When an ex-gay survivor shares an account of how they tried to change or suppress their orientation or gender non-conforming behavior, some gays and lesbians respond–That’s CRAZY! Why would you ever do something that STUPID!
Indeed, it may seem illogical that intelligent queer folk living in modern times get duped by promises of heterosexuality or vaguer promises of “change.” Some just chalk it up to that Old Time Religion that makes people do silly and self-destructive things. But it’s not that simple.
After spending nearly twenty years deeply entrenched in the ex-gay world, attending multiple Exodus programs, including the Love in Action residential facility for two years, I finally came to my senses and came out of the closet. I then began to ask myself–WHY did you do that to yourself? Why did you let ex-gay ministers and gay reparative therapists tamper with you.
The over arching reason was that I was a Christian and felt that being gay was incompatible with my faith. Strangely, my close reading of the Bible didn’t cause a similar strange reaction in regards to my finances and Biblical justice for the poor. It took time and effort, but I have unearthed several other reasons.
Here’s a selected short list from a much longer one.
- Desire to marry and have children
- Fear of loneliness as I grew old
- HIV/AIDS and other STDs that I assumed I would get if I came out gay
- Misinformation of what it meant to be gay
- The desire to fit in with everyone, to feel “normal”
- Pressure from society through virtually every film, TV show, pop song and commercial proclaiming that the heterosexual life was the idealized norm without showing any alternatives
I recently began a discussion with other ex-gay survivors about the reasons they tried to alter their sexuality, gender presentation, or gender identity. To help dig into the question, I prompted them:
Think about the point in time when you began to seek out ex-gay treatment. Then ask: “During that time, if I suddenly woke up the next day 100% heterosexual/gender normative, how would my life be different? How would my relationships be different? How would my future be different? How would my career be different?”
Here is a sampling of what folks had to say to the question, Why did you try to change?
Juli–Guilt. Never cared about god (or believed), but knew my parents would be ashamed and feel responsible (and ashamed for being responsible). Forty years and three marriages, and I still have to remind myself at least once a day they were wrong.
Derek–I was always the “good kid” so the thought of being gay didn’t mesh well with who I felt I was or more what others thought I should be. Faith, family, a desire for what was modeled as normalcy were blanket reasons.
Gail Dickert–I was highly motivated by the fear of hell and the idealism of hetero-supremacy that was proclaimed in my churches and especially in Bible College (Bridal College, as it was referred to by the women in search of their perfect husbands). [Gail is the author of Coming Out of the Closet without Coming Apart at the Seams]
Jane–am beginning to believe that underneath my own desire to de-gay was the belief that I wasn’t the right kind of woman. At some level, because of the reparative therapy model, I’ve conflated my sexuality and gender. I know they’re separate – but there are place inside my head where they are still connected.
Brian G. Murphy–I never had any formal ex-gay experiences but did try to will myself to be straight.
If I were straight, I could have an attractive girlfriend… If I were straight I could be the cool, sexy, fun guy that everyone wanted to be with or be like. If I were straight I would be accepted by my peers at church. If I were accepted I could work for YoungLife. Funny, it took me years to realize that all those things could be true if I just changed the world instead of myself. So now I’m trying.Autumn Sandeen–I know my motivation for identifying “ex-transvestite” in the 70’s & 80’s was “I want to be normal.” I didn’t want to be seen as a freak, and being a transvestite (the term for crossdresser back then that now in the 2010’s is seen as a pejorative) or a transsexual was in my mind back then were synonymous for gender freak.
Carl–My desire to be str8 was kind of drawn out and kind of complicated. Initially, I wanted to be str8 for secular reasons, fitting into society, being accepted etc. It wasn’t until later on that I veered towards religious reasons. I had been deeply involved with drugs and alcohol (habits I picked up in the Navy to try and hide my being gay) One night I had a seizure, and that is what eventually got me on the road to becoming “born again”. It was after that that I learned all about the evils of homosexuality from a fundamentalist view, and it was then that my reasons for wanting to be str8 changed from secular to religious. I spent many years vacillating between trying to be str8 and just being gay.
