Southern Poverty Law Center and Truth Wins Out Launch Campaign Targeting Destructive Conversion Therapy
Community Meetings Planned in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Truth Wins Out (TWO) launched a national campaign today targeting conversion therapy, a thriving practice that claims to “convert” people from homosexuality to heterosexuality. The groups made the announcement in coordination with today’s National Coming Out Day.
The campaign will begin with a series of community meetings in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., for survivors of the practice, which has been discredited or highly criticized by virtually all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations. Survivors are also invited to share their own stories at www.splcenter.org/conversion-therapy. The campaign also will encourage community advocates and elected leaders to scrutinize local conversion therapy programs.
“Conversion therapy programs have devastated all too many lives and families by attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation,” said Christine Sun, deputy legal director, who leads the SPLC’s LGBT rights project. “This practice is based on nothing more than junk science and must stop.”
“There’s a serious concern that the damage inflicted by conversion therapy can reach far beyond the individual receiving the ‘therapy’ and into communities across the country,” said Wayne Besen, founder and executive director of Truth Wins Out.
Central to conversion therapy – sometimes known as reparative or “sexual reorientation” therapy – is the belief that being gay is a mental disorder – a position rejected by the American Psychiatric Association nearly four decades ago. People who have undergone conversion therapy have reported increased anxiety, depression, and in some cases, suicidal ideation.
Despite these findings, the conversion therapy movement continues to push its message and is increasingly targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth, often recommending that parents commit their children to treatment against the child’s wishes.
The American Medical Association officially “opposes the use of ‘reparative’ or ‘conversion’ therapy that is based on the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her homosexual orientation.”
In 2006, the American Psychological Association declared: “There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.”
Yet the message that LGBTQ people can and should change their sexual orientation is echoed throughout the literature promoting conversion therapy:
“Anyone who experiences SSA [same-sex attraction] is not ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ ‘bisexual,’ or ‘transgender.’ They are all latent heterosexuals!”
“Self-deception about gender is at the heart of the homosexual condition. A child who imagines that he or she can be the opposite sex—or be both sexes—is holding on to a fantasy solution to his or her confusion. This is a revolt against reality and a rebellion against the limits built into our created human natures.”
Absurd theories and treatments also are promoted within the conversion therapy movement:
“The penis is the essential symbol of masculinity—the unmistakable difference between male and female. This undeniable anatomical difference should be emphasized to the boy in therapy.”
“The family model that produces a homosexual son has, in our view, typically failed to validate the boy’s masculine individuation during the formative phase of gender identification.”
There are other troubling aspects of this practice. The American Psychological Association expressed concern in 2006 that the positions espoused by some of the leading advocates of conversion therapy, such as the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), “create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.”
The potential for conversion therapy to foster an anti-LGBT atmosphere is another concern for the SPLC, which analyzed 14 years of federal hate crime data and found that homosexuals are far more likely to be victims of a violent hate crime than any other minority group in the United States. The SPLC also has worked to combat anti-gay bullying in schools.
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The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Alabama with offices in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. For more information, see www.splcenter.org.
Truth Wins Out (TWO) is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to create a world where LGBT individuals can live openly, honestly and true to themselves. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
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1. Richard Cohen, Straight Talk About Homosexuality: The Other Side of Tolerance, 2010, p. 112.
2. Joseph Nicolosi and Linda Ames Nicolosi, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, 2002, p. 22.
3. Ibid., p. 24.
4. Joseph J. Nicolosi, Shame and Attachment Loss: The Practical Work of Reparative Therapy, 2009, p. 39.
Awwww, this is too bad. Poland unfortunately lags behind the rest of the European Union when it comes to abandoning medieval views about sexuality, so Joseph Nicolosi and NARTH were able to book one of their weird little “Reparative Therapy: How To Without Leaving Visible Wounds” conferences at a medical school in that country. But then the school canceled. The source article is LifeSiteNews, so you’ll have to filter this out of wingnut speak and into grown-up reporting in order to get the gist:
A conference on the treatment of homosexuality has been denied use of facilities at a medical school in Poland, after the school had initially given approval for the event. The decision by the Medical School (UM) Foundation not to host the September 16 Reparative Therapy Conference, featuring psychologist Dr. Joseph Nicolosi of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), followed front-page criticism of the conference by leading Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
“We received a reservation request for the organization of this conference and we granted it,” said UM Foundation President Roman Dworzynski at the time. “I see no (problem). (Reparative therapy) is a scientific theory like any other … When Louis Pasteur spoke about the existence of bacteria, no one believed him.”
