Carly stood in a dorm room on her Christian university on Christmas Eve, holding the phone she’d bought a week earlier after saving up for months. Her parents had taken her old phone last summer, after they found out she was a lesbian. Carly said she was outed without her consent. Her parents, who are religious conservatives, hadn’t taken it well. In an interview, Carly described the escalating hostilities that followed: Her family took away her phone. They tried to get her expelled. They told her she needed to go to a mental institution. In October, on her 23rd birthday, she cut off contact with them.
