Former Mormon college leader denies school electrocuted gay men despite all evidence to the contrary

Former president of Brigham Young University, Dallin H. Oaks
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Despite overwhelming evidence proving otherwise, former president of Brigham Young University Dallin Oaks claims the Mormon college never used electroshock treatments on gay people when he was president there from 1971 to 1980.

The remarks came during a Q&A session after a panel discussion at the University of Virginia, when the Latter-day Saint apostle was asked about reports that the school electrocuted gay men in an attempt to change their sexual orientations well into the 1970s.

“Let me say about electroshock treatments at BYU, when I became president at BYU that had been discontinued earlier, and it never went on under my administration,” 89-year-old Oaks insisted.

The video was uploaded to Youtube by Latter Gay Stories, a podcast dedicated to telling LGBTQ Mormons.

But according to Gregory Prince’s 2020 book “Gay Rights and the Mormon Church: Intended Actions, Unintended Consequences,” Oaks’ statement simply is not true.

Prince found that in 1974, 14 gay men were subjected to the electroshock treatments by then-graduate student Max McBride as part of a research project approved by BYU. McBride showed each subject various photos of naked bodies. If the subject “experienced sexual arousal from a photograph of a nude male, he would receive a shock in the bicep.”

“A gradual increase of voltage…

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