Becoming Betty Desire: A Conversation With Matt Endrizzi

It’s 1971 and small town high school junior, Matt Endrizzi, feels like the ultimate outsider: he’s adopted, he has cerebral palsy, and he’s gay. So, when he’s presented with the idea that Jesus can change his sexual orientation, he jumps at it. Thus begins a torturous eighteen year journey through the right wing Christian conversion movement. In Becoming Betty Desire Endrizzi talks about the twist of fate which stopped him from coming out, the years of Bible-backed self-loathing and pain which followed, and how he finally broke free. In the process Endrizzi adopted the drag queen persona, Betty Desire, and became a beacon for his local LGBT community. Becoming Betty Desire is published as a fund-raiser for a planned documentary about Betty.