On Beg Gay and Gray: Our Stori, Gifts, and the Meang of Our Liv - Kdle edn by McNght, Brian. Relign & Spirualy Kdle eBooks @

Contents:

• INTSIVE THOUGHTS ABOUT BEG GAY
• 'HOMOSEXUAL OCD': STRAIGHT MEN WHO SPECT THEY ARE GAY
• GAY 'NVERSN THERAPY': MAN GIVEN ELECTRIC SHOCKS MANDS APOLOGY
• HIDN BRA: AMERI'S CHANGG ATTUS TOWARD GAY PEOPLE
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• HOW DO I KNOW I’M NOT REALLY GAY/STRAIGHT?
• ON BEG GAY AND GRAY: OUR STORI, GIFTS, AND THE MEANG OF OUR LIV KDLE EDN

INTSIVE THOUGHTS ABOUT BEG GAY

Currently sufferg om OCD (Obssive Compulsive Disorr)Recurrg unwanted or tsive thoughts about your own sexualyConstantly reassurg yourself that you are straightAvoidg people of your same genr due to anxiety or unwanted fears that you might be gayWorryg that you might be sendg out “signals” that will make others thk you are gayHomosexual thoughts are repulsive to you, rather than arogFeelg no attractn to your same sexRepeatg an actn bee you worry that you might have done somethg a way that mak others thk you are gay (example: a man repeatedly gets up and ss down on a chair bee he worri that he tak a seat a way that looks too feme). Homosexual thoughts are enjoyable and/or arog to the person, even if they hi their sexual orientatn om others or are ashamed of Havg had past sexual experienc wh those of their same genrPreferrg to date or have sexual enunters wh people of their same genr stead of wh those of the oppose sexOften, people who are gay report havg felt differently than their same-sex peers at an early age. A person sufferg om this sub-type of OCD nstantly doubts their sexual orientatn:A straight person worri whether they might actually be gay even though they haven’t doubted their sexual orientatn the pastThey might worry that homosexualy is “tchg”They may thk that talkg wh a gay person will make them act out by triggerg their own latent homosexual tennci.

Where a tly gay person obtas happs and relief the act of revealg their homosexual orientatn, HOCD people who e out ntue to doubt their wh tradnal OCD, people who are affected by this ternalized homophobia engage ruals to help them alleviate their anxiety and prove to themselv that they are tly straight.

'HOMOSEXUAL OCD': STRAIGHT MEN WHO SPECT THEY ARE GAY

They might also perform washg ruals if they are around a gay person, may act overtly to assure themselv of their sexual orientatn, or may even blatantly act out agast gay people orr to prove they are straight. Addnally, HOCD sufferers might avoid physil ntact or beg alone wh gay people and may even rry this behavr to shunng same-sex public rtrooms or not eatg public se the food was prepared by a gay person. If they don’t, they may unsel the person to help them accept their homosexualy which will only aggravate the person’s HOCD more rmatn and help wh HOCD ’s symptoms the Delray Beach, FL area, please ntact Dr.

24, 2014— -- Steven Brodsky, a psychologist who specializ obssive-pulsive disorr, says that at any one time he has a "handful" of clients who are straight and spect that they are gay.

J., said he had one adult patient who was so crippled by obssive thoughts about beg gay that he was unable to live penntly and had to move back wh his parents to pe. Brodsky said a prev therapist had misdiagnosed his patient as gay, and at the patient's requt, sent him off to reparative therapy, a ntroversial method that has not been proven to be effective and n be harmful. Jack Drcher, a noted New York Cy psychiatrist who is nsired an expert gay and lbian mental health and treats patients for OCD, agreed that "beg worried that one might be gay is not the same thg as beg gay.

GAY 'NVERSN THERAPY': MAN GIVEN ELECTRIC SHOCKS MANDS APOLOGY

""A person wh OCD who has is havg tsive thoughts about whether or not he is gay, is not gay, the sense that he has not rporated a homosexual orientatn any mimally affirmg way to his inty, " said Drcher. "Also, if he is not actually attracted to people of the same sex, do not masturbate to fantasi of people of the same sex, is not really aroed by same sex pornography, then is hard to make the se that he has a homosexual orientatn.

Another was heterosexual and feared he had agreed wh Brodsky that some therapists may miss an OCD diagnosis, but "the most likely e of that is not that they are too gay-affirmg but that they lack trag regnizg the symptoms of OCD.

A gay man who went through months of electric shock "therapy" a universy psychology partment 50 years ago has mand an - not his real name - went to his GP for advice the 1970s, when he beme aware of his sexualy his doctor said he knew someone who uld "cure" him. 'Hefty electric shock'Homosexualy had only been -crimalised 1967, and mastream society was still eply disapprovg of the, now 74, remembers beg told that "even havg a sex change" would be better for him than ntug to live as a gay man, and so he mted to the prcribed treatment which he had been guaranteed would work.

