Can Gay People Change? Is It Psychologilly Harmful to Make Them Try? - Jonathan Morrow

Contents:

• TURNS OUT, BARBIELAND ISN'T AS GAY AS S QUEER FANS HAD HOPED
• ‘EX-GAY’ MEN FIGHT BACK AGAST VIEW THAT HOMOSEXUALY CAN’T BE CHANGED
• STUDY SAYS GAYS CAN SHIFT SEXUAL ORIENTATN
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• CAN PEOPLE STOP BEG GAY?
• SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS
• CAN GAY PEOPLE CHANGE? IS IT PSYCHOLOGILLY HARMFUL TO MAKE THEM TRY?

TURNS OUT, BARBIELAND ISN'T AS GAY AS S QUEER FANS HAD HOPED

But “Gay Water” — which adopts a moniker the gay muny has long given to the simple vodka and soda cktail — has been spired by the dtup to bee even bolr about the dience ’s targetg, founr and CEO Spencer Hodson told The Post.

Gay Water — a nned cktail brand that plays on the gay muny’s lloquialism for the vodka-and-soda mixed drk — lnched on Wednday and promis to unrstand s dience better than Bud Light.Spencer Hodson/Instagram. “Our missn is to -stigmatize the word ‘gay’ and start to create reprentatn spac that tradnally don’t have queer-owned products, let alone products wh the word ‘gay’ their tle,” Hodson told The Post.

"Alex AvilaAnd Gay Tim, a Brish LGBTQ news se, celebrated Friday, the day of the film’s official release, as “Barbie day“ and lled the world-renowned doll a “queer cultural phenomenon. Many also flagged the teased scene which Barbie, now the real world, exchang a longg look wh Ameri Ferrera’s Gloria character; though, the relatnship between the two turns out to be a tribute to motherhood and the tradnal, nuclear before the film’s release, Robbie all but squashed the mors that some or any of the Barbi and Kens would be gay, tellg the Brish LGBTQ magaze Attu: The dolls don’t “actually have sexual orientatns.

‘EX-GAY’ MEN FIGHT BACK AGAST VIEW THAT HOMOSEXUALY CAN’T BE CHANGED

”As far as the queer-d trailers and promotnal clips for the new “Barbie” film, Rand poted to a phenomenon known as “gay wdow advertisg, ” or the practice of advertisers gturg to queer dienc a way that will go over the heads of those who would disapprove. In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that.

“The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer. Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN.

STUDY SAYS GAYS CAN SHIFT SEXUAL ORIENTATN

“There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns,” Roth said.

Of urse, other drks e the word “gay,” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space. He spent 17 years a doomed marriage while battlg his urg all day, he said, and dreamg about them all recent years, as he probed his childhood unselg and at men’s weekend retreats wh nam like People Can Change and Journey Into Manhood, “my homosexual feelgs have nearly vanished, ” Mr. Smh is one of thoands of men across the untry, often known as “ex-gay, ” who believe they have changed their most basic sexual sir through some batn of therapy and prayer — somethg most scientists say has never been proved possible and is likely an men are often closeted, fearg ridicule om gay advot who acce them of self-ceptn and, at the same time, fearg rejectn by their church muni as tated oddi.

”But many ex-gays have ntued to seek help om such therapists and men’s retreats, sayg their own experience is proof enough that the treatment n Bzer, 35, was so angered by the California ban, which will take effect on Jan.

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

He was tormented as a Christian teenager by his homosexual attractns, but now, after men’s retreats and an onle urse of reparative therapy, he says he feels glimmers of attractn for women and is thkg about datg.

Bzer, who plans to seek a doctorate psychology and bee a therapist ex-gays guard their secret but quietly meet support groups around the untry, sharg ias on how to avoid temptatns or, perhaps, broach their past wh a female date.

