Founr of nversn therapy program says he’s gay and disavows the movement - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• CONVERSN THERAPY ANIZATN FOUNR OUT AS GAY: 'PLEASE FIVE ME'
• CONVERSN THERAPY CENTER FOUNR WHO SOUGHT TO TURN LGBTQ CHRISTIANS STRAIGHT SAYS HE’S GAY, REJECTS ‘CYCLE OF SELF SHAME’
• CONVERSN THERAPY FOUNR COM OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY AFTER 20 YEARS OF LEADG HOMOPHOBIC PROGRAM
• 'I WAS A RELIG ZEALOT THAT HURT PEOPLE.' AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY, A FORMER CONVERSN THERAPY LEAR IS APOLOGIZG TO THE LGBTQ COMMUNY
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
• CONVERSN THERAPY FOUNR OPENS UP ABOUT COMG OUT AS GAY: 'I SNAPPED OUT OF IT'
• GAY NVERSN THERAPY IS A DANGERO LIE THAT N LEAD TO PRSN AND ANXIETY. MORE THAN 700,000 LGBTQ PEOPLE HAVE GONE THROUGH ANYWAY.
• GAY NVERSN THERAPY GROUP FOUNR MISLED ABOUT SUCCS RATE, LAWYER SAYS
• CONVERSN THERAPY CENTER FOUNR OUT AS GAY
• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY

CONVERSN THERAPY ANIZATN FOUNR OUT AS GAY: 'PLEASE FIVE ME'

The man who found Hope for Wholens, one of the most proment nversn therapy groups the Uned Stat, has e out as Game, the founr of the South Carola-based nversn therapy mistry Hope for Wholens, me out as gay this summer, nearly two years after beg fired om the anizatn he said an terview wh The Post and Courier published Friday that his anizatn, found nearly 20 years ago, "harmed generatns of people.

“Conversn therapy is not jt a lie, but ’s very harmful, ” Game told The Post and, now 51, is one of several former nversn therapy advot who have e out as LGBTQ and nmned the practice of nversn than a dozen stat have banned gay nversn therapy, which seeks to change a person's sexual orientatn or genr inty. ” He was wrong to tell people they were doomed for all eterny if they didn’t change their 20 years workg that field, Game said he realiz the harm he has ed and that he, himself, is gay.

“It’s all my past, but many, way TOO MANY ntue believg that there is somethg wrong wh themselv and wrong wh people that choose to live their liv hontly and open as gay, lbian, trans, etc., ” Game, 51, wrote on Facebook last week.

CONVERSN THERAPY CENTER FOUNR WHO SOUGHT TO TURN LGBTQ CHRISTIANS STRAIGHT SAYS HE’S GAY, REJECTS ‘CYCLE OF SELF SHAME’

A Latter-day Sat unselor who practiced nversn therapy said January that he is gay and that he “unequivolly renounc” ex-gay announced June that he was gay, almost two years after Hope for Wholens’s board of directors fired him, the Post and Courier reported.

CONVERSN THERAPY FOUNR COM OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY AFTER 20 YEARS OF LEADG HOMOPHOBIC PROGRAM

”In a Facebook Live vio posted Tuday, Game said he cid to tell people he was gay bee he was sred that someone would “out” him — reveal his sexual orientatn — and he wanted to ntrol his own story. ”Lears of nversn therapy programs rarely renounce the practice publicly bee dog so volv turng their backs not jt on the ex-gay muny, but also on nservative fah as a whole, said Alan Chambers, the former print of Exod Internatnal.

Chambers now advot for an end to nversn therapy for mors and for cludg LGBTQ people fah Whe, a former ghostwrer for high-profile evangelil Christians, scrib himself as “a victim of the ex-gay movement. The anizatn promot nonvlent ristance to relig spendg years workg wh the nservative Christian right, Whe said he has “spent the rt of my life tryg to reem myself om havg anythg to do wh that ex-gay system. McKrae Game, the man who found one of the largt nversn therapy programs the untry and led the homophobic anizatn for 20 years, has e out as gay.

'I WAS A RELIG ZEALOT THAT HURT PEOPLE.' AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY, A FORMER CONVERSN THERAPY LEAR IS APOLOGIZG TO THE LGBTQ COMMUNY

Two s after s foundg, however, Game — who once vehemently preached that beg gay would send someone to hell — has now e out as gay to the world.

“I stggled more so tryg to ny [my attractn to men] than beg able to accept my attractns and say, ‘I am a gay man, '” he said a recent terview wh the Post and Courier. His classmat often picked on him, llg him “McGay” for his feme quali, leadg Game to ny to himself and others he was attracted to men until he was 18. At 18, Game had his first timate relatnship wh a man and started to embrace his sexualy by gog out to gay bars and clubs, but his cisn to do so led him to velop bilatg anxiety, securi, and mental breakdowns.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS

Game then went on a retreat for people who were gay and didn’t want to be, led by a group named Exod, who eventually backed an offshoot he named Hope for Wholens Spartanburg. McKrae Game, 51, is speakg out a new terview after he announced he was gay June, about two years after he was fired om Hope for Wholens, the nversn therapy program he found 1999. Game has disavowed the program’s practic sce g out publicly (though a bgraphy still listed for him on Hope for Wholens’s webse claims he had “lived as a gay man for three years” before foundg his mistry.

