Ex-Gay Survivor? New Survey to log in your experiences

Back in 2007 when Christine Bakke and I founded Beyond Ex-Gay we discussed how those of us who have been through reparative therapies and ex-gay ministries need an opportunity to put on the record what we did, why we did it, what were the outcomes. So many other people have told our stories for us, but in the act of sharing it for ourselves, we can get more clarity and get a little bit more beyond our often harmful experiences to alter our orientation or gender differences.

Over at the Beyond Ex-Gay site, you can now take a quick survey about your experiences. You can take it anonymously if you wish. I just took the survey myself last night, and found it easy to navigate and refreshingly freeing. Below is a description of the survey.

We’ve all heard the declarations that “thousands and thousands of people have been healed of their homosexuality.” Where do those numbers come from? At Beyond Ex-Gay (bXg) we know firsthand that the thousands who have attended ex-gay groups never “changed.” Worse yet, our ex-gay experiences caused us tremendous
harm. So to counter the rhetoric, we have created a new survey specifically for ex-gay survivors.

It’s short, and you can stay as anonymous as you’d like. If you can’t find answers that fit your experience, we provide plenty of empty boxes for you to express yourself as accurately as possible. Your willingness to be counted will ultimately stand in stark contrast to the misinformation that ex-gay promoters use to convince people that “change is possible” and harmless to pursue.

Did you try to suppress or change your sexual orientation or gender differences through an ex-gay ministry, reparative therapy, or on your own? Please take the survey.

Some Thoughts on Forgiveness

Lately I have been faced with the opportunity to extend forgiveness to someone responsible for harming me, some of my loved ones, and many other people–some I know–most I do not. One thing I have concluded is I can offer  private, personal forgiveness for someone who directly harmed me (particularly if I wish to continue in relationship with that person.) But sometimes, as a community, we are confronted with the issue of public forgiveness for someone who has injured many in very public ways.

In the case of the personal offense, I can, if I choose, extend forgiveness. It will likely serve as an essential step in rebuilding a broken relationship. It is most effective if the offender communicates regret over their actions, can articulate what they have done, and actually requests forgiveness. My forgiveness does not mean I can (or should) trust the person again immediately or ever. Forgiveness does not give me permission to overlook reality. Also, personal forgiveness is often a private matter.

The public forgiveness is complicated mainly because I cannot forgive someone on the behalf of others. I can personally let go of my resentment towards an individual or a group, but it is not my place to forgive them for all that they have done. Nor do I think it does anyone any good when we immediately offer forgiveness in reaction to an announcement by someone who has begun to consider his previous harmful actions.

Restorative justice requires more than a quickie public exchange–

“I am sorry.”

“You are forgiven.”

Immediate forgiveness and absolution distracts from the necessary cathartic process for both the offender and those harmed. This is not a matter about being too hard on someone like John Smid, who has publicly apologized for his work promoting and providing ex-gay treatment and has begun to unpack his former beliefs. Rather it is a validation of the harm people suffered and the need for an honest and often painful process. While many of us rejoice in happy endings and prefer to skip over the conflict to the resolution, usually its the complicated, messy process that results in a satisfying ending.

When someone, like John Smid, announces a change of heart and seeks to make amends, (after overseeing a residential program that brought misery and confusion to hundreds if not thousands,) I believe that reconciliation with the community he harmed is a process that needs to be conducted thoughtfully and sensitively. If a family member has abused others and then repents, it is complex and difficult work to bring that person back into family life and gatherings. Not impossible, but I believe we must not overlook history or the gravity of offenses committed.

Also, when someone, who regrets their harmful and abusive behaviors, requests entry into groups inhabited by former victims or wishes to be a spokesperson on behalf of those harmed, he has work to do–much to learn and unlearn. In the case of John Smid, it makes much more sense that he speak to his former ex-gay peers still working to undermine the health, well-being, and rights of LGBTQ people, than to present at gay Christian events.

Perhaps as the dust settles from his recent announcements, he is beginning to see what his role can be in the public discourse and in bringing about justice. Yesterday he appeared on MSNBC’s Hard Ball with Chris Matthew and advocated extending equal rights to LGBTQ people. I find that more valuable to me than a written apology. In insisting on rights for the people he formerly oppressed, John Smid pursues restorative justice.