Amanda–I guess there is a factor that I maybe wasn’t aware of then, but am now… I have… an extensive abuse history and I thought that maybe that broke me forever and that is why I can’t be with men or am more drawn to women… and being broken sucks… so I was hoping if I practiced more or could learn to be more attracted to men and more of a “woman” that it might mean that I wasn’t completely broken…
Amanda’s response got me thinking about the twisted effects abuse can have on someone that make them fall prey to the attentions of ex-gay leaders. For me, childhood abuse was one of the compelling yet elusive reasons to seek out help from the ex-gays. I developed a complicated relationship with my body and sexuality. I lived with toxic levels of shame. I felt dirty and broken and believed something was fundamentally wrong with me. That played right into lots of ex-gay theories. Being abused did not make me gay, but it caused me to be ashamed of my sexuality, afraid of it, troubled by it.Sadly, I never received the help I needed from Christian counselors, Exodus, and gay reparative therapists. I finally turned to trained professionals.
For the last seven years of my ex-gay odyssey I was married to a woman. After our marriage imploded, I enrolled myself into Love in Action. I valued the marriage and I genuinely loved my wife, although I did not desire her sexually. At that time I would have done anything to have her back in my life. She was smart enough to not take me back.
Did you try to change or suppress your orientation, identity, or gender presentation? What were some of the reasons that compelled you?
Welcome to XGW, Peterson.
As a teenager, I was ashamed of my homosexuality and constantly, intensely afraid it would be exposed. I never went down the formal ex-gay route, but my inner life was full of attempts to change myself.
another excellent article Peterson…….it is so difficult for people not from a christian background/culture to get ‘it’.
simply put…when I was growing up and realised I was gay it meant society viewed me as a pervert, the law said I was a criminal if I acted on it and would be imprisoned, the church said I was an abomination. I didn’t want to be any of these things so this launched me on a 22 year journey to do all I could to change which included a six month live in program, exorcisms, 2 x 40 day fasts and marriage.
Of course nothing actually worked in the end. it was like getting of a stationary bike you’ve been peddling. You are still in the same place.
Had I been growing up today with the new understanding of sexual orientation, change in laws and new understanding of the bible verses……how different my life would be.
Ditto Dave Rattigan’s comments. My life was powerfully affected by the shame that came with realizing that I was attracted to guys and not girls. This shame started with puberty and darkened my existence for many years after. I have no doubt that if someone had dropped a reparative drive causation theory in my lap during those years I would have seized it. And honestly, I can see how many found ex-gay ministries as a way to safely “come out” in a fashion. You are given a way to unload the shame, be with others that share the same issues, and have a path to become “acceptable” to your world, the church. I guess all traps have an enticing bait.
I spent years praying to become straight. But unlike many I’ve heard from, even during that time I did not want to have a wife and kids, etc. I just could not identify with that. My fantasy, even while praying to become straight, was to be who I was, to be free to be me. Those who have not lived this probably can’t understand how many layers there can be to that life and how they don’t always interact with one another well. It does not surprise me that so many ex-gays tend to have come from really messed up lives. The tragedy is that all those problems get blamed on “the gay” instead of the real source — imposed shame for being gay.
Even the shame is turned around into a “good thing” incorporated into that world view, as God’s way of telling you how wrong you are. Living through all that and coming out sane truly is a grand test of the human spirit, of endurance and survival. We should remember that.
A couple
1. Fear of going to Hell (Seperation from God due to my personal “choice”)
2. Family rejection (My parents though non-religious threatened to disown me or kill themselves over this)
3. Outright rejection from the GLBT community (When I was proud and out)
4. Deep acceptance from the Catholic church and other Christian churches
5. A general miserable experience with my fellow gay men
These coupled together really lead to a deep shame and insecurity of my homosexuality which took a gradual time to simply just ACCEPT. I don’t want anyone to have to feel like I did during a dark season in my life.
I see, absolutely no difference in how impossible standards of beauty or other attributes that are normal, are distorted and sold as an ideal. Which leads to women suffering anorexia, or Japanese people to have surgery to alter their epicanthic fold…blacks who have suffered burned scalps and baldness to have straight hair.
How is this not different in the socio/political arena, then a Jew changing their name and denying their background, or a light skinned black completely abandoning their heritage to escape the brutality of systemic anti Semitism and Jim Crow?
There are plastic surgeons and others in the beauty industry who profit from the insecurity of those who have learned to hate their ethnic looks. The diet industry from those who hate their normal physical curves…and an ex gay industry who profits from those who have been taught to hate their orientation and gender identity.
History is full of women who disguised themselves as men to serve in the military, own property, attend law school or encourage any other skills they had that their gender was excluded from.
Passing, is not new.
But the underlying reason for doing so isn’t now, nor has ever been healthy.
It’s understandable why one would believe that the pastures would be greener for conforming to the set ideal, but the ultimate price inevitably is too great.
You lose your individuality and the character that makes you unique. You lose your soul.