” Over the urse of his reer wh Hope for Wholens, Game was open about experiencg attractn to other men and wrote about his stggle wh watchg gay pornography. Robert Galbrah Heath, a psychiatrist New Orleans who pneered the technique, ed this form of bra stimulatn, along wh hired prostut and heterosexual pornography, to “change” the sexual orientatn of gay men.

CONVERSN THERAPY FOUNR OPENS UP ABOUT COMG OUT AS GAY: 'I SNAPPED OUT OF IT'

An offshoot of the techniqu was “aversn therapy, ” which was found on the premise that if LGBTQ people beme disgted by homosexualy, they would no longer experience same-sex sire. ” LGBTQ people had long protted the cel and scientifilly dub forms of “treatment, ” but the ncept that homosexualy was a disease was accepted by the majory of the medil tablishment.

This clud the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, which nsired homosexualy to be a psychiatric the 1960s and 1970s, as a vol gay rights movement took to the streets to mand equaly, the profsn began to turn s back on the ncept that people uld be “nverted” to heterosexualy.

GAY NVERSN THERAPY IS A DANGERO LIE THAT N LEAD TO PRSN AND ANXIETY. MORE THAN 700,000 LGBTQ PEOPLE HAVE GONE THROUGH ANYWAY.

In 1973, the APA removed homosexualy om the DSM, s fluential manual of psychiatric disorrs, and medil profsnals began to distance themselv om techniqu they had once embraced.

Their methods varied, and clud everythg om talk therapy to “gay nversn” mps and nferenc, LGBTQ people were isolated om fay and iends, hypnotized, told to pray until their homosexualy subsid, stcted to beat effigi of their parents, mocked, ached on “proper” genr rol, and told their sexualy was unnatural and And Anne Plk, both “formerly gay” pose wh their son, Timothy, a mpaign for Gay Conversn to Heterosexualy.

“I read books and listened to dtap about how to have a ‘rrective and healg relatnship wh J Christ, ’” wr Jam Guay, a gay man who attend weekly therapy and nversn semars as a teen. And Exod Internatnal, an umbrella group that nnected var nversn therapy groups and gay mistry anizatns, closed down 2013 after nearly 40 years of operatns after s print, Alan Chambers, cid ’s impossible to change someone’s sexual orientatn.

GAY NVERSN THERAPY GROUP FOUNR MISLED ABOUT SUCCS RATE, LAWYER SAYS

“The practic have no basis science or medice and they will now be relegated to the dtb of quackery, ” said California ernor Jerry Brown as he signed a bill banng gay-to-straight therapy the state 2012. Wayne Ben om Tth Ws Out tak on Rich Wyler om People Can Change for practicg gay reparative founr of one of the natn's largt nversn therapy mistri is askg for fivens after champng the "ex-gay mistry" for two Game, of South Carola, June announced he was gay.

CONVERSN THERAPY CENTER FOUNR OUT AS GAY

He had found Hope for Wholens, an anizatn promotg the wily discreded practice of fah-based therapy signed to swch a person's sexual orientatn om homosexual to heterosexual.

But Gam, whose board of directors fired him two years ago, now says he wants all siar groups shut down for "harmful" UNLIKELY JOURNEY FROM AGNOSTIC GAY MAN IN PRISON TO EVANGELICAL BIBLE PROFESSOR"Conversn therapy is not jt a lie, but ’s very harmful, " Game, 51, told The Post and Courier. Tmp’s nng mate July, he has faced plats om groups cril of his rerd on gay and transgenr rights, who said he has long been an opponent of the gas ma by the L. It has been discreded by the medil tablishment and nounced by gay and transgenr Pence’s spokman, Marc Lotter, nied to The Tim over the weekend that the vice print-elect supports the practice, sayg a past mpaign statement had been misterpreted.

Groups rema skeptil, potg to his rerd of opposn to gay rights as a member of Congrs and as ernor of Indiana and an approvg reference to nversn therapy the 2016 Republin Party, what is nversn therapy, and why is Mr. ”Conversn therapy has been nmned by a range of groups, cludg the Amerin Medil Associatn and the Amerin Psychologil Associatn, which said was based on the view that homosexualy is a disorr, an ia “that has been rejected by all the major mental health profsns.

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

”Brothers on a Road Ls Traveled, a support group for men who want to stop beg attracted to other men, said s method clus velopg “an ternal sense of masculy” and “disverg our te needs unrlyg some of our homosexual longgs and triggers. ”There are equently relig overton to nversn therapy, which is often promoted by groups wh ti to nservative Christian anizatns like Foc on the Fay, which says on s webse that “homosexual stgglers” n “leave homosexualy” wh the help of support groups like Homosexuals Anonymo or by “beg more like J.