As Sally, a Facebook friend, concluded:

Seems to me that forgiveness is a process of the heart. Reconciliation is a commitment to a relational process.

Finally, I do not believe anyone should ever feel obligated to forgive. If an ex-gay leader approaches me directly and says, “I am sorry,” I am free to respond, “Yes, and you have good reason to be. Now do something about it.” This may sound harsh, but in pursuing restorative justice, peace does not come about by overlooking wrongs. It requires action–amends–a necessary step that not only acknowledges those who have been oppressed, but may also lead to the liberation of oppressors weighed down by their cruel and misguided beliefs and actions.

This is What an Apology Looks Like

Darlene Bogle, Michael Bussee, Jeremy Marks

Back in June 2007 I had the privilege to work with three former ex-gay leaders as they prepared to issue public apologies concerning their roles in providing and promoting reparative therapy. At the LGBT community center in LA, I witnessed this historic public offering of regret. As co-founder of Beyond Ex-Gay and working in partnership with Soulforce, I believed the apologies would provide ex-gay survivors with meaningful words from some of the very people responsible for causing the harm.

Writing an apology often proves challenging. How difficult to admit wrong and particularly to name that wrong without justification or minimizing. As someone who spent 17 years immersed in various treatments designed to alter my sexual orientation (gay) and gender difference (fem), I felt relieved and released in part by the group apology and the individual statements of regret offered by Jeremy Marks, Darlene Bogle, and Michael Bussee. What struck me was the detail in which they described their wrongs as well as their genuine remorse. Previously all three had been working for years to undo the damage while contributing positively to LGBT lives, so their words were grounded in action.

This summer I received a remarkable e-mail from John Smid, the former director of Love in Action (LIA.) I attended this residential ex-gay program in Memphis, TN for two years at great cost to me and my family, both financially and psychologically.  I had heard that John was reaching out to former clients, so I was not surprised he contacted me.

John said he would like to take a stab at making amends, and I agreed to read what he had learned since we last spoke in 2008. The apology he sent me, sounded sincere to me but incomplete. It lacked detail. It was written in the passive voice and repeated over and over the phrase, “I am sorry.” While I did not feel I could outright ignore John’s apology, I also could not honestly accept it as it was. So as an exercise for myself, I printed out John’s apology to me, read it closely, crossed out anything that sounded extraneous, wrote details in the margin, and began to play with language. (For instance, instead of the phrase, “I am sorry for…” I replaced it with “I acknowledge that…”)

I found the exercise useful to me, satisfying to consider words meaningful to me. Then I decided to take the unprecedented step of sending to John my version of his apology. I acknowledged to him how it must be difficult to question 22 years of work and conclude that it may have caused harm.  I explained how I took the liberty to edit his original version and said, “This is an apology I believe I can accept. I do not know if it is one you are willing and able to give, but if nothing else, it served as a helpful exercise to me and you may find it useful as well.”

Below is the apology I fashioned from John’s first draft. I do not feel comfortable sharing his original, but it is similar to the public apology he issued in March of this year.

I understand that John is on a personal journey that includes questioning his beliefs, former work, and even his own identity. He also has had a very public role in providing and promoting ex-gay ministry. The program he oversaw was notorious for its shocking and abusive practices. Separating the personal from the public is important. I wish John the best in his life. I also recognize that history cannot be erased, and it does nothing to the strength of  LGBTQ communities to overlook or minimize the wrongs against us. It also does not aid in the liberation of our oppressors to overlook or minimize painful past actions. In other words, writing an apology can prove challenging both to those giving and those hearing.

Using John Smid’s personal message to me,  I composed an apology that is meaningful to me:

Peterson, I regret that through the teaching I offered at Love in Action (LIA,) through private conversations, in public forums, and in the media, I communicated directly and indirectly that lesbians and gays are sinful, dysfunctional, flawed, and inferior to heterosexuals.