Obviously Roman Dworzynski hasn’t been introduced to the wonders of Google or he would understand why he sounds like a product of the Texas school system with that remark.
Gazeta Wyborcza’s (GW) coverage of the conference has stressed that the American Psychological Association (APA) expresses concern about the effects of treatment for same-sex attraction. The APA also states, however, that there is “insufficient evidence” to either approve or discredit such therapy.
Actually, the APA resolution moreso says that there’s insufficient evidence to approve the therapy. The “discredit” part is really you all being cute with language. But again, we’re used to crappy reporting from right wing sources.
Here’s the female Polish wingnut version of Joseph Nicolosi, whining about censorship:
The Foundation for Health and Psychotherapeutic Education head, psychologist Bogna Bialecka, said that her Poznan-based organization has been planning the conference for several months so that Nicolosi could share his professional experience helping men deal with their unwanted same-sex attraction.
“The decision of the Medical University’s governing body is a sad example of censoring the freedom of speech,” she said.
Yes, well, Ms. Bialecka, in the United States we have a word for people like you: quack. She showed up in the comment section to the piece and said this:
It’s still hard time. We are fighting for the right to free speech. And happygael is right. The worst part of it are thousands of homosexuals who don’t identify with gay activism, who are looking for change, but can’t receive it, because of lack of trained, fully professional reparative therapists.
No, you’re fighting for the right to hurt people based on your own bigoted, uneducated, ill-trained notions of psychology. And without unqualified hacks like you and Joe Nicolosi, spamming the public with your perpetual nonsense on sexuality, there wouldn’t BE “thousands of homosexuals” who are unhappy with their sexual orientation. People like you must first inject hate into the discourse for people to be unhappy with their natural sexuality. That said, Bialecka’s complaint about “trained, fully professional reparative therapists” and the “lack” thereof are not the result of censorship of free speech, but more about the fact that no such thing exists.
This crap might fly in Poland, but ask your friends at NARTH how well they’re doing in the United States.
Editor Seth Bracken of Q Salt Lake, a publication for LGBTQ people in Utah, just posted a story about a Utah man who hanged himself after imbibing a lifetime of Mormon homophobic self-hatred. He was rescued in the nick of time by his mother, who faced the horrifying task of cutting him down from the rope, but who also probably had plenty to do with the indoctrination that led him to suicidal despair. She, too, may well have been force-fed groundless hatred at a vulnerable age. (That kind of transgenerational cultural blindness is what I think of when I hear “the sins of the fathers will be visited on the sons.” That was no curse. It was an observation.)
This pitiable gay man, born by ill luck into one of the most homophobic social groups in the country, if not the world, literally bought into the ex-gay propaganda that Mormon culture sells to people like him. He tried “reparative” therapy at Evergreen International; he tried it at LDS Family Services; and he paid hundreds to try Journey into Manhood, run by “ex-gay” Rich Wyler, whose exploits on NPR and elsewhere have been covered in detail by TWO.
Mr. Wyler made a revealing statement with regard to the American Psychological Association’s condemnation of “reparative” therapy.
“They (the APA) have such a high standard for research, it’s almost impossible to meet,” Wyler said. “They require a control group and a reputable organization and continue to disregard research that doesn’t have these things.”
This, too, is pitiable. Mr. Wyler has not just uncritically internalized his subculture’s homophobia–he appears to regard the fundamental tenets of science as mere annoying inconveniences. This statement underscores why many progressives like to say that we’re living in the reality-based community. And yet people like Mr. Wyler must read weather reports, take vitamins, drive across bridges, and do all the millions of other things that owe their existence to science. Maybe those things exist in a dream world for them.