HIDN BRA: AMERI'S CHANGG ATTUS TOWARD GAY PEOPLE

Banng nversn therapy In 2018, the UK ernment announced that "gay nversn therapi" were to be banned, as part of a plan to improve the liv of gay and transgenr people. For timat of the proportn of youth who intify as lbian, gay, or bisexual see Lra Kann et al., Sexual Inty, Sex of Sexual Contacts, and Health-Related Behavrs among Stunts Gras 9-12 – Uned Stat and Selected S, 2015 (2016). On Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgenr Issu, Posn Statement: Sexual Orientatn Change Efforts (SOCE) and Conversn Therapy wh Lbians, Gay Men, Bisexuals, and Transgenr Persons (2015), Release, Am.

6, 2018), Marketg, Virgia Electn Poll (May 26, 2017), poll052016/ Moore, Only 8% of Amerins Thk Gay Conversn Therapy Works,, June 12, 2014, news/2014/06/12/gay-nversn-therapy/ B. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: We have a eper look this morng at one of the most profound shifts public attus ever rerd - 's the public view of people who are gay and much of this natn's history, of urse, the vast majory of people disapproved of homosexualy so strongly that anyone who me out was guaranteed to face difficulty and even risked danger.

MICHAEL ROSENFELD: There's more and more rapid change attus towards gay rights the past 30 years the Uned Stat than there ever has been rerd attus the Uned Stat on any issue. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)VEDANTAM: A surge of people me out durg the '80s and '90s rponse to a health crisis that was claimg the liv of tens of thoands of WOLFSON: AIDS broke the silence about who gay people are.

‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’

WOLFSON: If we uld claim the language of marriage, a vobulary of shared valu - love, mment, fay, cln, digny, rpect - that would help non-gay people better unrstand who gay people really are and allow to share equally not only marriage, but everythg.

WOLFSON: The vast majory of judg who are gog to le on the qutn, the vast majory of legislators who have to take actn, the vast majory of voters are, of urse, not gay. And then, what ltle data we have on trans rights also suggts that there's been a sharp crease appreciatn for the rights of trans I thk one of the thgs that has been shown by the Marriage Equaly Movement is that if you're a gay or lbian, you have more rights than you ed to have.

You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change. But what feels most accurate to say is that I’m gay – but I wasn’t born this people may fd their sir changg directn - and n't jt be explaed as experimentatn (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In 1977, jt over 10% of Amerins thought gayns was somethg you were born wh, acrdg to Gallup. Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

HOW DO I KNOW I’M NOT REALLY GAY/STRAIGHT?

” Around the same time, the Human Rights Campaign clared unequivolly that “Beg gay is not a choice, ” and to claim that is “giv unwarranted crence to roundly disproven practic such as nversn or reparative therapy. ”People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backwardAs Jane Ward not Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Whe Men, what’s tertg about many of the claims is how transparent their speakers are wh their polil motivatns.

“Such statements, ” she wr, “fe blogil acunts wh an obligatory and nearly ercive force, suggtg that anyone who scrib homosexual sire as a choice or social nstctn is playg to the hands of the enemy. ” People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backward – even if they are themselv, for example, Cynthia Nixon of Sex and The Cy fame. ”Gay rights do not have to hge on a geic explanatn for sexualy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)For Aravosis, and many gay activists like him, the public will only accept and affirm gay people if they thk they were born gay.

Patrick Grzanka, Assistant Profsor of Psychology at Universy of Tennsee, for stance, has shown that some people who believe that homosexualy is nate still hold negative views of gays. In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance. “It don’t seem to matter as much whether or not people believe that gay people are born that way as do that they simply know someone who is currently gay, ” Allen spe of the studi, those who ph agast Born This Way narrativ have been heavily cricised by gay activists.

ON BEG GAY AND GRAY: OUR STORI, GIFTS, AND THE MEANG OF OUR LIV KDLE EDN

Siarly, Ward has received her own hatemail for phg agast the lg LGB narrativ, wh some gays tellg her she’s “worse than Ann Coulter, ” the ntroversial US thor of books like If Democrats Had Any Bras, They’d Be Republins. And when I published my say on choosg to be gay, an irate Amerin lbian activist wrote me that had “jt been nfirmed” to her that my wrg was “directly rponsible for four gay aths Rsia.

There is a unanimo opn that gay “nversn therapy” should be rejectedLet’s first be clear that whatever the origs of our sexual orientatn, there is a unanimo opn that gay “nversn therapy” should be rejected. The efforts are potentially harmful, acrdg to the APA, “bee they prent the view that the sexual orientatn of lbian, gay and bisexual youth is a mental illns of disorr, and they often ame the abily to change one’s sexual orientatn as a personal and moral failure. The APA, for example, while notg that most people experience ltle to no choice over their orientatns, says this of homosexualy’s origs:“Although much rearch has examed the possible geic, hormonal, velopmental, social and cultural fluenc on sexual orientatn, no fdgs have emerged that perm scientists to nclu that sexual orientatn is termed by any particular factor or factors.

”Siarly, the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn wr a 2013 statement that while the of heterosexualy and homosexualy are currently unknown, they are likely “multifactorial cludg blogil and behavral roots which may vary between different dividuals and may even vary over time.