At LIA my staff and I designed a program that used a drug and alcohol “addiction” model. Applying this addiction model to men and women who are gay, lesbian, bisexual,or transgender caused confusion, shame, and guilt. The model suggested that you and others were damaged goods and deceived. I now realize that the model I implemented focused on behavior modification. This focus was woefully ill-informed and unhelpful regarding gays. This model has caused harm to many people who came to us for help. In retrospect, I now see that the model was flawed. It relied on shame tactics and guilt-producing practices.  I continued to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the things I heard from those, like yourself, wounded by this model.

I regret designing, overseeing, and maintaining a program that brought confusion and pain, not only to you, but to many people through the years. I did not take the time to listen to you and others. I devalued your life experience and personal perspective.

I regret the flawed theology I taught and practiced. In suggesting that transformation would mean a change in sexual orientation, I brought further confusion into your life while you were at LIA. I taught that gays had wicked hearts. My theology and thinking
were wrong and negatively affected you and others under my care. I acknowledge the potential harm in teaching topics like “child development” to a hastily assembled group of people looking for informed answers. I have learned that this “one size fits all” approach caused confusion and guilt to participants at the Family and Friends Weekend.

Peterson, I harmed your parents through what my staff and I taught and communicated. I see now how much of what I said increased fear, shame, and guilt for parents who arrived to our program concerned for their children. As I look back today, I am grieved that I did not relieve the guilt and shame, rather I helped produce more through the meetings my staff and I facilitated. I now acknowledge that there is nothing that a parent does or does not do that creates a gay child. I regret that I taught or inferred this message and coerced parents into taking on inappropriate responsibility for their child’s orientation and gender differences and for insisting that there was something wrong with a gay orientation and in gender differences. I renounce these views and have ceased teaching this material to groups.

I now understand and acknowledge that my sexuality is unique to me. I have chosen to partner with Vileen, my wife, a partnership that works for me and for her. But for the vast majority of LIA participants, such a relationship would be unrealistic, and would likely cause pain and heartache for all parties involved. In my work, I never acknowledge the differences in people’s orientations and personalities. I never acknowledged the existence of bisexuals, who may successfully partner with someone of either sex. In my teaching and testimony, I insisted that a heterosexual marriage was superior to a union between two men or two women. I elevated heterosexuality and devalued the lives, relationships, and spirituality of lesbians gays.

Through the LIA program, my teaching, and program activities, I insisted that clients must adhere to traditional gender roles and society’s assumptions regarding how men and women express themselves through their appearance, dress, hobbies, jobs, and relationships. My teaching stifled individuality and authenticity. I was arrogant and assumed that I had all of the right answers. I acted as though I had a special line to God and somehow felt that I knew what God would or would not do. I wrongly defended myself when someone called me or my ministry legalistic. In arrogance, I responded to people who criticized me, my teaching, or LIA program practices.

While I cannot say that the 22 years as program director of LIA were a waste or that it was not productive to some in part, I am now aware, and I continue to grow in awareness, that much of my teachings, beliefs, and practices at LIA were wrong. As a result, I confused and wounded many people. Many, perhaps most, left LIA hopeless as a result of the services we provided under my supervision. I now understand and see that I was often more consumed with what I believed you had done that was wrong and sinful, and likely communicated that I was not interested in YOU as a person, or how you were feeling.

I regret my actions. I acknowledge my mistakes and harmful work.
Peterson, what can I do further to address the wrongs I have done? How can I demonstrate just how much I regret my actions and the consequences they brought to you and to others?

Love in Action shuts down residential program

According to the Love in Action Website the Memphis-based ex-gay group no longer operates it residential program:

Love In Action’s Residential program has been suspended indefinitely. Simply put, there is a significant need to bring all of LIA under one location for it to be more cost effective. We continue to counsel and grow through our 4-Day Intensives, Hourly Counseling, Conferences, Support Groups, and Church Assistance Program.

I am thrilled that the sun has finally set on this part of the program–one that housed and harassed many of us these past 30 years. While they will continue to offer some limited services, it appears that they have begun to dismantle operations.