The theori, which have also been adopted by nservative relig opponents of gay marriage, hold that male homosexualy emerg om fay dynamics — often a distant father and an overbearg mother — or om early sexual abe. Spzer, publicly repudiated as valid his own 2001 study suggtg that some people uld change their sexual orientatn; the study had been wily ced by fenrs of the this summer, the ex-gay world was nvulsed when Alan Chambers, the print of Exod Internatnal, the largt Christian mistry for people fightg same-sex attractn, said he did not believe anyone uld be rid of homosexual Nilosi, a psychologist and clil director of the Thomas Aquas Psychologil Clic Enco, Calif., which he scrib as the largt reparative therapy clic the world, disagreed. Crics like Wayne Ben, the executive director of Tth Ws Out, which fights antigay bias, liken such therapy to fah healg, wh apparent effects that later fa also pot out that the failur of such therapy are seldom reported.

CAN PEOPLE STOP BEG GAY?

Swaim is unemployed and liv wh his parents Orange County, Calif., where his father is a pastor of the Evangelil Friends Church of the tried the gay life, but “ jt don’t settle wh me, ” he said, and ultimately cid “there’s got to be a way to heal this afflictn. A homosexual orientatn isn’t the actual problem; ’s the symptom of a eper issue–legimate, God-given needs for relatnship and timacy that have been channeled unhealthy and sful directns.

There is a lot of wisdom to be found here bee many therapists believe that homosexualy has s roots hurtful relatnship patterns, pecially wh fay members, and many homosexual men and women report exactly that. Fortunately, even for people who do not live an area where there is a mistry tailored for those alg wh unwanted homosexualy, there are onle support foms that n be almost as powerful as face-to-face groups.

Intertgly, don’t seem to matter what the particular stronghold is a person’s life—whether be homosexualy, gluttony, dg penncy, pulsive gamblg or shoppg, alholism, sexual addictn, or any other stronghold—the most effective solutn is the same: timacy wh Christ.

SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS

A wise iend observed that homosexualy is the u of sful ways of alg wh pa–sful bee they cut off om the One who n heal and meet our needs, sful bee they place at the center of our universe and we don’t belong there. But hundreds of former homosexuals have found a large gree of change, attag abstence om homosexual behavrs, lseng of homosexual temptatns, strengtheng their sense of mascule or feme inty, and rrectg distorted styl of relatg wh members of the same and oppose genr. She is a equent speaker for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) and Stonecroft Mistri (Christian Women's Connectns), and serv on the board of Livg Hope Mistri, a Christ-centered outreach to those alg wh unwanted homosexualy.

Has a history of repeatedly sharg unfound nspiraci that man-ma chemils the environment uld be makg children gay or transgenr and g the femizatn of boys and masculizatn of girls. The basels claim that chemils – particularly tap water – uld turn people gay has gaed populary wh nspiracy theorists over the years, most memorably wh nservative rad host Alex Jon, who said chemils the water were “turng the igg’ ogs gay. Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg to people of lor.

“Fdg plac like GAMeBoi, where beg queer and Asian do -exist … It’s not like a 1, 000-year-old Korean cultural rual, but I uld create a new rual, ” said Ahn, a recent Friday, hundreds packed QT Nightlife’s monthly K-Pop Night at Micky’s, a Wt Hollywood gay club a block or so east om the old GAMeBoi posed for selfi a pk Barbie box wh dis balls hangg overhead.

CAN GAY PEOPLE CHANGE? IS IT PSYCHOLOGILLY HARMFUL TO MAKE THEM TRY?

” (Michael Owen Baker / For The Tim) Even historilly gay neighborhoods like Wt Hollywood or San Francis’s Castro district, Asian Amerins have long been ignored or fetishized, seen as feme and weak.

In 2019, then-Wt Hollywood Mayor John Duran argued that he did not appropriately touch a member of the Gay Men’s Chos of Los Angel bee “he’s a skny Korean kid wh pimpl on his cheek. ” Asian Amerin advocy groups cricized Duran’s remark, wh API Equaly-LA potg to the long history of discrimatn agast Asian men gay muni such as Wt Hollywood, whose clubs “ed to require three forms of photo intifitn om anyone they perceived as Asian. Adam* said was dangero to e out as gay his home untry and feared beg forced to an arranged marriage wh a said he was "so lucky" to wed his soulmate, Ray, Manchter and wish everyone uld marry who they love.