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

Contents:

• FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
• WELL-KNOWN EX-GAY THERAPIST COM OUT AS GAY, SEEKS TO DATE MEN
• MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
• WHY ARE HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS SO AAID OF “EX-GAYS”?
• THE EX-GAY CHRISTIANY MOVEMENT IS MAKG A QUIET EBACK. THE EFFECTS ON LGBTQ YOUTH ULD BE VASTATG.
• EX-GAYS SCEND UPON D.C. TO LOBBY AGAST LGBTQ RIGHTS
• MILO THROWS $150K ENGAGEMENT “SODOMY STONE” TO THE OCEAN TO PROVE HE’S NOW EX-GAY
• CELEBRI WHO HAVE LEFT A GAY LIFTYLE

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.

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

“Conversn” or “ex-gay” therapy is the harmful and psdoscientific practice of attemptg to make homosexual or bisexual people heterosexual and to keep trans people om affirmg the genr wh which they intify. Branch shut down 2013); John Plk, the poster-child for ex-gay group Love Won Out; John Smid, former director of ex-gay group Love In Actn and Tim Rymel, former outreach director at Love In Actn.

MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE

He holds a master’s gree unselg and guidance om Brigham Young Universy, and traed unr the late Joseph Nilosi, a proment ex-gay therapist who spent his life phg nversn therapy. Nilosi, who believed that male homosexualy was a velopmental disorr ed by childhood trma and “genr nfn, ” was a founr and past print of the Natnal Associatn of the Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy (NARTH), perhaps the bt-known secular anizatn phg nversn therapy the U.

Shut down 2013 and soon after that, an SPLC-brought lawsu agast ex-gay group JONAH (Jews Organizg for New Alternativ to Homosexualy; later Jews Organizg for New Alternativ to Healg) shut down 2015 after a jury led that the group’s practic amounted to nsumer d. Anti-LGBT and ex-gay groups have also begun g “relig liberty” and “ee speech” arguments to promote and fend nversn therapy and, 2018, started llg bans “mt stay gay” bills, rebrandg the practice as “dividual choice” while negatg the practice’s harmful history. He told terviewer Mnie Stephenson that he looked back on his participatn the ex-gay movement as “horrifyg” and add that the psdoscientific treatment “creat a lot of sorrow.

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

Mathon told Stephenson, "Any therapy that is based on the ia that beg gay is a psychologil disorr, which 's not, that believ that beg gay is wrong or bad, which 's not, and that n be changed and ought to be changed – any therapy based on that ia has a great potential of harmg people.

THE EX-GAY CHRISTIANY MOVEMENT IS MAKG A QUIET EBACK. THE EFFECTS ON LGBTQ YOUTH ULD BE VASTATG.

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. 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.

EX-GAYS SCEND UPON D.C. TO LOBBY AGAST LGBTQ RIGHTS

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.

MILO THROWS $150K ENGAGEMENT “SODOMY STONE” TO THE OCEAN TO PROVE HE’S NOW EX-GAY

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. 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.

CELEBRI WHO HAVE LEFT A GAY LIFTYLE

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. 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. He looked like he do his Facebook pictur: solid and short, wh a shaved head and large brown had iated penncy-and-neglect proceedgs agast his parents at age 16 to pe ex-gay therapy. The 19th century wrer Osr Wil is revered by many the gay and lbian muny but, believe me, if he were alive now, he’d be totally exasperated wh the whg, hysteril malntents who domate today’s gay lobby.