What better way to celebrate than you see the new documentary by LIA protester and filmmaker Morgan Jon Fox. This is What Love in Action Looks Like chronicles what happened when a 16 year old boy was forced to attend Love in Action and how his friends responded and ultimately help shut down the youth program back in 2007. Or pop in your DVD of Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway Housse, now a HISTORICAL satire of the Love in Action program. =D

Hurricane as Metaphor. Ex-Gay Trauma

Yesterday I heard from a friend from the New York area, who like me survived “treatments” to de-gay us. As he prepared for the storm, he reflected on Hurricane Irene, and used it as a metaphor to explore homophobia and the religious-based anti-gay therapies he endured.

Hey I was reflecting on the storm during a bad night of struggling with homophobia, ex gay counseling and the like…I wrote this:

My experience with homophobia, has been a disaster. Of epic qualities. It became a cyclone of self hatred, a whirlwind of fear, a raging rapid river of doubt.

First the winds developed and the depression began, as my parents rejected me and condemned me as a child. And than like a classical fugue, it built up into a grand storm, and rained upon me the fear of Hell, clashed me with the winds of anger, and pelted me with the sleet of pity. My conscience dilapitated, my anxiety raged within my mind, my body fell into the pit of alcoholism, codependency, drug use. I was beaten and lashed by the ideas of Hell and hate that I collapsed into a pit of dispondency, of hangovers and wasted money, of years without physical care, abusive relationships and nights of insomnia.

But as these drifting winds begin to still, and I mature, this hurricane is passing. I shall rebuild. I will exercise myself to health, insure myself with independence and self love, and rebuild with every fiber of my being the long lost structure of myself under the azure sky of self worth.

A Meditation on Hospitality

Organizers of LGBTQ programming at the Greenbelt Festival this weekend in England asked me to write a short piece to be read aloud at a service. The theme is hospitality. I immediately thought of the famous story in Luke 24 about friends walking and the stranger who walks beside them on the road.

Thanks go to Abby, Peter, Shay, Gareth, and Glen for feedback.

Meditation on Hospitality

“Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
–But who is that on the other side of you?”
T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

Scene: Two disciples. heads down. Cloaks covering their faces. Dejected, fleeing Jerusalem. Heartbroken.

Enter: A Stranger. Nondescript, also cloaked.

They meet and walk together up the road. They converse. They reveal secrets.

They speak of their dashed hopes, their pain. Then at a crossroads the Stranger moves as if to leave them. They urge the Stranger, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.”

They share a meal and for a moment, the two see in the Stranger the one they love, the Christ, the Treasure they feared they had lost forever.

(pause for 5 seconds)

This encounter on the road and then at the table, where does it place you today? As Stranger? As Host? As silent observer? Those of us, gays and lesbians, who had been denied a place at the table in the past now have the privilege and the responsibility to make room for the Stranger. We may have grown accustomed to being the Outsider for so long that we do not always recognize our new role to seek out and welcome the Stranger.

For some gays and lesbians “the other” is a bisexual person, who within our communities, often has had to assert an identity as one on a continuum rather than a binary. The Stranger may be a transgender person–a transsexual, a trans man, or a trans woman at a middle place of transition, or just beginning a journey, or long settled into themselves. Perhaps the Stranger is a gender-queer teen who does not conveniently fit into the categories we have used up until now. This one enters, “gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded, I do not know whether a man or a woman.”

Suddenly some of us land in the place where our own oppressors and allies have stood. We now have someone in our midst with an experience and identity foreign from our own. We may feel shock at the emotions that swirl within us. Discomfort. Fear. Doubt. Entitlement. We feel the urge to defend hard won ground. In essence, we perform the very same drama that played out in
our lives when we were the Outsider and those at the table struggled with us among them, and in many cases rejected us. We fall into a role that we learned through oppression, one that imprinted itself on us, that takes over so easily we assume it is natural and right.

If we are not careful and thoughtful, we will re-play history, but this time we drive the Stranger from our midst. Therefore, we must overcome the bias and the prejudice we inherited. We must travel back in time to when we were the Stranger, when those in power saw us only as a worthless clay jar and did not see the treasure we held within.

We must relive the longing we felt for community, for a place where we could truly be ourselves without fear of punishment, shunning, or a cold reception. We must reflect on what we wanted in an ally and a friend when we felt most alone. We must remember how our hearts burned within us when we discovered someone who saw us and was not distracted by the differences we presented.

We must look ahead up the road and ask ourselves, and each other, “Who is
that one walking beside us?”

