Saving Alex

Two days after Alex Cooper told her parents that she was gay, they took their fifteenyearold daughter to Utah, where they signed over their parental rights to a group of fellow Mormons who promised to ''cure'' Alex from her homosexuality. For eight harrowing months, Alex was forbidden from attending school, beaten and verbally abused, and forced to stand facing a wall for up to eighteen hours a day wearing a backpack full of rocks. With the help of a dedicated legal team in Salt Lake City, she would eventually escape and win the right to live under the law's protection as an openly gay teenager. For the first time, Alex speaks out about her ordeal and its aftermath.