1512: Thriving After Mormon Electroshock Torture - Nate Winterton

When the Church Hurts Its Own: Nate Winterton and the Legacy of Mormon Electroshock Therapy

Nate Winterton was born without functioning taste buds, spent his first five years in and out of Primary Children's Hospital with a feeding tube, and was adopted into a devout LDS family in Salt Lake City. By the time he was a teenager, he had survived enough to fill a memoir. What the Mormon Church then did to him in the name of spiritual healing is the part that should stop anyone cold.

The Mormon Stories Podcast, hosted by Dr. John Dehlin, released Winterton's story during Trans Awareness Week in November 2021. It is one of the clearest documented accounts of how institutional religious pressure, combined with discredited conversion practices, destroyed a young man's health before he found a way back to himself.

The Background: A Faithful Boy in an Impossible Position

Winterton's early life was shaped by two parallel forces: genuine religious devotion and the growing awareness that he was gay. He loved Primary. He loved the hymn "A Child's Prayer." He attended seminary, read his scriptures daily, and served a mission in Tallahassee, Florida.

He also knew, from the age of four, that he was attracted to boys.