Demolishing New Ex-Gay Talking Point. Ex-Gay vs. Transgender

Thanks to Michelle Bachmann and her family business that offers Christian counseling, including “therapy” to help sort the gays, the media has once again highlighted ex-gay treatments and theories that say people can be “de-gayed.” Spokespeople for the anti-LGBTQ cause get on TV and spout their faulty ideas and talking points designed to legitimize their postition and convince the public that the treatments and theories are beneficial.

During this current media cycle ex-gay proponents introduced a new talking point. Dr. Jack Drescher, in his recent piece for Psychology Today, writes about the talking point and its emergence in the media.

“Why is it OK for doctors to help a person change their sex from male to female but it is not OK to try and change a person’s homosexual orientation to a heterosexual one?”

I first heard this question asked several weeks ago during Joy Behar’s interview of a so-called ex-gay man and his wife (at about 7:20 minutes into the video). Then I heard it again on NPR in Alix Spiegel’s August 1 interview of another “ex-gay” man (at about 7:30 minutes into the interview)…The questioners were either ex-gay or married to an ex-gay. But they also appear to make their livelihoods promoting and selling ex-gay “ministries” to (mostly religious) people unhappy about their homosexual attractions.

Dr. Drescher then shares the history of both transgender affirming treatments, including the specific Standards of Care that researched, designed, and regularly updated for the care of transgender individuals. These have have provided their own controversy among transgender people. In his piece Dr. Drescher juxtaposes these standards with the unregulated field of ex-gay treatment.

Standards of Care focus on important clinical issues such as who to treat, who not to treat, which treatments work, which do not, selection criteria for best candidates, and admission of errors when they occur. Selection criteria, for example, are an important way to prevent harm being done to patients who are not suitable for the treatment. However such care in selecting patients is rarely seen in the ex-gay movement. Perhaps this is because when doing faith healing, one can take all comers. Licensed medical and allied health professionals, on the other hand, are held to a different standard.

In his piece for the St. Petersburg Times, my partner, Glen Retief, also takes on the new talking point regarding unethical ex-gay treatment and medically-approved treatments for transgender folks.

The notion that ex-gays are “straight people trapped in a body with gay desires” has a certain superficial appeal. After all, who is the APA to decide that one kind of discomfort with self is more respectable than another? But this argument is based on a profound misunderstanding of gender and sexuality — and in perpetuating these misconceptions, the ex-gay movement continues a long tradition of peddling snake oil instead of real medicine.

Glen also highlights the difference in standards of care between transgender-affirming therapies and de-gaying treatments. He also points out the vast difference between motivations of pursuing these two treatments that ex-gays are trying to lump together (as they also seek to invalidate the transgender person’s experience and identity.)

To transition to another gender in our world is an act of great courage and rebellion, which requires confronting friends, family, and the world with a truth of the heart. The individual who does so takes significant risks for the sake of joy and psychic wholeness.

I’m not saying that a few rare individuals in ex-gay programs, who try to change themselves to please their pastors, parents and Bible teachers, don’t achieve peace when they try to live according to their personal interpretation of a 1,600-year-old book. But the vast majority of ex-gays are motivated by fear of punishment in this world or the next — not by brave integrity. The spiritual fruits of their quest for change tend to be terror, shame, numbness and self-hatred — a slow death of their true selves, which is to say of their souls.

I encourage you to read both pieces and share them widely. We need to challenge the talking point and not fall into the trap anti-LGBTQ people have set–one that offensively invalidates the lives of transgender people as it also seeks to legitimatize practices that ultimately harm people who are not heterosexual or gender normative. This is both an attack on transgender people and an ongoing attempt to insert ex-gay treatment into the mainstream. At its core ex-gay treatment is an attack on gender, particularly an attack on women and feminine-presenting males. It is a movement that insists on a gender binary with heterosexual males superior to females. They strictly adhere to gender norms and patriarchy. Ultimately it is an anti-fem movement.

Lazarus, Come Out!

My friend, Anarchist Reverend, sent out a call with others at Sanctuary Collective for bloggers to share creative queer theology. I grow weary of defensive theology where one has to counter passages that seem to clobber queer folk. That’s why I love performing my Transfigurations play, a piece about gender non-conformists in the Bible.

