“Dear Alana” podcast tells story of Colorado woman’s conversion therapy, suicide

Simon Fung felt haunted by the story of Alana Chen.

One day in 2021, Fung read a news article about Chen that plagued him as he tried to fall asleep that night. Chen was a young woman from Colorado who told The Denver Post about her experience, as a teenager, of undergoing conversion therapy with a Catholic priest and died by suicide four months later.

Fung couldn’t help but notice the parallels between his life and Chen’s. Both devout Catholics, both struggling to come to terms with their sexuality. Both turning to conversion therapy in pursuit of a higher calling — aspiring priesthood for Fung and, for Chen, ambitions of becoming a nun.

“I felt like I needed to understand what happened to her,” Fung said in an interview with The Post.

Fung, who lived in the Bay…