A Survivor Of Gay Conversn Therapy Shar His Chillg Story | HuffPost Voic

Contents:

• GAY AND TRANS PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TO CONVERSN THERAPY ARE SHARG THEIR TRMATIC STORI, AND IT'S A REMR WHY IT NEEDS TO BE ABOLISHED
• THE 1975 NCEL SHOWS INDONIA AND TAIWAN AFTER MALAYSIA GAY KISS UPROAR
• FROM GAY TO GOSPEL: THE FASCATG STORY OF BECKET COOK
• A SURVIVOR OF GAY CONVERSN THERAPY SHAR HIS CHILLG STORY
• JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU
• ‘THEY/THEM’ FILM REVIEW: SHARP SCRIPT GIV BE TO GAY-CONVERSN CAMP HORROR STORY
• MY HARROWG JOURNEY THROUGH GAY CONVERSN THERAPY RSIA
• MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
• I WAS TORTURED GAY CONVERSN THERAPY. AND IT’S STILL LEGAL 41 STAT.
• IN POWERFUL REBE OF HATE, JAGUARS' KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY G OUT AS GAY
• MALAYSIA CUTS SHORT MIC FT AFTER BRISH BAND SLAMS ANTI-GAY LAWS, SGER KISS MALE BANDMATE
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY

GAY AND TRANS PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TO CONVERSN THERAPY ARE SHARG THEIR TRMATIC STORI, AND IT'S A REMR WHY IT NEEDS TO BE ABOLISHED

I was motivated by Bible College teachgs whose founr was secretly groomg and sexually harassg his younger youth mister and employee to a homosexual relatnship while teachg and preachg the 'Sun' of homosexualy. I went to a seri of speech geared toward the youth of the church where one speaker talked about how watchg porn would lead you down an evable path that ends by you beg a homosexual and then a child molter (which obvly isn't te).

I was told that sexualy was a s, specifilly, homosexualy was a s the same tegory as murr bee perverted the tools for the creatn and stctn of life. Homosexualy was seen as beg even worse than necrophilia bee was someone else beg 'tricked' and 'asslted' by someone who claimed to re. They believed and tght that homosexuals were scum for beg so selfish and so nceed to thk they had the right to steal the nocence of someone else by makg them go to hell.

Even worse, they said gay people force themselv on someone else bee there is no way TWO adults n nsent to sex if they are the same genr. I was part of an onle muny of other gay people tryg to nvert, and some of the people that muny claimed to have succsfully nverted.

THE 1975 NCEL SHOWS INDONIA AND TAIWAN AFTER MALAYSIA GAY KISS UPROAR

My parents thought was fe that I was gay (my mom more so than my dad) and didn't want to take me to a Christian unselor, but I was adamant. His procs was based on the ia that I was gay bee my relatnship wh my dad was aquate and bee I hadn't been affirmed my masculy when I was younger.

FROM GAY TO GOSPEL: THE FASCATG STORY OF BECKET COOK

And fally, "I went to a 'special psychologist' or 'psychiatrist, ' but he was a 'former gay man' who had sce turned his life over to God. I was mostly dog this to appease my parents, as they were unr the imprsn beg gay (well, bisexual my se) was a choice, and that I uld change if I wanted to. Dpe several lol bylaws discrimatg agast LGBTQ+ people Indonia, s natnal laws have never ma homosexualy a crimal there have been attempts to crimalise homosexualy by nservative policians and groups, while gay upl often face discrimatn the world’s most populo Mlim-majory untry.

In the years sce, Cook pleted a gree at Talbot School of Theology and wrote a memoir of his nversn, A Change of Affectn: A Gay Man’s Incredible Story of Remptn, which jt released.

While certa therapi, like talk therapy, are also legimate forms of re for people who experience mental health problems, beg gay is, of urse, not a mental health, a 19-year-old gay man who spoke to The Huffgton Post anonymoly for this article orr to protect his safety, is a survivor of nversn therapy was subjected to nversn therapy 2012 when he was 15 years old after his parents disvered he was gay.

A SURVIVOR OF GAY CONVERSN THERAPY SHAR HIS CHILLG STORY

Their goal was to get to hate ourselv for beg LGBTQ (most of were gay, but the entire spectm was reprented), and they knew what they were dog.... Robert Spzer, one of the most proment people who advoted for gay cur, actually apologized for his actns and the damage they flicted 2012. Veteran screenwrer John Logan mak his directorial but wh “They/Them, ” a Blumhoe horror movie set a gay nversn mp, and his formidable screenwrg prows is what really sets this picture apart om others the horror genre.

Kev Ban excels here as Owen Whistler, the head of a gay nversn therapy mp that has the words “Rpect, Renew, Rejoice” on the sign above the entrance. ”The apology me after an pennt review published Wednday timated that hundreds, if not thoands, of veterans were dismissed or suffered unr an official ban on homosexualy the U. “As today’s report mak clear, that perd many endured the most horrific sexual abe and vlence, homophobic bullyg and harassment, all while bravely servg this untry, ” Sunak told Parliament.

JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU

Veterans’ ttimoni “give shockg evince of a culture of homophobia, and of bullyg, blackmail and sexual asslts, abive vtigatns to sexual orientatn and sexual preference, disgraceful medil examatns, cludg nversn therapy, ” the report said. Olympic gold medallist Kelly Holm, who had served the Brish army and who me out as gay last year, said meant “a huge amount” to hear the ernment apology. “From a personal pot of view, the ban affected me terms of who I was and what I uldn’t be for 34 years, ” Holm ban on homosexualy was abandoned 2000, when the European Court of Human Rights led favor of four service personnel who were vtigated and then discharged bee of their sexualy.

I soon published an article about Zhdanov, which my news se labeled for rears aged 18 and over—the standard age lim imposed on all stori about gays published Rsia sce the summer of 2013, when Vladimir Put signed a law banng the distributn of so-lled “gay propaganda” among mors. Petersburg, and other major Rsian ci, members of the Dobrоta gang (whose name, a sister twist, means “Kdns”) were seekg out gays on Grdr and Hor, then gog to their hom to beat and extort them. If both rovg gangs and the regime self were tryg to purge Rsia of gays, did gays ever feel pelled to try to alter their sexualy themselv?

When yet another attempt was ma to hold a gay para Mosw, I bbed my hands together and thought: “Three, two, one… and here e the police wh their batons. ” In my school years the worst possible sult was to be lled a “peth” or “rooster”—prison slang for a passive homosexual who is routely raped by other men.

‘THEY/THEM’ FILM REVIEW: SHARP SCRIPT GIV BE TO GAY-CONVERSN CAMP HORROR STORY

I remember a state TV host clarg that hearts om gay an donors were unsuable for transplants, suggtg they stead be burned and buried. And Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Rsian Orthodox Church—the church to which I was baptized—asserted that homosexualy was a “loss of moraly. ”In this homophobic society, was far easier for me to hate gay people than to face what I’d been avoidg sce my childhood: That I myself was gay.

All I had to go on were acunts of the Wtern experience of nversn therapy, like Sad to Be Gay, a 2005 BBC documentary that follows a reporter at a Christian nversn therapy clic Tennsee. As wh my creatn of Ala, I still felt that I need a disguise—to adm that I was gay would have seemed like a one-way ticket to a new life that I wasn’t prepared turned out, Tr was fertile ground for my rearch.

MY HARROWG JOURNEY THROUGH GAY CONVERSN THERAPY RSIA

He said that Goland ed a three-stage nversn procs: Durg the first stage, wh the help of hypnosis, patients are plunged to what Goland lled a “sexual-psychologil vacuum, ” a void between sexual orientatns where homosexuals are no longer terted men but not yet terted women.

MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE

” (Acrdg to Andrey, Goland once remend to Agarkov that patients also be given high dos of ffee and apomorphe, a dg ed to duce nsea and vomg, while the psychiatrist turns on gay erotic vios. They were nothg pared to the feelg of ner pury I would have if I uld actually make the transn to beg rrponnce wh Andrey led me to the webse of the clic Nizhny Novgorod, where I read about dozens of “cured” homosexuals.

“On Leonov’s iative, ” Goland told me when I vised his clic 2016, “a Center for the Psychotherapy of Homosexualy and Sexual Perversns was to be opened our cy, but the smont’s requt was nied by the Mistry of Health of the USSR. One month after I returned om Nizhny Novgorod, I me out to my iends, but they jt shgged: “We knew you were gay when we first saw you, ” one of them told me. 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.

I WAS TORTURED GAY CONVERSN THERAPY. AND IT’S STILL LEGAL 41 STAT.

" 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.

Until I had spoken wh Nilosi, I had rigned myself to the ia that, sirable or not, my life would have to acmodate the fact that I was gay.

IN POWERFUL REBE OF HATE, JAGUARS' KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY G OUT AS GAY

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. They were tired of the club scene, the dg e, the promiscuy; their relatnships didn't last; they plaed that gay culture was youth-obssed. 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. The woman, Anne Plk, said that moltatn durg adolcence led her to homosexualy, but that she had been healed through the power of J Christ.

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.

MALAYSIA CUTS SHORT MIC FT AFTER BRISH BAND SLAMS ANTI-GAY LAWS, SGER KISS MALE BANDMATE

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? The two largt groups that provi ex-gay unselg are Exod Internatnal, a nonnomatnal Christian anizatn, and NARTH, s secular unterpart.

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. While I still accepted Nilosi's unrlyg theory about why people were gay, I believed that all the talkg the world uldn't change me. 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.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY

Based on 200 terviews wh ex-gay patients-the largt sample amassed-the study did not make any claims about the succs rate of ex-gay therapy. 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.

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.

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.