For today’s Synchroblog ( http://anarchistreverend.com/2011/07/synchroblog )I decided to trot out something I wrote awhile ago for The Sanctuary Collective. It is based on a scene from my ex-gay satire Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House and re-visits a well known story about resurrection.

HTML doesn’t seem to be formatting properly today on WordPress Ap, so will add links later.

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“It was a cave with a stone up against it. Jesus said, ‘Take the stone away.’ Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to Jesus, ‘Leader, think about the smell – the body’s been there four days!’ Jesus said, ‘Didn’t I tell you that if you trusted, you’d see what God can do?’ So they took the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, ‘Loving God, thank you for listening to me. I know you always do, but I want these people to know, so they will accept me as the one you’ve sent.’ Jesus’ voice sounded like a dog howling in distress as he shouted, ‘Larry, come on out!’ Larry came out, with his hands and feet still tied by the grave clothes and a cloth over his face. Jesus said to them, ‘Untie him so he can move.’

-from John 11 Good As New—A Radical Retelling of the New Testament by John Henson (used with author’s permission)

The Gospel stories of people liberated from their graves move me deeply—not only Jesus’ triumphant escape from his own tomb three days after he was executed, but also the time when he rescued his friend Lazarus from death and the tomb. Then there is the story of the man who lived among the tombs—no chains could bind him—until Jesus emancipated him from the multiple oppressions that plagued him. Finally freed from the forces that bound and tormented him, the man stood before Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.

Growing up as a guy who felt attracted to guys and who was always a bit of a sissy, I moved in and out of public school, Christian college, the Roman Catholic and then Evangelical churches, and the mission field, but I understood that these worlds did not fully welcome me. My admittance and subsequent service in these came with conditions—namely I had to straighten myself out. I needed to be a heterosexual, masculine (gender-normative) man. In essence, I had to strap myself into a Straight Jacket. Not that there is anything wrong with straight folks; it’s just that I wasn’t one and did every thing in my power (and God’s power) to change all that.

Going through ex-gay treatments designed to “de-gay” me and butch me up, felt very much like a tortuous slow death. I felt plagued with a heap of troubles. I also suffered from the many efforts to keep my queer self bound and gagged—the hundreds of trips to the altar to rededicate my life to the Lord, the counseling sessions with pastors, the ex-gay football clinics, the 12-steps, the violent and terrifying treatments that included exorcism and the two years in residential straight camp—and the list goes on and on. The subjugation and eradication of all things queer in me not only proved futile, it also proved destructive. The “cure” ultimately harmed me, and I ended up injuring myself. Similar to the man overwhelmed by a “Legion of Demons” Jesus encounters on the lakeshore (Mark 5), I felt plagued by myriad problems.

“This man lived among the graves because no one could control him, not even with chains. On previous occasions when he had been chained hand and foot, he tore the chains apart and broke the shackles on his feet, and no one was strong enough to hold him down. He spent the day and night shouting and cutting himself with stones.”
-From Mark 5 Good As New version.

People who are different, or who are perceived as different, often pose a threat to the keepers of the norms. In order to contain this threat, some Christian institutions provide all sorts of punishments for those who deviate from the straight and narrow path while offering loads of incentives for those who diligently tread the party line. How many non-straight, non-gender normative folks have gotten passed over for a ministry position or removed from one? How many perks and affirmations have folks gotten once they announced they would straighten themselves out for Jesus?

In order to access the power and the privileges handed out to the “normal” people (most of whom who also feel they fall short,) many of us felt the demands to alter ourselves—suppress and change our orientation and gender differences. Some like me coveted our straight neighbor’s life. Many of us believed that we would be more valuable to God and others if we were just “normal.” Many of us developed self-hatred and literally went to war against our own gender differences or non-straight orientation. We put on chains and shackles. We stuffed whole parts of ourselves into tomb-like closets hoping that at last we could be free from the problems that just kept getting in the way. Yet time and time again another part of us clawed for life, broke the chains, raised questions that made us and others feel queasy.