I think most people, even haters, have good intentions; conscienceless sociopaths are in the minority. And I think that, given enough time and care, people with good intentions can learn to understand each other’s points of view. But Mr. Wyler’s statement made me suspect I’m being naive. How does one go about debating a man like this? How could we ever find a set of axioms to agree on?
By the way: Evergreen International and Journey into Manhood will be holdingconferences in Utah in September, thus perpetuating their non-reality-based, suicide-provoking work. The reality-based community needs to represent.
On Monday, August 1, National Public Radio’s Morning Edition aired a report from Alix Spiegel entitled “Can Therapy Help Change Sexual Orientation?” Instead of accurately representing “ex-gay therapy” as ineffective, dangerous, and condemned by every mainstream professional medical and mental health organization, NPR opted to misrepresent the facts, falsely framing the story as a debate between two equally legitimate sides that “has been raging in psychological circles for more than a decade.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. A 2009 press release from the American Psychological Association announcing the results of an exhaustive study on the efficacy of “ex-gay” therapy says it all: “Insufficient evidence [exists] that sexual orientation change efforts work… Practitioners should avoid telling clients that they can change from gay to straight.” In a recent ABC News interview discussing “ex-gay” therapy, renowned author and psychiatrist Jack Drescher put the discredited practice in its proper perspective: “This is so far outside the mainstream it’s practically on Mars.”
Truth Wins Out, GLAAD, and other organizations called on NPR to correct and apologize for parroting “ex-gay” propaganda. Instead, NPR Ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos released a tepid, long-winded blog post in which he demonstrated a much greater interest in defending his reporter than correcting her errors.
The Ombudsman’s response is disappointing and woefully inadequate. We expect better from a top-notch, well-respected news organization like National Public Radio. Join Truth Wins Out in calling on NPR to meet with TWO and survivors of “ex-gay” programs so they can be fully informed about the dangers of the “ex-gay” myth –
The American Psychological Association (APA) has endorsed gay marriage ahead of its annual convention in Washington.
With a unanimous 157-0 vote, the APA’s policymaking body approved the resolution on Wednesday.
“Now as the country has really begun to have experience with gay marriage, our position is much clearer and more straightforward – that marriage equity is the policy that the country should be moving toward,” Clinton Anderson, director of APA’s Office on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns, told USA Today.
Via Jeremy, a new statement from the American Psychological Association, which is an actual group of experts, unlike the phony groups the Religious Right creates to confuse people:
AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION REITERATES SUPPORT FOR SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
Governing Council Issues Statement at Annual Convention
SAN DIEGO – The American Psychological Association reaffirmed its support for marriage equality for same-sex couples, noting that its annual convention taking place here this week provides an opportunity to call attention to the science supporting this position.
“As the world’s largest organization of psychologists, we felt it was important to make a statement here and now to demonstrate APA’s unwavering support of marriage equality,” said APA President Carol D. Goodheart, EdD. “With the issue playing out so prominently in California, we are using the opportunity presented by our annual convention to present the growing body of science that is the foundation for our position, and that has influenced many of the legislators, judges and other public officials who are working to achieve this goal.”
APA’s governing Council of Representatives issued this statement on marriage
equality for same-sex couples:
“The Council of Representatives (1) reaffirms the American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) 2004 Resolution on Sexual Orientation and Marriage, (2) acknowledges with pride the 11 amicus briefs that APA has filed in legal cases on marriage equality for same-sex couples, including the California Supreme Court in 2006, (3) directs staff to create and distribute informational materials to publicize APA’s history and position on marriage equality for same-sex couples and the science that supports that position, and (4) requests that the APA boards and committees consider an updated resolution on marriage equality for same-sex couples based on the evolving research.”
APA’s 2010 convention, taking place in San Diego from Aug. 12-15, includes a full program of sessions summarizing the areas of research that have been key in recent same-sex marriage court cases and other legal decisions supporting equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Sessions will feature the latest scientific research into same-sex couples’ relationships and family formation among lesbian, gay and bisexual people, as well as the effect of sexual stigma on individuals and families. Experts will explain how the most recent scientific evidence and legislation support same-sex marriage and adoption and counter prejudice and discrimination.
