
Smid was involved in the creation of the documentary “This Is What Love in Action Looks Like,” a Morgan Jon Fox production that chronicles the life of Zach Stark, an alternative teenager who received gay conversion therapy at Love in Action. In addition, Smid started advocating against conversion therapy and established the LGBTQ+-welcoming Grace Rivers Ministry. 2011 saw the end of his second marriage, and he thereafter dated Larry McQueen. 2014 saw their wedding. The couple announced in March 2022 that they would be moving to Pearcy, an Arkansas CDP, after spending a significant amount of time in Paris, Texas. Smid now makes furniture.
Regarding his union with Larry, Smid remarked, “I think that because of my previous notoriety, it will definitely have its impact.” For other ex-gays and maybe even for those who are still holding onto their ex-gay worldview, I believe it to be encouraging. Not strange or inaccurate stereotypes about homosexuality, but something very normal, we think, is demonstrated by our connection. He went on, “We’ve come to the conclusion that our union is remarkably similar to the typical heterosexual union.”
Victor Sykes News
Victor Sykes NewsFormer LGBT leader: Conversion therapy ought to be abandoned because it is ineffective.
John Smid, who for 22 years oversaw the “ex-gay” group Love In Action, now opposes conversion therapy.
According to a former prominent figure in the “ex-gay” community, so-called conversion therapy is ineffective.Conversion therapy, frequently referred to as “gay cure” therapy, uses aversion therapy, sleep restriction, and even electroshock therapy in an attempt to coerce a person into changing their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The practice has been outlawed in at least 20 states, Washington, D.C., and other localities. The U.S. Surgeon General’s Office and the majority of psychological and mental health organizations have denounced it.Former executive director of Love In Action, a Christian organization, John Smid now speaks out against any attempt to force an LGBTQ person to change who they identify as.
Smid wrote about his personal conversion therapy experiences for The Advocate. He also talked about Joel Edgerton, the writer-director, playing a character based on Smid in the new movie Boy Erased.
Smid claimed that because the film “vividly illustrated the horrific reality of my own journey over a 25-year period,” it was difficult to see. I discovered in 1987 that the reasons behind my homosexual desires stemmed from sinister, dark corners of my heart. I was told that in order for God to forgive my sinful nature, I had to surrender to him.
After getting married to a woman in 1988, Smid started his 22-year career as the director of Love In Action, an organization that is now closed and a part of the wider network of ex-gay organizations known as Exodus International, in 1990.
The head of Exodus International, Alan Chambers, declared in 2016 that conversion therapy should be avoided and that the organization should be formally shut down in 2013. It’s dangerous. It is a disgraceful outcome. It won’t cause you to feel as though your orientation has changed.
“[L]eaders shared stories of their own transformation while covering up that they actually remained unchanged,” Smid wrote of the conferences he attended. Smid explores the ex-gay movement’s hypocrisy in further detail.He added that it “haunts” him that there are still ministries in existence in 2019 that make the claim that they can change someone’s orientation.
Smid remarked, “I wholeheartedly agree with the leading medical and mental health organizations that condemn sexual orientation change efforts.” Smid was once a leader of the “ex-gay” movement. While thousands of individuals under their care are not going straight as promised, these programs brutally restrict God’s compassion for those who choose to become heterosexual.Smid, who married a guy in 2014, gave some justifications for his continued advocacy of conversion treatment to helpless people and their families for almost two decades.
I can now accept that I was tricked into believing that I could change,” he stated. “I couldn’t be honest with myself, so I lied to a lot of others in the process. I continued to propagate the diluted message that God was somehow working a miracle of change while soliciting clients and financial support for our organization.
Smid said in closing that he is devoting “a tremendous amount of energy” to making up for the harm done by organizations that were once gay, such Love In Action and Exodus International. In addition, he demanded that conversion therapy end “before more young people…are harmed.”
He said that it is imperative that attempts to change sexual orientation halt before more adults and children suffer. All forms of conversion therapy are dangerous and have the potential to be lethal. Self-denial and falsehood are not the answer. Living authentically and accepting oneself as one is are essential.