Believing we were in a cosmic struggle against evil, we felt dismayed that no matter how much we beat them back, our orientation and gender differences continued to rise up from the grave much like soul-sucking zombies. Little did we understand that it was the closet, the refusal to be honest about ourselves to ourselves and others, that numbed us and caused psychological, emotional, spiritual and at times even physical damage.

Does this sound familiar to some folks? It is not only a queer experience. Many different types of people have felt coerced and compelled to live a less than honest life in order to advance economically, socially or to just feel good about themselves. Perhaps the queer closeted experience is the most obvious model of this, an archetype for all sorts of repression that denies reality. Life in the closet, an inauthentic life with the aim to ignore, tie up, hide or annihilate a natural and healthy part of the self is akin to living in a stinking, dusty, light-proof tomb with a big ole stone blocking the exit.

But stones can and have been rolled away! Jesus called his friend Lazarus (Larry in John Henson’s brilliant translation) out of the smelly, rotting, decaying tomb, and somehow Lazarus heard the voice of Jesus, came back to life and came OUT. What an odd and eerie moment for the Jewish-raised disciples, who according to their Law, could not touch a corpse without becoming unclean by it. A dead body is one thing, but what about the living dead?!?

Lazarus comes out of his tomb alive, but he is not yet FREE. He’s still wrapped up in all of the grave clothes. Traditionally Jewish corpses in First Century in and near Jerusalem got placed in tombs wearing burial clothes. Family or friends took a shroud about twice the length of the body, placed the corpse on one end and folded the other end over long-wise. Then they took strips of linen or other fabric and wrapped the body round and round, and they covered the face with a face cloth. As Lazarus emerged four days after his entombment, he must have looked freakish all bound up in his grave clothes like a mummy. His feet wrapped tight, he most likely had to hop out of the tomb, (for a visual think dirty zombie Easter Bunny without the cute floppy ears.)

I cannot imagine what the disciples, Lazarus’ sisters and the crowd must be thinking at that moment. Possibly, “Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.” Then Jesus breaks the stunned silence and instructs them, “Untie him so he can move.” This is the part that always gets me. It was not enough for Lazarus to come back to life and exit the tomb, he needs the assistance of his friends to unwrap him. Oh and what courage those most likely terrified disciples display as they unwrap him not at all certain of what sort of creepy gift Jesus brings them direct from the grave. Under all those grave clothes they find their friend, perhaps a bit shaken and dazed, but the one they love, the one that Jesus loves. A bit dazed himself, Lazarus needs something to eat and so much more as he processes his death, decay and then resurrection.

Emerging from the closet for me was like Lazarus coming out the tomb. I was out, but I was not FREE. I still had those putrid grave clothes of fear, misinformation, homophobia, misogyny, shame and self-loathing all around me like a boa constrictor, choking the life out of me. I needed friends to come alongside of me to unwrap and untangle that mess for me and with me. I needed tender and courageous touch. I needed truth to replace the many lies I had embraced and fed on for decades. I needed people to be okay with me being a mess for awhile in regards to my faith. I needed people to love me back to life.

In my play Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House, I tell the story of Lazarus’ liberation through the words of Pastor Meadow, who with humor and insight gets to the heart of the matter—we need each other to be fully ourselves. Then after sharing some of my personal coming out experiences, I end the play with the following poem about Lazarus. In the poem I also allude to the story of the man in Mark 5 who found freedom after years of isolation, rejection, violence and chains.

Grave Robbers

Lazarus came forth, gleaming white,
A pillar wrapped tight outside his tomb.
Jesus looked at us, “Take off the grave clothes,
And let him go.”

Panic twisted my gut like a wet washrag
Wringing out courage.

Who knows how to undress a mummy raised from the dead?
Does one start at the heart or close to the head?
We circled him as if he were a bomb to diffuse.
Then we began in earnest,
Unbinding, tearing, speaking comfort as we went.
The crowd pressed in hurling advice like stones.

Lazarus stood like marble, cold from his grave,
While we sweated in the cruel sun,
Unwrapping his trappings.
But suddenly, (or did it take years?)
It was complete.
Mary and Martha washed their brother in tears:

He was free—naked and in his right mind.

