Ex-Gay Watch

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with local journalist Eve Tushnet, for her article on the ex-gay movement, for National Review Online. The article is up, and you can read more about Eve’s reaction to the recent DC-area Love Won Out conference over at her blog.

Now that I have a decade’s worth of emotional distance from my ex-gay experience, I can honestly say I am grateful for the years I spent trying to change my orientation–and for the things I learned about myself in the process. Mainly, it taught me that if I am going to choose my own path in life, I must take responsibility for my choices. I knew what coming Out would mean: losing contact with most of my family and friends, being excommunicated from my faith, cut off from my culture and support network, etc. All of that came true. Some losses were less painful than I thought they would be, and some were more…and that’s the breaks.

But it would be silly to feel sorry for myself, because I knew exactly what I was walking away from–and moving toward–when I made my decision.

I remember a clear, conscious moment when the decision was made: I could step through Door A, and have a tolerably happy existence in a heterosexual marriage (not an easy choice, but one that would enable me to keep my friends, my family and my faith, to have children, be “normal,” etc.); or I could open Door B, and follow a path leading to the unknown. A path fraught with uncertainty and loneliness, but one that also held the promise of passion (not necessarily sexual passion, although that too , and risk, and a journey of exploration that would leave me feeling as though I had really lived my life. Above all (and this is the thing that made the choice clear) I chose to live honestly. That is a choice that comes with many costs–but they’re costs I will gladly pay!

As I look back, I must say I have few regrets. My friends who walked the ex-gay path have happy lives, in their own way, but they are not lives I envy. I get wistful sometimes over the realization that if I decided to be ex-gay, tomorrow, my parents would immediately welcome me back into their lives with open arms…but…as nice as that would be, it simply isn’t worth it. I am happy! My life is wonderful: the people I have remained close to are the ones who truly love me, and I deal with the world on my own terms. That, to me, is fulfillment.

ScienCentral News has a good piece up today summarizing the current scientific debate about the origins of homosexuality–and the political controversies attendant to it (I wish I could link to the full Scientific American Mind article the author is referencing, but it’s behind a subscriber wall).

The linked article correctly points out that much of today’s debate centers on the research of Columbia Psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, and his 2003 study analyzing the possibility of change in a small, committed group of ex-gay patients. It includes some great Spitzer quotes clarifying his position:

“Do gays have a choice?” — Spitzer replies, “They have a choice whether to go into therapy, about whether they adopt a gay lifestyle, whether they tell their friends and their family. They don’t have a choice as to whether their basic sexual orientation is gay or straight — that they don’t have a choice about.”

Read the whole thing. Spitzer is absolutely right, of course. One of great lies of the exgay movement is that people have a choice about who they are attracted to sexually. We all must choose our sexual behaviors, but we don’t choose our attractions. It takes a great deal of intellectually dishonesty to conflate those two distinct ideas.

Did anyone else catch this Cliff Kincaid op-ed from the ironically named, “Accuracy in Media” news site? After praising ABC News for prompting people to quit smoking, in the wake of Peter Jennings’ death from lung cancer, Kincaid goes on to urge ABC to launch a campaign urging people to Quit Gay Sex. Here’s the best part:

We would suggest that ABC News take on another dangerous practice—homosexuality. The latest reports indicate a rising pattern of sexually transmitted diseases nationwide. The 2005 estimate for syphilis cases is the highest in a decade, and the number of gonorrhea cases will exceed any other year’s count since 1993. Federal officials attribute the increases mostly to HIV-positive homosexual men having sex with one another. The practice is called “serosorting.” The practice shows the dangerous and addictive nature of the homosexual lifestyle. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the homosexual men are HIV-positive, they simply cannot stop having sex with other men. So they are still having sex, this time with other HIV-positive men. They think this is “responsible” sex. But they are increasing their risk of acquiring other sexually transmitted infections, including new resistant strains of HIV. It appears that the homosexual lifestyle is as addictive as smoking.

