On Feb. 21, 2022, Kaylin Hevia was near the 10-month mark of her yearlong, court-ordered treatment in a drug rehab program when managers of the program called her into their office. It was a Monday. The facility managers told her they knew about her relationship with another woman in the program. Hevia denied it at first, but relented when the other woman was brought into the room.
Technically, the 29-year-old had broken the rehab facility’s “no touching” rule. But for leadership at the center, her biggest infraction had been lying about kissing another woman. She was kicked out of the program that night and put on a bus to Orlando. Hevia’s now in a Seminole County jail — enrollment in the rehab was a mandatory condition of her probation.
The drug treatment program she was in is called Teen Challenge; it’s a Christian rehabilitation organization with more than a thousand centers across the country for both minors and adults. Teen Challenge and its supporters laud the program’s successes in breaking people of their drug addictions. But it’s come under increased scrutiny in recent years as former participants allege harsh treatment in the program.
Hevia says her sexual orientation was a topic revisited over and over again during her treatment at the Southeast Florida Women’s Rehab in Davie, a Teen Challenge facility outside Miami. She says the facility’s executive director, Pastor Rick Fernandez, advised her to find help for her sexuality.
“Basically, that’s the issue, and drugs are just on the surface,” Hevia told Orlando Weekly in a phone interview. “But that is the root issue.”
After getting kicked out of the program, Hevia appeared in court April 6 for breaking the terms of her probation. At the hearing, administration for the Southeast Florida Women’s Rehab denied that Hevia’s sexual orientation played any role in her dismissal. Judge Melissa Souto agreed, sentencing Hevia to 120 days in jail for violating the program’s no-touching rule.
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Judge Melissa Souto sentenced Hevia to 120 days in jail for violating the program’s no-touching rule.
“Her reason for discharge was not that she was gay,” Souto said at the hearing. “But in fact she had touched another student on more than one occasion as a repeated violation of the rules.”
The state attorney’s office for the 18th judicial district in Seminole County released a statement noting Hevia had signed a plea deal 19 days before she left the Davie facility in which charges against her would be dropped if she completed the drug program. The statement also claimed the narrative that Hevia was dismissed for her sexual orientation was “factually incorrect and we believe misleading.”
But in courtroom before the judge’s ruling, Hevia’s attorney, Natașa Ghica, asked Fernandez about his program’s acceptance of gay people.
“When I get there, and I’m checking in, they asked me to renounce my sexuality.”
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“Your word and my word is different,” Fernandez said. “Because I’m a Christian. Gay means happy. The reality is we work with people with life-controlling problems. It doesn’t matter whether they’re homosexuals, gay, drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes.”
Fernandez elaborated when pressed on the question again. “We accept them with the understanding that they’re not going to push their agenda — that they’re coming for help. Not to push their agenda, to want to get in a relationship.”
In response to an interview request, a Teen Challenge spokesperson said neither the organization nor Fernandez have any comment on Hevia’s case.
Diversion
Hevia was arrested in Oviedo for possession of Xanax and driving with a suspended license in February 2021 and ordered into a drug program. When it came to choosing the program, Hevia says she went with the one that would quickly get her out of jail. She says the wait for some programs can be two to four months, during which time she’d have to stay locked up. Teen Challenge was able to accept her within a week.
Hevia had been in a Teen Challenge program before, back in 2016 at its Fort Myers facility. She says the Davie rehab where she was heading for her second stint had a reputation for being among the strictest in the state.
Other Teen Challenge centers have this reputation, too. Last year, Rachel Aviv wrote an exposé for the New Yorker magazine on the organization, calling it a “shadow penal system for struggling kids.” Aviv’s piece focused on Teen Challenge’s Lakeland Girls Academy.
That facility decided to close its doors in March after ongoing scrutiny over the 2020 death of a 17-year-old girl in the program. Under Florida statute, substance abuse facilities associated with religious nonprofits, including Teen Challenge, are exempt from state licensing and oversight for “all services which are solely religious, spiritual, or ecclesiastical in nature.” The Florida Department of Children and Families can, however, investigate when there are allegations of neglect or abuse.
The New Yorker article includes accounts from a woman who was told by the Lakeland directors that being gay was a “detestable sin” as well as girls across the country who were sent to the centers because their parents were worried they were gay.
“When I get there, and I’m checking in, they asked me to renounce my sexuality,” Hevia told Orlando Weekly of her experience at the Davie center. “I was honest with them several times that I still feel the same way and I wasn’t really willing to, I guess, compromise my beliefs for what they wanted.”
“When I get there, and I’m checking in, they asked me to renounce my sexuality.”
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Hevia says the managers considered this an act of rebellion and gave her literature on sexuality. She says one of the books was Restoring Sexual Identity: Hope for Women Who Struggle With Same-Sex Attraction by Anne Paulk. The author identifies herself as an ex-lesbian. She was a vocal part of now-defunct Exodus International, an Orlando-based Christian organization that promoted conversion therapy. That practice is based on the idea that a person’s sexual orientation can be changed through intense, sometimes dangerous, methods. Studies have found it can lead to higher rates of depression, anxiety and even suicide, according to the American Medical Association.
In her 2003 book, Paulk argued that sexual orientation is not biological, but the result of other factors such as childhood trauma, including sexual abuse, or “atypical childhood play patterns.”
She offers advice if someone suspects their co-worker is a lesbian: “First, remember that homosexuality at its root is not sexual. Instead, it is an ineffective coping mechanism — a false way to love and nurture oneself. … What she needs more than anything is a relationship with Jesus Christ and the nurture that comes from God alone.”
The author also writes that changing one’s sexual orientation can be easier than overcoming drug or alcohol addiction.
Paulk, at the time she wrote this book, was married to John Paulk, who was also part of the “ex-gay” movement and former board chair of Exodus International. The couple divorced in 2013 and John renounced conversion therapy. He was part of the 2021 Netflix documentary Pray Away, about Exodus International and its 37-year history promoting the practice. (As reported by Orlando Weekly, former Exodus International president Alan Chambers denounced conversion therapy in 2013, apologized for promoting it, and shut down the organization.)
Anne Paulk doubled down on praying away the gay, though. She is now executive director of the Restored Hope Network, an Oregon-based organization that still promotes conversion therapy.
Hevia said Pastor Fernandez urged her to reconsider her sexual orientation as she left the program. “He asked me, ‘Do you ever want to get married and have kids the right way?'”
Challenge
At her April 6 hearing, Hevia was offered the chance to complete her drug treatment at another facility. She opted instead to finish her jail sentence. At that point, she had already served 30 days.
“I felt that accepting probation and being put into another program would hurt me more than help me,” Hevia wrote in an email to Orlando Weekly.
Hevia is appealing her case, although it won’t be heard while she’s still in jail. She’s scheduled for release on June 3. Ghica, her attorney, says they’re appealing the decision because the ruling sets a “problematic precedent.”
“I just think it’s fair that others are informed of the program and what they require before entering,” Hevia wrote to Orlando Weekly. “I wouldn’t want others to suffer the way I have.”
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