Former 'Ex-Gay' Lears Denounce 'Conversn Therapy' In A New Documentary : NPR

Contents:

• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
• 'EX-GAY' THERAPIST ALLEGEDLY FOUND SOLICG 'HOOKUPS' ON GAY DATG APPS
• ONCE A RISG STAR OF THE ‘EX-GAY’ MOVEMENT, JULIE RODGERS SPEAKS OUT AGAST ‘NVERSN THERAPY’ NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY: ‘I RRY WH ME THE SRS.’
• WELL-KNOWN EX-GAY THERAPIST COM OUT AS GAY, SEEKS TO DATE MEN
• EX-GAY THERAPIST RPONDS TO SBC'S 'REPARATIVE THERAPY' STANCE
• THERAPIST MT STOP 'EX-GAY' CONVERSN THERAPY AFTER LOSG LAWSU TO OVERTURN BAN
• 5 SURPRISG FACTS ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY

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

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. 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. When Samuel Brton read the headl about McKrae Game — a former lear wh the South Carola “nversn therapy” mistry Hope for Wholens — g out as gay and renouncg the “ex-gay” mistry he helped lead, Brton was anythg but surprised.

MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE

C., on a nstutnal amendment to outlaw gay marriage South Ann Chasta / AP fileConversn therapy, sometim lled “ex-gay therapy” or “reparative therapy, ” is the psdoscientific and often relig practice that purports to change a person’s sexual orientatn or genr inty.

The ntent practice has been nmned by nearly every major medil associatn and has been associated wh creased rat of suici his g out story, Game told The Post and Courier that, havg grown up as a Southern Baptist South Carola, “homosexualy and Christiany didn’t go together, ” and he was tght that beg straight was a ticket to heaven, “and not hell. ”“So there is no qutn my md that bee of his work, he has tly srred, emotnally srred, many, many, many LGBTQ youth, ” Brton BrtonThe Trevor ProjectBrton said they, too, grew up a fah tradn that reacted wh horror when they me out, and that they, too, once intified as “ex-gay.

'EX-GAY' THERAPIST ALLEGEDLY FOUND SOLICG 'HOOKUPS' ON GAY DATG APPS

‘False advertisg’Brton said is unsurprisg that so many formerly proment “ex-gay” practners have e out, or been outed, as gay, bee the service they are sellg is a dulent one. In the past two years alone, there were Norman Goldwasser, the South Florida nversn therapist who was acced of g the screen name “hotnhairy72” to solic hookups on Manhunt and Gay Bear Natn, and David Mathon, a Mormon nversn therapist om New Jersey who renounced his work and wrote on Facebook that “ was time for me to affirm myself as gay.

”In 2014, the Natnal Center for Lbian Rights published an open letter om ne former nversn therapists, cludg several om the now-shuttered ex-gay mistry Exod Internatnal, who lled for a ban on nversn ex-ex-gay activists wrote that they “once believed that there was somethg morally wrong and psychologilly ‘broken’ about beg LGBT, ” as per their unrstandg of Christiany. ”If the exod om ex-gay mistri seems steady, so is the stubborn sistence by some the relig muny that prayer and “nversn therapy” n change a person’s nate sense of sexualy or genr inty. “I had only known a very unhealthy party life after beg thrown out of the hoe for beg gay, and here were a bunch of sober people offerg me answers for everythg — and offered me my first groundg, whout realizg was killg off part of who I was.

Eighteen stat pl the District of Columbia have banned the practice for mors, acrdg to the Movement Advancement Project, though a slim majory of Amerins still live jurisdictns where nversn therapy is still legal for bans n’t do all, acrdg to Brton, and eedom of relign will always grant some leeway for the vout to unsel their flock to reject homosexualy if that is their theologil LGBTQ advot mt also w the argument, and the bt way is to take a three-track approach, Brton said.

ONCE A RISG STAR OF THE ‘EX-GAY’ MOVEMENT, JULIE RODGERS SPEAKS OUT AGAST ‘NVERSN THERAPY’ NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY: ‘I RRY WH ME THE SRS.’

”“For a perd of my life, I intified as ex-gay and me back out, and I wish people had been there to talk to me when I was ex-gay, bee I felt rejected by both muni, ” Brton said. ”“It feels like the worst Venn diagram of your life, that neher si wants to claim you, ” Brton said he n “personally relate to not beg Christian enough for Christians, not beg gay enough for the LGBTQ muny.

WELL-KNOWN EX-GAY THERAPIST COM OUT AS GAY, SEEKS TO DATE MEN

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. 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. 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.

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.

EX-GAY THERAPIST RPONDS TO SBC'S 'REPARATIVE THERAPY' STANCE

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.

THERAPIST MT STOP 'EX-GAY' CONVERSN THERAPY AFTER LOSG LAWSU TO OVERTURN BAN

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. 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.

5 SURPRISG FACTS ABOUT GAY CONVERSN THERAPY

Among them were Alan Downg, the lead therapist of JONAH (Jews Offerg New Alternativ to Homosexualy), who ma his patients strip and touch themselv ont of a mirror; NARTH member Christopher At, who was nvicted of "unlawfully, tentnally and knowgly [g] peratn of" a client; and Exod-affiliated Mike Jon, who asked a patient to take off his shirt and do ph-ups for movement also suffered several high-profile fectns. " In 2007, Exod -founr Michael Bsee apologized for his role startg the as a rponse to the rurgence of ex-gay therapy, mastream profsnal anizatns also took a harr stance. The group no longer talks about "Freedom om Homosexualy"-s motto-but about the nobily of ntug to stggle agast same-sex has also begun to distance self om NARTH.

But the sprg of my sophomore year, the disparate parts of myself I had managed to hold together-the part of me that thought beg gay was wrong, the part that slept wh men anyway, the part of myself I let the world see, and the part that suffered silence-me undone.

While took years of unselg to disabe myself of the ias I had learned while unrgog therapy wh Nilosi, was the first time I enuntered profsnals who were affirmg of my sexualy, and the first time I allowed myself to thk was all right to be gay.