Hilarious! If I didn’t know better, I would swear this was a parody article, a la The Onion. What’s clear, certainly, is that Cliff Kincaid has never met an actual gay person. It is tragic that some people suffer from sex addiction, and that they feel compelled to indulge in dangerous, unsafe sex practices–but this is not a condition exclusive to gay people (Sexaholics Anonymous? 90% straight), nor is it one that afflicts the majority gay people.

It’s 2005, and I can’t really believe we still have to say this, but here it is again: Homosexuality does not cause AIDS; nor does it cause syphilis. Unsafe sex–of the gay or straight variety–is what facilitates disease transmission. Those of us who are responsibly single, or happily coupled, can only scratch our heads at this absurd conflation of homosexuality and sex addiction.

I laughed reading this account of ex-gay minister Tim Wilkins’ talk to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Apologetics Association, a student-led organization that exists to “promote the literal word of the Bible as logical and reasonable” (a dubious goal, in my estimation, but there it is). It’s pretty funny that even among a group of die-hard Bible believers (who, I presume, accept that Jonah actually dwelt in the belly of a whale) Mr. Wilkins encountered this much skepticism over his ex-gay claims. It speaks volumes about how the cultural debate has evolved–in our favor.
Read more…

That’s the sub-title of Focus on the Family’s web page entitled, “Helping Boys Become Men, and Girls Become Women.” The page goes on to offer a checklist of telltale signs to watch out for in determining a child’s (in this case, a young boy’s) developing sexuality:

1. A strong feeling that they are “different” from other boys.

2. A tendency to cry easily, be less athletic, and dislike the roughhousing that other boys enjoy.

3. A persistent preference to play female roles in make-believe play.

4. A strong preference to spend time in the company of girls and participate in their games and other pastimes.

5. A susceptibility to be bullied by other boys, who may tease them unmercifully and call them “queer,” “fag” and “gay.”

6. A tendency to walk, talk, dress and even “think” effeminately.

7. A repeatedly stated desire to be — or insistence that he is — a girl.

Interestingly, the page also points parents who suspect that their child might be gay to a listing of Professional Resources.

What’s interesting about that (in my view) is that this is the first time I’ve seen ex-gay Reparative Therapy aimed squarely at young children whose sexual development is still incomplete. It seems the idea of diagnosing pre-homosexual tendencies in young children is gaining traction. The thinking, I presume, is that “curing” kids of homosexuality is easier if the condition is caught and treated early. This fits logically with the “homosexuality as treatable disease” idea in vogue with the Religious Right.

This idea actually would make a lot of sense–if homosexuality were in fact a disease that could be cured through therapy.

I’m one of the few people I know who began ex-gay reparative therapy to cure my homosexuality while I was still a young teenager–before I’d actually had sex. In my own experience, trying to “treat the condition early” made no difference that I can tell. But I’m curious to hear from others of you out there who may have similar development timelines…

Did any of you XGW readers experience ex-gay intervention as a child or adolescent? If so, what are your thoughts on this idea of marketing ex-gay therapy to the parents of very young kids?

In cased you missed the Jon Stewart Show’s hilarious Samantha Bee, in this week’s segment on the “gayification” of NASCAR, click here.

The segment includes an interview with an ex-gay NASCAR fan, and…well, it’s just too perfect. Enjoy.

It’s about economics. More specifically, it’s about economic sociology.

Consider: the social cost of coming out and living openly as a gay person continues to decline rapidly. (In modern America, it’s increasingly rare for a gay person to lose their job, get cut off from family and friends, or be discriminated against in housing for being gay; non-discrimination has not been codified into existing federal law, but the social market is ahead of legislation here. I’m not saying there is no social cost to being out–there is still the prospect of random violence, subtler forms of discrimination, strangers calling you “faggot,”"dyke,” etc. In aggregate, social costs are shrinking but will always exist in some form).

Meanwhile, the private costs and psychic costs of the other choices a gay person faces, including a) remaining in the closet, b) living a double life, or c) pursuing an ex-gay path, remain as high as they have always been. (The main cost of these choices is the toll of constant vigilance. There is little evidence that most people can successfully change their basic sexual programming. Even optimistic ex-gay organizations claim only a 30% success rate–and they define “change” fluidly).

