“There's a learned helplessness for a lot of people who are leaving Westboro because you're not allowed to have any kind of independence when you are there so a lot of people don't have practical life skills.”

American political activist

Megan Phelps-Roper is an American political activist who was formerly a member of, and spokesperson for, the Westboro Baptist Church, a Hyper-Calvinist Christian sect widely regarded as a hate group. Raised in Topeka, Kansas, she grew up in the church compound with her family. Her mother is Shirley Phelps-Roper, and her grandfather was the church founder, Fred Phelps. As a child, she was taught the church’s doctrine and took part in its public pickets against homosexuality, the American response to the September 11 attacks, and the funerals of soldiers who died in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In 2009, she began using Twitter to promote the church’s views. Later, exchanges with Twitter users, along with changes to the church’s internal decision-making, led her to question the beliefs she had been raised with.