In a letter to the American Psychological Association (APA), PFOX Executive Director Regina Griggs continues that organizations habit of coopting language from the gay rights struggle for use by ex-gays.
The ex-gay movement is a civil rights movement to ensure the inclusion of former homosexuals in all realms of society and to support the ex-gay community’s equal access to schools on the same level as gays currently enjoy.
… every day brings new hostile acts against the ex-gay community simply because we dare to exist.
Forcefully worded, this letter is a request that the APA “include ex-gays and their allies to your task force to ensure that science, and not bias, is the object of the task force’s mission.” They further request that the APA “issue a personal statement condemning prejudice against the ex-gay community.”
The National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, NARTH, has linked to the letter under the heading “Ex-SSA Group Appeals To APA: Include Reorientation Therapists In Your Task Force.”
Ex-gay or Ex-SSA? Reparative or Reorientation? Another day, another new label to learn.
Don’t make me laugh.
How many of YOUR kids has James Dobson stolen, Regina?
How many jobs have YOU lost? How may offers rescinded?
How many times have YOU been beaten, or ex-gays you know been murdered?
Your listed complaints are pretty weak soup!
That ex-gays and their supporters are now oppressed by the same people who until recently were victimized themselves, demonstrates how far the gay rights movement has come.
Because the victimization of gays has ended and the victimization of ex-gay begun. Someone needs to notify the schoolyard bullies and the guys wielding lead pipes. They’re still terrorizing the wrong folk.
Those familiar with Griggs and her communication style might wonder… did Regina really write this letter? And if perhaps she didn’t, who did?
I’m releived to see that Andrew Anthos wasn’t victimized.
Interesting, she sees anti-gay as synonymous with ex-gay.
By the way…. Ex-SSA???
That’s even worse than “ex-gay.” Ex-Same-Sex Attracted? You mean they no longer are same sex attracted?
At least with “ex-gay” they could claim they’re not being deceptive by holding onto the nonsense that “gay” is an identity and not an orientation. Ex-SSA doesn’t allow even that level of deniability.
Yeah, I’ve never heard Ex-SSA before. I wonder if that is something NARTH will be using more in the future. Then again, I only recently ever heard the term “everstraight” and it has been around for a while it seems.
The ex-gay movement is not and never has been a civil rights movement. The original purpose was to help people with unwanted same-sex attractions to connect with resources that aligned with their beliefs. But that purpose was corrupted when the leadership in the ex-gay movement politicized the movement by allowing other groups (e.g. Focus) to use ex-gay success stories to justify their opposition to civil rights and protections for homosexual and transgendered Americans. Furthermore that same leadership now appears to spend far more time involved in the political opposition to gay marriage than their stated mission of helping people ‘overcome’ homosexuality. Ms. Griggs and other ex-gay organization leaders have no right to be upset when they volunteered themselves and indirectly other ex-gays to be swords in the hands of homophobic bigots. If they want their life choice to be ex-gay to be respected then they need to quit aligning themselves with those who refuse to grant that same respect to the life choices of homosexual and transgendered Americans.
“Swami Autumn” makes the following prediction:
Now that we’ve seen this new term ex-SSA once, I think we’re going to see more use of ex-SSA as a replacement for the term ex-gay. My guess why would be because the term says ex-gay without exactly using the perceived “identity” term of gay.
My pardons — here’s the link I meant to use for “identity” in the comment above: https://www.narth.com/docs/selfreinvention.html
Quaker Mike (nickname: “Oats”) is looking deep into his cereal bowl and, spelled out amid some Alpha-Bits, he reads this prophecy:
Wow. Who wudda thought one could read that much from Alpha-Bits?
I’ve never understood what this “prejudice” and “oppression” is.
#1 Ex-gays can marry a person of the opposite sex, they can have children with this person – gays aren’t trying to take that away.
#2 Ex-gays can go anywhere with the person they love, they can present this person to the world as their spouse, and no one is trying to stop them.
#3 They can present themselves as heterosexual and no one will pass judgment on them.
Where is this prejudice and this oppression?
Jim Burroway wrote:
David Roberts wrote:
Autumn Sandeen wrote:
I would posit that we are beginning to see the effects of the take-over of NARTH by the Later Day Saint (Mormon) Evergreen folks.
If the “ex-gay” movement were a civil rights struggle, then there not only would be no reason for groups like PFOX to oppose gay rights laws, but it would actually be in the best interest of the “ex-gays” to support such laws. As has repeatedly been pointed out on this blog and others, when “sexual orientation” is added to existing laws, it covers gays, straights and anyone in-between – and that should pretty much cover all the “ex-gays” as well.
James and CPT Doom….I wish I could laugh at the absurdity of these people. You two are dead on…
If they weren’t declaring that they’d EVER been gay, no one would know the difference if they have fully affected the heterosexual way of life and true that….no one would pass judgement on them.
The point is, and this is what bugs the hell out of me about these people…WHY DO THEY HAVE TO TELL ANYONE?
And we all know the answer to that, don’t we?
There’s a bandwagon they are driving, that they wouldn’t have unless they were creating a situation that would make others jump on board.
Considering the blood that’s been shed of young gay people and those who committed suicide and lost hope because they saw none in what Exodus has to offer….
their claims are despicable and leeches sympathy from the innocent and more deserving.
I would love to know what Judy Shepard would have to say about their claims of prejudice and what it’s really doing to ex gays in this country.