"Ex-Gays": The Big Threat to the LGBT Movement

Contents:

• MY EX IS GAY. HOW DO I NOT TAKE PERSONALLY?
• FDG OUT YOUR SPOE IS GAY
• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• ‘EX-GAY’ MEN FIGHT BACK AGAST VIEW THAT HOMOSEXUALY CAN’T BE CHANGED
• MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
• MILO YIANNOPOULOS SAYS HE IS ‘EX-GAY,’ WANTS TO REHABILATE ‘NVERSN THERAPY’
• EX-GAY IS HERE TO STAY
• WHY ARE HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS SO AAID OF “EX-GAYS”?
• WHAT ABOUT EX-EX-GAYS?
• HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY

MY EX IS GAY. HOW DO I NOT TAKE PERSONALLY?

It may not help you, but certaly helped me to take the mimosa-half-full outlook: Losg a lover bee he was gay (or straight, my se) absolv you of any of the blame. Bonnie Kaye,, me to specialize helpg women face this unanticipated reason for the mise of their marriage after her own marriage llapsed by virtue of her hband beg gay.

Kaye reports that when a woman learns the reason for the problems her marriage-namely homosexualy, she go through a wi range of emotns om vastatn, shame, guilt, rponsibily, and perhaps even to repulsn. Acrdg to, there are over 4 ln women this untry who are married to, or have been married to gay men, and there are lns more throughout the world.

FDG OUT YOUR SPOE IS GAY

The answers to the qutns pend on if the gay or lbian spoe knew and tried to reprs the homosexual attractns, whether he or she didn't know they were gay, or if they are bisexual (attracted to both genrs) or pansexual (attracted more to a person's spir or personaly rather than a person's anatomy) so the attractn to their spoe was real was real but not limed to one person or genr.

The seems to be no shortage of support out there on this subject matter and I also me across several books on the topic that may be of help to both the gay and straight spoe. It's a movement that's born out of a larger culture of homophobia and transphobia that still persists the majory of Christian church today. Interview highlights clu extend web-only answers and have been eded for length and clary: Interview Highlights Thomas on how he joed the "ex-gay" movement and Exod Internatnal I was out of the closet the '80s.

They also had a group for the gays, and unrneath all of that olns there was this toxic theology that said that you need to overe homosexualy. Stolakis on what the ex-gay and nversn therapy movement looks like today Conversn therapy and the ex-LGBTQ movement has always been practiced lolly. It's bee very lennial-driven bee there are younger people who've grown up homophobic and transphobic environments who are ready and willg to take the place of people like Randy.

FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY

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.

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.

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

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. “I believe that all people are heterosexual but that some have a homosexual problem, and some of the people attempt to rolve their nflict by adoptg a socpolil label lled ‘gay. Jeremy, who did not want his last name prted to avoid embarrassg his parents, said that om his teens until three years ago he lived as a gay man, at tim havg sex almost daily.

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.

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.

MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE

A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 16 of the New York edn wh the headle: ‘Ex-Gay’ Men Fight Back Agast View That Homosexualy Can’t Be Changed. My mom is a problem solver, and the next day she hand me a stack of papers she had prted out om the Inter about reorientatn, or "ex-gay, " therapy. Joseph Nilosi, a clil psychologist California who was then print of the Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy (NARTH), the untry's largt anizatn for practners of ex-gay therapy.

Nilosi's rner office had emerald-green rpet and mahogany bookshelv led wh tl like Homosexualy: A Freedom Too Far and Homosexualy and the Polics of Tth. " Although I might never feel a spark of excement when I saw a woman walkg down the street, as I progrsed therapy, my homosexual attractns would dimish. The other men-four or five altogether-were their forti and fifti and talked about their years the "gay liftyle, " which had yield only unhapps.

I left the office wh a py of Nilosi's most recent book, Healg Homosexualy, and a worksheet that tegorized different emotns unr the brics of "te self" and "false self. Another sheet illtrated the "triadic relatnship" that led to homosexualy: a passive, distant father, an overvolved mother, and a sensive child.

MILO YIANNOPOULOS SAYS HE IS ‘EX-GAY,’ WANTS TO REHABILATE ‘NVERSN THERAPY’

My mother might not have so easily found rmatn about ex-gay therapy had the Christian right not planted this stake the culture ad appeared 23 years after the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn (APA) classified homosexualy as a mental illns.

EX-GAY IS HERE TO STAY

A small group of therapists ntued to practice talk therapy that enuraged patients to see homosexualy as a velopmental disorr, but they remaed on the ge until the Christian right took up their e. Instead of fire-and-brimstone nunciatns om the pulp, the ex-gay movement allowed the Christian right to uch s nmnatn of homosexualy a way that seemed passnate. Foc on the Fay lled s new ex-gay mistry Love Won Out and talked about healg and rg for ex-gay movement turned the rhetoric of gay rights agast self: Shouldn't ex-gays be able to pursue therapy and live the liv they want whout facg discrimatn?

Together wh the late Charl Soris, a psychiatrist who led the opposn to classifyg homosexualy as a mental illns, Nilosi formed NARTH 1992 as a "scientific anizatn that offers hope to those who stggle wh unwanted homosexualy. Nilosi remas NARTH's most visible are no reliable statistics for how many patients have received ex-gay treatment or how many therapists practice , but the late 1990s and early 2000s, ex-gay therapy enjoyed a legimacy hadn't sce the APA removed homosexualy om s diagnostic manual. Whether or not the Christian right's alliance wh the ex-gay movement had nstuted a D-Day the culture wars, had succsfully challenged the prevailg ia that the bt choice for gay people was to accept themselv.

I read one of Nilosi's books, Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexualy, that he tri to posn himself as a supportive father figure, typifyg the sort of relatnship that he believ his patients never had wh their own father.

WHY ARE HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS SO AAID OF “EX-GAYS”?

When I left for Yale, my mother sent me off wh a warng: Were she to disver that I had "entered the gay liftyle, " my parents would no longer pay for my tn. What translated to the larger culture was: The father of the 1973 revolutn the classifitn and treatment of homosexualy, who uld not be seen as jt another biased ex-gay csar wh an agenda, had validated ex-gay therapy.

WHAT ABOUT EX-EX-GAYS?

Participants had been referred to Spzer by ex-gay groups like NARTH and Exod, which had an tert remendg clients who would validate their work.

HOW TO COPE WHEN YOUR SPOE COM OUT AS GAY

Spzer was drawn to the topic of ex-gay therapy bee was ntroversial-"I was always attracted to ntroversy"-but was troubled by how the study was received.

The need for that evince beme more prsg the early 2000s, when a dre of gay-rights bloggers began to sctize the movement, ready to expose any ht of hypocrisy. Richard Cohen, the founr of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays)-tend as the ex-gay unterpart to PFLAG (Parents, Fai, and Friends of Lbians and Gays)-was expelled om the Amerin Counselg Associatn for ethics vlatns. Michael Johnston, the founr of "Natnal Comg Out of Homosexualy Day, " was revealed to have fected men he'd met on the Inter wh HIV through unprotected sex.