As an outsider who wanted very much to give the other side every opportunity to teach me their reasons and motives, I was stonewalled or engaged in the most superficial way.
I had to come to this conclusion:
I have found ex gays to be extremely uninteresting and…without distinctions. They all seem to be alike without much diversion from speaking as if the same person over and over again.
Frankly, it’s creepy and off putting.
I understand, there are some people who need to be more regimented and without it, they feel their spools rolling out of control.
I find that using GAY sexual orientation as an indicator of bad character, regardless that heterosexuals suffer the same lack of self restraint and their civil and human rights are not contingent on their failures of even a few of them….is exactly the contradictions in ALL moral terms that’s infuriating.
Any industry that thrives on the insecurity, pain and social isolation of anyone is an evil one.
An industry that helps to create that pain and isolation and call it something else, is even worse.
Something tells me that my brother Petersen wouldn’t be nearly as funny, charming and sharp as an ex gay, as he is as himself: an out proud gay man.
Which is essentially why I resent the ex gay industry trying to make such folks disappear. I wouldn’t want to live in a world with so little variance, uniqueness and qualities of interest that gay people bring.
In a world of immeasurable diversity, coexistence and natural differences…for anyone to assume that heterosexuality is the only normal and rightful one, or that there IS only one sexual orientation that is, is bullshit on it’s face.
And I don’t especially appreciate those in the ex gay industry insulting our intelligence. They are a gutless crew in my estimation.
And considering that it takes no bravery, or special intelligence on anyone’s part to love and respect gay people as they are or on their own terms, what DOES that tell you about people who are that fearful and run from any opportunity to know differently?
Petersen, I thank you and all the other folks who got through this experience with your souls still belonging to you and sharing it.
And it goes without saying, I love you very much.
There was something else I meant to say. I was raised in church too. Episcopalian. When I was an adolescent, there was the burgeoning of the feminist movement. I’ve always been an inquisitive person since early childhood. There were aspects of the Bible that I realized I resented.
That no women had written it. Women were not priests and ministers in our church, nor were they rabbis (I started attending temple with my best friend who was Jewish when I was nine years old.)
The segregation of women in positions that decided on policy was profound. I hated that. I’ve always hated the exclusion of self determination by others.
I was turned off early by the condescending platitudes that ministers can be guilty of when addressing young females.
So I stopped going to church, and temple.
By the time I was a young adult, changes came for temple and the Episcopalian church with the inclusion of women in the most visible and influential position.
To this day, I don’t trust organized religion for this egregious exclusion and narrow gender ideals. These narrow expectations and roles regarding gender, make women and gay people and the transgendered the most repressed, oppressed and violated in all the world.
I don’t believe for a second that the intents of God require this. I don’t believe that using God for this abuse, then blaming God to avoid accountability for the mess it makes, is the purpose.
I’ll only believe the sincerity of a believer, when their actions are not in using the Bible or any other religious text to exclude another human being from equal and just treatment.
It’s one’s humanity, not their gender or expression of it, that is the only qualification for it.
You can tell me if I’m being fair about that.
My friends, I prefer to try and empathize rather than think I could possibly know anything about being gay.
I have a question: given the experiences you have and can and do share, why is there an insistence that being gay is a choice?
Throughout all human history, homosexuality is universal to all human life. This not a choice influenced by one’s familial, cultural or evolutionary placement. Indeed, this is the constant that’s indicative of biological origin.
So the bald faced insistence, even from ex gays, that original sexual orientation can be changed, and even more the point, SHOULD, is so arrogant.
I’ve had it to the teeth with it.
I can’t imagine being a gay person having to put up with it.
So, since ex gays are never honest enough to explain it, I’m sure an ex-ex gay or a gay person will indulge me.
Thank you.
Regan, how D A R E you compare the Black struggle for civil rights with the struggle for gay equality. Don’t you know that skin color is inborn and being gay can be CHANGED?? Gays should be ashamed for coasting easily by on the coattails of the TRUE civil rights heroes (as defined by Bish. Harry Jackson and Rev. Ken Hutcherson, e.g.), none of whom ever once associated with or supported gay people. Also, there are no Black gays sitting silently in the church pews while their lives and loves are derided at the pulpit, Alvin McEwan doesn’t exist, and AIDS is and always was a “white man’s disease.”
Emily my love…
I dare because even though I don’t have the same skin as a gay person, I have no fear in walking in it.
I’m pretty sure Emily was being absurd to make a point about those who hold such views as she espoused there.
Yes, she was…love her for that!
yup, yup, i was being absurdist.