Research has shown that marriage provides substantial psychological and physical health benefits due to the moral, economic and social support extended to married couples. Conversely, recent empirical evidence has illustrated the harmful psychological effect of policies restricting marriage rights for same-sex couples. Additionally, children raised by same-sex couples have been shown to be on par with the children of opposite-sex couples in their psychological adjustment, cognitive abilities and social functioning.
APA has been a strong advocate for full equal rights for LGBT people for nearly 35 years, based on the social science research on sexual orientation. APA has supported legal benefits for same-sex couples since 1997 and civil marriage for same-sex couples since 2004. APA has adopted policy statements, lobbied Congress in opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act and the Federal Marriage Amendment, and filed amicus briefs supporting same-sex marriage in legal cases in Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, New York (three times), Maryland, Connecticut, Iowa, and California. In California, the APA brief was cited by the state Supreme Court when it ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in May 2008.
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world’s largest association of psychologists. APA’s membership includes more than 152,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare.
Excellent column by Hardy Haberman on JONAH ex-gay “fondle therapy” scandal in the Dallas Voice:
With all the hubbub of the Fred Phelps Cult making a visit here and the oil spill continuing in the Gulf, one story seems to have dropped through the cracks. Luckily, Wayne Besen at the blog Truth Wins Out (TruthWinsOut.org) has been on it like a dog on a bone. It involves a group called JONAH.
Aside from the biblical acronym, the group’s full name is Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality, and it is part of the ex-gay industry.
The group was co-founded by a fellow named Arthur Abba Goldberg. Seems he was known 20 years ago in the financial community as “Abba Cadabra” for his apparent wizardry with money. That wizardry turned out to be a scam, and Goldberg was convicted of federal mail and wire fraud as well as a conspiracy to sell worthless bonds.
The guy is a real peach, and now he has reinvented himself as the leader of an “ex-gay” therapy group.
One of his “life coaches,” Alan Downing, recently has been implicated in something a bit more touchy-feely than you would expect from an ex-gay. According to men who went to Downing, part of his treatment involves having clients strip naked in front of a mirror while touching parts of their bodies, including their genitals.
While 2009 will be remembered for the worldwide economic recession, for the ex-gay industry, it will be known as The Great Moral Depression. It was a dreadful year for such programs, as they showed themselves to be a global menace run by reprobates, such as Exodus’ Randy Thomas and Alan Chambers, who combined a dangerous dose of arrogance and incompetence. Much like the Roman Catholic Church, these men ignored a credible allegation of abuse for more than six months and engaged in a dangerous game of denial.
Whatever shard of credibility this industry had was stripped away in 2009. It was a year where such programs were harshly rebuked by the mental health establishment. An important new study showed that their retrograde methods of shame and blame harmed LGBT people. The old, outdated research that they stubbornly latched onto for dear life seemed to betray them and then vanish into thin air.
Several “ex-gay” heroes turned out to be zeros and slithered away into the mist. The past 12 months, if anything, unmasked the facade of “love” this industry cynically showers on potential clients and an often gullible media. In 2009, the world saw ex-gay programs for what they are: A sugar coated excuse for homophobia.
Exodus was revealed as a front for international hate groups, who used the group’s credulous leaders as pawns in an international struggle for theocracy. PFOX stepped forward and showed, time and again, that it was just plain nuts.
NARTH put out an embarrassingly shoddy “study” that was so pathetic it was virtually ignored by the media. By the end of 2009, NARTH had solidified its place as a cabal of embittered and irrelevant quacks on the far outer fringes of psychology. Homosexuals Anonymous was, well, anonymous. The Catholic ex-gay group Courage also had a meager profile and had little impact on popular culture. And, JONAH, the Jewish ex-gay group, continued to humiliate itself through its affiliation with crackpot Born Again sexual reorientation coach Richard Cohen.
May 2010 bring the same abundance of truth and light regarding the ex-gay fraud we had in 2009. Here are the Top 10 ex-gay related stories of the year. Please feel free to comment on any major items I may have missed.
