My life as an ex-ex-gay man.
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
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? * 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. 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.
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 *
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. " 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. 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.
WHAT COM AFTER THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT? THE SAME THG THAT CAME BEFORE.
* o ex gay *
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.
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 *
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. 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. 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 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 *
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.
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.
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. Michael Johnston, the founr of "Natnal Comg Out of Homosexualy Day, " was revealed to have fected men he'd met on the Inter wh HIV through unprotected sex.
WHY ARE HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS SO AAID OF “EX-GAYS”?
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.
EX-GAY IS HERE TO STAY
John Evans, who had found the first ex-gay mistry outsi of San Francis, renounced change therapy when a iend mted suici after failg to bee heterosexual. " 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.
When asked about the possibily of gay people changg their sexual orientatn, Chambers-who'd once claimed that he knew of thoands of succs stori-said "99. I beme creasgly prsed but didn't go to mental-health unselg for fear that a well-meang therapist would rm my parents that I was livg the "gay liftyle.
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.