What we call “society,” is simply a social market. On balance, as the cost of living openly shrinks while the cost of being closeted or ex-gay remains high, fewer and fewer people will choose the expensive path. Already we see that the ex-gay movement is strongest in arenas where the social costs of coming out are still high–in smaller towns across the U.S., in the Bible belt, and within conservative religious communities.

If the ex-gay Movement (capital-M) is to continue to exist, it will largely be dependent on keeping the social costs of living as an openly gay person high–at least as high as the psychic costs of living as an ex-gay. To that end, their recent efforts have been attempts to maintain and increase the social costs of being gay: fighting gay marriage, blocking anti-gay bullying initiatives in schools, fighting federal non-discrimination law, encouraging the idea that gay people choose to be gay. However, I think it is too late for them to turn back the clock. As I’ve already noted, the social market has far outpaced legal protections as a mechanism for reducing the social costs of being gay.

What the Movement Ex-gays fail to appreciate, I think, is that the social cost of being gay needn’t be less than the social benefit of passing as straight for most gay people to choose the former. That’s because there are real associated benefits to being “out,” including the prospect of lifelong monogamous coupling (or a great sex life as a single person, depending on one’s inclination), having one’s sexuality become a non-issue, dealing honestly at all times with family and friends, etc. These are important benefits for many people, and they outweigh associated costs.

If I’m right, we can expect to see anti-gay rhetoric get more heated in years to come. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the fringe right advocate things like criminalization, imprisonment or castration for gay people. It’s important to remember that this extreme rhetoric will be a reaction to the fact that social costs for being gay are actually falling. The rhetoric will necessarily become more extreme as they attempt to swing the balance back in their favor. This will be the harbinger of the collapse of their Movement.

I want to be clear: I am talking about the diminishing influence of the Movement, not about prospects for individual ex-gays. There will always be individuals who choose the ex-gay path–those who dislike being gay so much, or who have such a conservative religious dogma, that the cost/benefit equation will never fall in favor of coming out. For them, the choice to live as ex-gay always will be–and always should be–available. And rather than deserving our scorn, I believe they deserve our sympathy and solidarity.

Indeed, I think the ultimate goal for all of us is to have the right to choose whichever path we want, and walk it happily.

Speaking at a conference of Exodus International, the largest religious group promoting the idea that gays can can change their sexual orientation, Rev. Jerry Falwell endorsed forcing gay kids into counseling designed to change their sexual orientation.

Falwell compared allowing a child to identify as gay with allowing children to play on the interstate and dismissed psychologists’ claims that consent is fundamental to a healthy counseling relationship and that parents should not force their gay kids into therapy.

Wow. Having been forced into reparative therapy by my parents (while I was still a minor) I’d like to offer my personal testimony of the harm it can cause.

Rev. Falwell, please be specific: What, exactly, is wrong with allowing your children to tell the truth about what they feel?

I hope you’ve all been catching Salon’s four-part series on the work of ex-gay ministries. In Part I, they cover PFOX’ efforts to prevent anti-bullying measures in schools. In Part II, a straight reporter goes undercover into a “reparative therapy” session.

Today’s installment is about the Rev. Grace Harley, who:

…used to be a lesbian who posed as a man to marry a woman. Now she has overcome cocaine and “little hot-to-trot women” and is speaking out to save homosexual sinners.

The series is definitely worth reading, regardless of one’s perspective on the legitimacy of ex-gay ministries. I found today’s installment troubling, in particular this quote:

Politically correct people do not understand that gay people “taint” others around them, she [Harley] says, and so gays should be barred from the Boy Scouts of America. “Birds of a feather flock together,” Harley tells us. “It’s not in the Bible, but it’s true. You can’t have a homosexual buddy and think you are going to be buddy-buddy and nothing [will get] off on you. You will become tainted and corrupted.

As gay blogger John at By the Bayou notes:

This is a call for social shunning of gay people. We have bad gay cooties that will leap off of us and get on you, so you better run, and lock up the women lest they become lesbians.

Indeed, it is hard to read Harley’s message any other way.

I don’t know–but you can find out what MSNBC’s readers think by checking out the online poll. It’s live right now, go vote!

The accompanying article is a good one.