10) The Passing of The Old Guard
Focus on the Family co-founder James Dobson announced that he was stepping down. He was an arch-homophobe who once claimed allowing gay people to marry would end the earth. Under Dobson’s leadership, this mega-ministry started the ex-gay roadshow Love Won Out. Dobson’s retirement represents the winding down of the old guard. This includes the passing of other ex-gay proponents or anti-gay preachers such as Rev. Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy and Oral Roberts. A new generation of Evangelicals will hopefully join the reality-based community and break with the past. However, there is reason to be skeptical, considering the leader of the pack is Rick Warren, who isn’t too much better than his predecessors.
9) The Fizzling Out of Michael Glatze and Stephen Bennett
Michael Glatze (left) was formerly co-editor of XY Magazine and YGA Magazine, publications directed at LGBT youth. He and his partner of ten years, Benjie Nycum, also co-authored the book XY Survival Guide.
Glatze’s ventures went belly-up and he seemed to disappear from LGBT activism. He reemerged in July 2007 with a disgusting op-ed on the extremist website WorldNetDaily, where he announced he was “ex-gay” (although he had no experience with women)
Glatze alleged sexual conversion seems, in part, to have come from a sort-of nervous breakdown. He reported that he suffered from frequent panic attacks and that he obsessed about death.
In late September, Glatze contacted me, hoping that I would interview him and reinvigorate his flagging career as an “ex-gay”. I refused to oblige his publicity stunt, and so did LGBT advocates at other sites.
Glatze’s downfall came when he opened an incoherent vanity blog and wrote:
“Have I mentioned lately how utterly *disgusting* Obama is? And, yes, it’ because he’ black. God, help us all….It’ a shame Obama is black. He could end up setting back race relations decades.”
Condemned for his idiotic comment about President Obama, Glatze sent out a rambling e-mail announcing his career as an ex-gay spokesperson had fizzled and he was retiring. Chalk Glatze up to a pitiful flash in the pan.
Similarly, 2009 was the year that big haired ex-gay activist Stephen Bennett (left) completely vanished from the scene. And, Anthony Falzarano’s (founder of PFOX) attempted return to the spotlight also petered out.
8) The Lisa Miller Kidnapping and Abduction Case
Lisa Miller broke up with partner Janet Jenkins (Right) after becoming a born again “ex-gay”. In a fit of holier-than-thou zeal, Miller went on the lam and absconded from Vermont with their child, Isabella, that the couple was raising together after having a Civil Union.
As a result of Miller’ poor parenting and criminal behavior (she was cited for contempt of court), a Vermont court transferred custody to Jenkins (after a five year legal ordeal that will surely leave emotional scars on their child Isabella) and refused a motion to delay transfer, as requested by Miller’ law team.
People for the American Way’ Right Wing Watch reports that the location of Miller and 7-year-old Isabella Miller are presently “unknown”. This is highly problematic because the court order takes effect on New Year’ Day.
Janet Jenkins filed a missing person report in Virginia on Wednesday in hopes of finding her 7-year-old daughter, according to her lawyer. Unfortunately, Miller’s outlaw behavior has been cheered on by ex-gay activists who want to pretend they are martyrs, rather than criminal miscreants.
7) The Caitlin Ryan Study
The January 2009 issue of Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics reported on a new study by San Francisco State researcher Caitlin Ryan. Her research concluded that, “Teens who experienced negative feedback (when they came out as LGBT) were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use.”
This definitive study was hugely important because it contradicted the claim by “ex-gay” activists that homosexuality was the root cause of such problems. Indeed, it was ex-gay programs – the epitome of negative feedback – that led to the destruction of LGBT people.
Exodus International officially cut ties with its Lansing affiliate Corduroy Stone after charges were made by an ex-gay survivor that the sessions included harmful and bizarre therapy.
In August, Patrick McAlvey made the charges against Corduroy Stone’s Mike Jones in a Truth Wins Out video. At the age of 19, McAlvey, who came from a religious background, was terrified that he might be gay. Feeling vulnerable and desperate to change, he placed his trust in Mike Jones and Corduroy Stone.
“He asked how large my penis was,” McAlvey explained of Jones’ therapy. “He asked if I shave my pubic hair. He asked what type of underwear that I wore.
He wanted me to describe my sexual fantasies to him and the type of men I’m attracted to. On one occasion, he asked me to take my shirt off and show him how many push-ups I could do, which I did not do.”
