Notes on the ex-gay movement

[vaneramos]

My NaNoWriMo novel (being posted friends-only in blind_king) has brought me face-to-face with my experiences in the ex-gay movement in the early 1990s. I spent several hours this evening searching the web for information about a part of my life I would just as soon forget. In fact for several years I did everything I could to avoid thinking about it. The first time I wrote about those experiences was on a message board four years ago. One of my objectives tonight was to find that post. I never habitually visited message boards, so I couldn't even remember which website it was on. I had begun to think it was lost, however I finally managed to track it down under Ex-gay and "Recovering Christian" experiences at Gay.com. So here, for the record, is my first post-recovery commentary on my experience in Exodus International. The first paragraph is a quote from a previous contributor:

10:54 am Oct 7, 2000 PST

My own story to contribute

"Of those who stayed a year and were closely involved with the group, many reported initially a better frame of mind about their sexuality and their future happiness. Between two to three years later, however, disillusionment began to set in and many drifted off. Of those who stayed four, even five years, many reported severe depression and a sense of futility and worthlessness." [Patrocleides]

It's frightening how closely this describes the course of my marriage, between 1990 an 1995. I had my first encounter with Exodus a couple of years earlier, and attended related counseling and support sessions regularly from 1992 to 1995. It was destructive to the lives of myself, my ex-wife and our two daughters who were aged 2 and 4 when we separated.

I wonder how many people who attend Exodus end up committing suicide? I narrowly escaped becoming a statistic myself. Fortunately, my family doctor who diagnosed my depression told me I could not recover without accepting my orientation. I chose to live.

It is important to find compassion for the many people who try to solve their agony by attending Exodus. Even the leaders, as hypocritical as they appear, are confused and conflicted people. They are all victims of the massive and overwhelming hatred embodied within the conservative Christian community.

For my decision to seek a way of accepting and embracing my sexual orientation, I was utterly despised and ostracized, not by my acquaintances at Exodus, but by my church community. This was their idea of healing and compassion toward a man so disabled by depression I had hardly slept for eight months and could barely get out of bed.

It is in fear of this kind of abuse that Exodus exists. People go in search of others who will at least listen to them, and can relate to their feelings. Yes, Exodus provides the wrong answer, but the alternative of losing all one's friends and family looks rather bleak. Ironically, I think Exodus helped me start to address my internalized homophobia. I met other people similar to me, and I liked them. As misguided as we were, our love and concern for one another was sincere. Maybe that is why we all got so depressed: we saw that it wasn't helping us. We lost contact with one another because we couldn't bear to watch one another suffering.

Activism is essential to stop this hateful and destructive spiritual abuse. But I am still too challenged by the process of healing to see much activism in my own future. A year ago it would have been too painful for me to read this message board, let alone talk about my own experience.

I'm not sure that pro-gay churches can respond adequately to religious bigotry. I have met MCC ministers every bit as dogmatic as the ones who preach homophobia. Liberal re-interpretations of the Bible only gloss over the psychological and social ignorance of some writers of ancient scripture. Religion, heirarchy and prejudice are three ugly stepsisters.

I would encourage others in recovery to pursue a spiritual journey based on personal discovery rather than pre-packaged belief systems. My path has brought me increasing joy and a sense of adequacy and capacity for survival. We are not the worthless, hollow vessels that evangelical Christianity teaches about. And life is not cheap money to be spent in pursuit of heavenly illusions: it is the real thing, it is precious and absolutely worth living.

Here are some additional resources I found this evening.

• Exodus: Proclaiming Freedom From Homosexuality, web site of my former umbrella ex-gay organization, the largest in the world.


• New Direction For Life Ministries, it's Toronto-based Canadian subsidiary.
  
• "Why reparative therapy and ex-gay ministries fail," by Kim I. Mills, on Gay Today: Viewpoint.
  
• "The other side of the rainbow: behind the curtain of ex-gay ministries," some firsthand journalism by Natalie Davis, on Gay Today: Viewpoint.
  
• "The Ex-gay Movement," commentary and further resources by Brett Humphries, on The Gay and Lesbian Humanist.
  

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

that's a beautifully written letter, van. i'll look at the websites, with interest. i think it was this issue that forced me to adopt a different way of looking at the bible, coming around to viewing it as stories, flawed by outmoded and untenable prejudices. fortunately, my faith isn't based on the bible.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

i came back to this thread to say essentially what mattycub says below -- i couldn't read those sites after all. they made me feel ill, with their exploitation of the self-loathing of fragile people. but it's probably good i looked at them.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

That's what's amazing about the writing of Trent's story: I find my anger being replaced with compassion.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

P.S. If you haven't already, try "The other side of the rainbow." It's long, and I haven't gotten through it all yet, but the writer's objectivity makes the subject more palatable and personal.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

ok, i'll read that in a few minutes here. i glanced down it but will take more time. thanks for the rec!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Understand that in 2000, when I wrote this statement, although I was not a decided atheist, my outlook on religion was more hostile than it is now. Your faith without bible is interesting, so foreign to my old fundamentalism, almost as foreign as what I believe now. I suppose you're referring to faith based on mysticism or personal experience, which I can appreciate. As an emotional rationalist, I recognize that no belief system can entirely escape subjectivity. That's why tolerance is so important.

Reading this thing I wrote in 2000, I realize how badly I need to update my website. Most of the content was written in 1997-98, and was already out of date four years ago.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

yes, i guess it's a kind of mysticism, or as a quaker group i once sat with called it, "experiential christianity." i'm more interested in jesus as revealed in (let's say) an episcopal/anglican communion service than in any amount of bible reading or preaching. the one reaches me and shows me love, while the other i hear as Law. (i've read bruce bawer's Stealing Jesus and probably internalized his church of law vs. church of love paradigm. it was very helpful to me.)

[mattycub.livejournal.com]

I never entered an ex-gay ministry myself, but there were long periods of time when I was struggling with my sexuality and came very close to seeking one out. I remember more than once reading their literature and thinking that maybe they were the way that God could could heal me. I was, to use one of their favorite terms, broken. But it wasn't my homosexuality that was the real problem - it was all the fundamentalist propaganda that my head had been filled with for years. I am so very thankful that I eventually went to a real therapist who provided the help that I truly needed: telling me that it was ok to be gay.

I do have several friends who are ex-ex-gays like yourself, and it's funny how many echo your sentiment of how attending ex-gay ministry helped them accept their homosexuality as a healthy part of who they are.

I followed some of the links you posted, but had to stop reading after a few minutes because what these organizations do is so destructive and wrong-headed that it makes me angry. They prey on people who are in a weak and vulnerable state, play on their self-doubt, fill their heads with lies, and cause so much spiritual damage - all to further their own agenda. It's sick.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Wrong-headed indeed! I'm not surprised it makes you angry. Can you imagine how it has made me feel, and why I couldn't bear to think about this for so long?

It's strange that my creative endeavours have brought me back to it, motivating me to read and grapple with the issues again. But I'm no longer angry. I utterly reject this wrong psychology, and yet I have come to appreciate the humanity behind it, partly because I'm currently writing about a fictional character based on my old self. I have to sympathize with him to let him be human rather than a charicature. The insight this process brings is astounding.

I'm so glad you didn't try out the ex-gay movement. I hovered in that state for several years, curious and afraid, until I couldn't manage my life anymore on my own, then I caved in. Regardless of whether the movement actually helped us overcome our homophobia, I still believe we would have been better off if we had never gone. The worst days of depression I experience now barely skim the surface of what agony I went through nine years ago: just wanting to die, but too afraid.