While speakg Sgapore at a semar sponsored by Foc on the Fay, I was asked the qutn: What about ex-ex-gays? Do their existence prove that is really impossible for people to change their sexual orientatn?
Contents:
- FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
- MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
- WHAT COM AFTER THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT? THE SAME THG THAT CAME BEFORE.
- MILO YIANNOPOULOS SAYS HE IS ‘EX-GAY,’ WANTS TO REHABILATE ‘NVERSN THERAPY’
- WHAT ABOUT EX-EX-GAYS?
- WHY ARE HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS SO AAID OF “EX-GAYS”?
- EX-GAY IS HERE TO STAY
FORMER 'EX-GAY' LEARS DENOUNCE 'CONVERSN THERAPY' IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY
* o ex gay *
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. Stolakis on what the ex-gay and nversn therapy movement looks like today Conversn therapy and the ex-LGBTQ movement has always been practiced lolly.
MY SO-CALLED EX-GAY LIFE
The LGBT movement is terrified to let ex-gays e "out of the closet." Why? Bee the existence of ex-gays prov that... * o ex gay *
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. 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.
WHAT COM AFTER THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT? THE SAME THG THAT CAME BEFORE.
My life as an ex-ex-gay man. * o ex gay *
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. " 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.
MILO YIANNOPOULOS SAYS HE IS ‘EX-GAY,’ WANTS TO REHABILATE ‘NVERSN THERAPY’
For 11 years, the Tth Ws Out webse aggrsively attacked those who claimed to be ex-gay, along wh dividuals and anizatns that supported ex-gays. Last month, Wayne Ben, the founr of Tth Ws Out, announced that he was closg shop bee, he claimed, “we acplished our major goals.” What, exactly, were those goals? * o ex gay *
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.
WHAT ABOUT EX-EX-GAYS?
The gay, lbian, and bisexual people once renounced their queerns but then realized sexualy isn't somethg you jt slough off. * o ex gay *
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.
WHY ARE HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS SO AAID OF “EX-GAYS”?
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.
EX-GAY IS HERE TO STAY
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. 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. 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.