Tragically, it took Exodus until December to take action and cut ties with this renegade ministry. Exodus’ dithering in the face of scandal cost precious time and may have placed additional youth in harm’ way. This was a key episode in 2009 because it underscored how Exodus has little control over its satellite ministries and each one is an independent fiefdom with its own rules and techniques. Exodus is no more than a Wild West and an unprofessional hodgepodge of fundamentalist pop-psychology combined with spiritual warfare and efforts to pray away the gay.
5) Ex-Gay Charlatan Matthew C. Manning Unmasked As A Fraud
A report by the website, “Ex-Gay Watch” cast a dark cloud of skepticism over “ex-gay” activist Matthew Manning’ tale of being “delivered” from homosexuality and AIDS. According to the report, Manning has been repeatedly dragged into court for allegations of inappropriate behavior and was even banned from a popular gym after improper sexual advances were made on a 22-year-old heterosexual male. Manning, a frequent television guest and the founder of Lighthouse World Evangelism Inc., based in Santa Rosa, California, has yet to comment on the allegations made in the investigative report.
In August, the American Psychological Association released a report that explicitly said “there is insufficient evidence” for therapists to claim conversion therapy works.
The APA report also admonished so-called “ex-gay” counselors to not mislead clients by telling them that their sexual orientation can be changed.
The experts who crafted this report made it crystal clear that such efforts to “pray away the gay” are a sham. That, however, has not stopped a trade group of quacks from planning to sell their snake oil in West Palm Beach next month.
The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is holding yet another conference that runs counter to science and reality. What makes this group dangerous is that it pretends to be secular, but consists of hyper-religious counselors whose goal is to make it appear as if science backs their rigid belief system.
A wide range of tactics will be used to counter this hate symposium. I will be speaking at Compass, the GLBT community Center, on Nov. 17th at 6:30PM. There will also be a protest on Nov. 21st (10-2PM) organized by various student groups in South Florida.
The centerpiece of our opposition will be The 2009 Anti-Heterosexism Conference (Nov. 20-22), created by SoulForce and sponsored by a host of other organizations. Several of the leading experts who fight the “ex-gay” industry will be on-hand to educate the community about this continuing scourge.
We tend not to think much about heterosexism, but it is both prevalent and pervasive. Much of society — even some of our allies – can’t seem to wrap their brains around the fact that we are equal, our love is on par with theirs, and that our families are valid.
For example, on blog comment sections, I have consistently read critiques from supposed “friends” that we should sublimate our equality to other concerns, such as healthcare or the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
These people — and some are well meaning — would do almost anything to protect their families. Yet, they expect us to leave our families vulnerable. They assume we will stay silent so their families can receive benefits, while our own spouses and children are left to fend for themselves.
There is also the societal assumption that everyone is heterosexual, a bad cultural habit, considering GLBT people are everywhere. The primary reason that GLBT people must come out, is the idea that all people are heterosexual until they declare otherwise.
The “straight” assumption plays into the hands of group’ like NARTH that have very narrow views of sexuality and gender identity. They specialize in placing men and women in a behavioral box, with any deviation from that narrow 1950′ model labeled deviant.
NARTH thrives on such stereotypes and often confuses them with science. They make their money by finding insecure gay men and teaching them how to walk and talk so they will be perceived as “normal.” Women are urged to stay home and avoid masculine projects or jobs — lest they reject men and become lesbians.
In essence, groups like NARTH create a fake standard of what it means to be a man or woman. They actively bash anyone who does not adhere to their version of masculinity or femininity. Once a culture of persecution has taken root — they pretend to be the solution to the discrimination and abuse. NARTH ensures that anyone who is outside their approved model is labeled a freak, and for a hefty fee they can de-freak you.
Most heartbreaking, NARTH preys on parents and encourages them to send in children as young as three to be “fixed”. They tell parents that if a child is gay their life will be more difficult — even as NARTH is the one ensuring it will be so. There is a conflict of interest when those responsible for causing rejection and harassment claim they are there to only help those who want to change. They never seem to ask, “Why do people want to change?”
The answer, of course, is clearly the existence of NARTH.
