The parents of PFOX wrote to me yesterday to alert me to the “Political and Social Oppression of the Ex-Gay Community.” How horrible, I thought, that the sprawling Ex-Gay Community is treated that way!

I feared for the lives and the rights of my “no - longer - identified - as - anything, free-from-freedom, no - news - here, move - along” friends in the teeming ex-gay ghettoes of Colorado Springs and Orlando. So I tore open the PFOX e-mail envelope and read the following dispatch from suburban Washington, D.C. …

As you can see from the below local ABC news video, many ex-gays are afraid to come out of the closet because of the harassment they will receive — their names, phone numbers and personal information posted on gay websites; attacked at ex-gay exhibit booths; press releases issued against them, etc. The tactics of gay activists are to go after anyone who comes out publicly as ex-gay, force them back into the closet, and then claim that ex-gays don’t exist because there aren’t any out in public:

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0508/517023_video.html

PFOX radiates fear and paranoia — blaming critics of the ex-gay industry for ex-gay homophobia, prejudice, and fear of legitimate mental-health professionals. These fears result in ex-gays, and the antigay families of gay people, living in fear of their own shadows.

Thankfully, open-minded parents and school officials in Maryland were also watching WJLA-TV on May 5.

David Fishback, for example, is a former chair of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools Citizens Advisory Committee for Family Health and Human Development. He also is on the board of Metro-DC PFLAG.

The full text of WJLA’s video report is here; Fishback’s full analysis is here. (Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, is featured in the WJLA report.)

Here are some brief bullet points that I culled from Fishback’s analysis: (Read More)

The Maryland pro-tolerance parent-faculty group Teach The Facts launches a thoughtful discussion of research into sexual fluidity among some women.

Various researchers, among them Dr. Lisa Diamond in Sexual Fluidity - Understanding Women’s Love and Desire, have asserted that sexual orientation in some women naturally drifts in both directions: from heterosexual to homosexual or vice versa. In other words, some women are naturally attracted to attributes other than a given person’s gender characteristics. Such fluidity appears to be extremely uncommon among men.

The TTF blog compares intelligent analysis of sexual fluidity and bisexuality with the ideological rigidity and deception of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, an advocacy group which baselessly asserts that same-gender attraction is rooted in bad parenting or abuse rather than natural impulses; that all people can change; that change occurs by choice, not nature; and that change only occurs one way — from homosexual to heterosexual.

Teach The Facts, a group of Montgomery County, Maryland, parents and educators, offers a run-down on PFOX ex-gay literature that was distributed last week to local high-school students. TTF’s main points:

• The PFOX literature falsely claims that PFOX promotes tolerance, but PFOX’s web site is loaded with literature opposing tolerance.
• The PFOX literature illogically asserts that ex-gay self-denial, self-deception, and failure serve as proof that GLBT youth can and should seek help from unlicensed ex-gay therapists and political groups.
• The PFOX literature falsely insinuates that ex-gay activists who seek to silence and suppress gay students support self-determination, while advocates for academic freedom, tolerance, learning, and nonviolence oppose self-determination and happiness.

Police continue to investigate multiple death threats against Montgomery County, Maryland, council member Duchy Trachtenberg.

Trachtenberg has been threatened because of her support of a bill opposing discrimination against transgender county residents. Letters to her have allegedly varied in tone, from outright threats to profane language to haughty messages parroting ex-gay and antigay memes unrelated to transgender issues.

One of those letter-writers is Sharon Kass of Silver Spring, Md., an increasingly prolific enemy of civility in public discourse about gay and transgender equality. (Read More)

Concerned Women for America and “Citizens for Responsible Government,” a Maryland antigay group connected with PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays), have been battling a suburban Washington, D.C., ordinance that aims to reduce discrimination by public facilities against gender-variant and intersexed individuals.

In an interview with CWFA, a representative for the Maryland group admits faking an incident at a public restroom in order to incite public opposition to nondiscrimination.

MARTHA KLEDER [of CWFA]: Well Theresa, I also heard that someone tried to test this. Was there some event where a transgender or a shemale or someone tried to use the opposite sex bathroom?

THERESA RICKMAN: Yes, at Rio Sport and Health up in Germantown. A guy dressed as a girl went into the ladies bathroom. And, ah you know, essentially what uh, that was meant to get some media attention, you know, and the guy left immediately apparently, I mean but there was, this is the Rio Sport and Health Club, you know and Sport and Health has steam rooms, and there are ladies changing in those locker rooms, people in various stages of undress [laughing] all the time, so there’s lots a guy can see.

According to Teach The Facts, a Maryland group of pro-tolerance parents and teachers, Washington-based ABC affiliate WJLA-TV recklessly reported the staged incident as if it were real, and has yet to retract its false reporting.

The Montgomery County (Maryland) Council is considering a new gender identity nondiscrimination bill, which has angered some people - a few which have gone off the deep end. It has also generated a batch of unpleasant letters to the Council. The websites Box Turtle Bulletin and Teach The Facts report that the following letter came from Gabriel Espinosa, the webmaster for Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays: (in 40-point type)

Bill 23-07

Allowing men who think they’re women into women’s bathrooms and locker rooms?

ARE YOU PEOPLE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS?

Hopefully, it will be one of your daughters who gets raped first!

Sincerely Yours,
Gabriel Espinosa
President
Furryllama Media Productions

As we have pointed out, PFOX’s former president and cult member, Richard Cohen, was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association. PFOX has recently drawn controversy for either faking or greatly exaggerating “hate crimes” against members who staffed a booth for the organization. The webmaster prior to the unhinged Espinosa was a violent individual who went by the name “Burning Black Triangle.” Clearly, PFOX is a nut magnet that attracts the bizarre and unstable. It is scary that they keep trying to foist their insanity onto the public schools. This letter is representative of PFOX - a vulgar group that is nearly devoid of content. Judging from this letter, PFOX is not Pro-Family, but profanity.