NARTH is a backward organization run by fringe ideologues whose ideas have been soundly rejected by every respected medical and mental health association in America. It is crucial that we continue working to shine a light on its shenanigans, so people understand that NARTH is extreme, not the mainstream group it pretends to be.
Confused. Isolated. Depressed. Angry. Lansing resident Patrick McAlvey was all of these things both before and during his stint in ex-gay therapy. Now, through a new video produced and released by Truth Wins Out, he’s just determined to make sure that no one else goes through what he did.
The 24-year-old McAlvey’s video was released last month just as the American Psychological Association announced that “mental health professionals should avoid telling clients that they can change their sexual orientation through therapy or other treatments.”
It was too late for McAlvey, but he hopes that the APA findings – plus stories like his – will help other gay youth to love and accept themselves.
Like so many other gay youth, McAlvey was scared when he realized he was attracted to men in sixth grade. Raised in a conservative Christian home, “I didn’t think it was safe to tell anybody,” he said of his young adulthood.
But he did tell one person: Mike Jones, director of Lansing-based ex-gay organization Corduroy Stone.
“When I was 19, I was kicked out of a missionary training school and was forced to move back home with my family,” McAlvey recalled. “I was kicked out because of my attraction to men, so in that time I was sort of in a crisis mode and was very low, very depressed and just trying to make sense of my life and my attraction.”
He contacted Jones, whom he had spoken with before about his “problem,” and began several months of therapy with Jones that supposedly would cure him and make him straight.
Therapy consisted of embarrassing questions and uncomfortable situations. Jones would instruct McAlvey to lie in his arms for an hour at a time – known in the ex-gay circuit as holding therapy. He forced McAlvey to learn about tools and home repair, and to watch the play “Equus” with him, which features full male nudity. He would ask him to rate his attractiveness on a scale of one to 10.
Then there were the questions. “He asked how large my penis was. He asked if I shave my pubic hair. He asked what type of underwear that I wore,” McAlvey explained. “On one occasion, he asked me to take my shirt off and show him how many push-ups I could do, which I did not do.
“He wanted me to describe my sexual fantasies to him and the type of men I’m attracted to.”
But despite all his efforts, McAlvey never stopped being attracted to men. “I never felt like I was changing,” he said of the therapy.
Eventually, he told Jones he wasn’t going to come to therapy anymore. But the damage had been done.
“I just really came to hate myself; to loathe myself,” McAlvey said. “I didn’t trust anyone and I didn’t allow anyone to get close to me because I was terrified that they might find out my secret and that they would think less of me. I spent many years locked up in my room, crying by myself for no good reason.”
McAlvey hopes that telling his story will mean less LGBT teens face the same tough years he did. “I view it as a real assault on some of the more vulnerable members of the LGBT community,” he said. “I think it’s important to speak up to prevent other people from being harmed in the ways that I was.”
Now, less than five years out of his time in ex-gay therapy, he’s doing just that. And while McAlvey hopes that his video will help others, he also thinks it will help him to move on. “(It’s) a bit of a cathartic experience for me, saying publicly that this is not something anymore that I need to be embarrassed of or regret,” he explained. “Instead, I’m going to turn around and use it for good. … It’s turning a negative experience into something that can be used positively.”
The decision to take his story public took time, and a lot of personal healing for McAlvey. When he stopped seeing Jones, he was still grappling with his sexuality and acceptance of himself. Eventually, he was able to see that it’s OK to be gay. “I realized that I don’t think change is going to happen and I don’t think it needs to happen,” he said. “It was getting to the point where I really was comfortable with who I am, and that takes time, a lot of processing and figuring out how to undo some of the internalized homophobia that was the result of this therapy.”
The video, which has almost 6,000 views on YouTube, is the final step in that reparative process – and McAlvey wants to get his message out to LGBT youth. “I would communicate to them the freedom that I felt when I finally embraced my sexual orientation and accepted it as a beautiful and natural part of myself,” he said of speaking to another teen like himself. “I would certainly convey that it is my belief that their sexual orientation is a beautiful, natural part of them that they should feel no shame for and should not think needs to be changed.”
With a gift of $35 to Truth Wins Out, you can receive an autographed copy of "Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth."