Ex-Gay on NPR. Wrong question & Things unmentioned

I wish I could write a long blog post about the NPR Morning Edition piece I was featured on this past Monday. You can see the link to the segment here The piece ran for under nine minutes, so lots got left unsaid from the 80 minute interview I had with Alix Spiegel.

Lots of people have written about the piece and NPR’s failure to mention key details and more importantly how NPR failed in the way they structured the segment. Some useful pieces to read are Rev. Irene Monroe’s Op-Ed for Bay Windows, Zack Ford’s blog post for Think Progress, an excellent piece piece written by Cary Gibson, the piece by candace Chellew Hodge for Religion Dispatches, and an Op-Ed by Wayne Besen for The Advocate.

I too found flaws with the piece. In particular Alix Spiegel summarized something I said and reported that I felt that reparative therapy can help a handful of people. No, absolutely not. Over at Beyond Ex-Gay we recognize that some say they have been helped by ex-gay treatment. For our part the treatments did not work and usually caused us damage. From meeting over 1,500 ex-gay survivors and seeing up close the lives of many ex-gays and from understanding the positive outcomes from working with ethical trained professionals compared, I believe ex-gay treatment is unnecessary, ineffectual, and most often damaging.

The piece also stated that Richard Wiley, an ex-gay (and an ex-gay leader although this was not mentioned) chose his faith over his sexuality. By leaving out any statement about my faith, the piece inferred that I chose my gay orientation over my faith. Not true. Faith is very important to me. The many things that Richard Wyler feared he would lose if he fully accepted that he was gay, including his faith, did not happen to me or most of the gay Christians I know. We have found homes and in some cases new family. I tried to please the churches I attended for years knowing that they would not change and would chuck me out the moment I accepted myself. Fortunately today I can go to many many venues to pursue my faith with other believers. For me I have found a home with the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers.

It seems ex-gay proponents have a new talking point. I heard Stephen Bennet of the Stephen Bennett Global Ministries utter it on CNN last week and then again Richard Wiley in the NPR piece. They both asked, “If transgender people can get APA approved treatment for transition, why is it unethical to offer reparative therapy to gays and lesbians?” Yeah, that is some inverted logic that I don’t have time to unpack right now, but I hope someone will very soon.

Finally, Alix Spiegel and the editorial staff of NPR asked the wrong question. They asked, “Can Therapy Help Change Sexual Orientation?” The answer is “NO.” Orientation does not change. Even most ex-gay leaders agree on this point today and definitely every major medical association agrees. Rather for a health segment it would have been far more essential and meaningful to ask, “Why do these treatments persist? Why do people pursue change?” Then it would be fair to have a current ex-gay and a former ex-gay speaking about their motivations and the outcomes. I explore these questions in my article and video about Why I Went Ex-Gay

Last week Zack Ford of Think Progress and my podcast partner over at Queer and Queerer interviewed Dr. Christine Robinson, professor of Justice Studies at James Madison University. She along with her colleague Sue Spivey, are some of the foremost scholars about the Ex-Gay Movement. Take a listen to the powerful interview we conducted to understand just how insidious and dangerous the movement is to many LGBTQ people who have nothing directly to do with it.

Becoming One Flesh at TransFaith in Color Conference

I’m siting in Charlotte airport heading home after the TransFaith in Color Conference. 200 folks gathered. Many have had “transgender experiences” (language used at conference) and most were people of color. I was honored with an invitation to present Transfigurations–Transgressing Gender in the Bible, performance scholarship about gender non-conforming characters in the Bible. I also co-facilitated a workshop with David Weekley.

Doing a solo show, one learns to sense the audience, their level of engagement, their concentration and interest. Often there is a negotiation stage for the first 5 to 20 minutes of the performance where folks settle in and enter into a contract of sorts with me about the performance. The audience comes to a consensus of sorts choose to forget the world outside the theater and instead give me their time, minds, and hearts. I sense when this critical moment occurs and know that I can then relax into my performance–no more convincing needed. Then I crack open heart, and with my characters, along with the audience, we create a bubble in time and space. We may experience the same show at the same time, but often it hits us each differently.

Transfigurations has some tender moments during the last quarter including a section I recently re-worked about “the Ethiopian eunuch,” who I name Desta, a gender neutral Ethiopian name meaning destiny and happiness. My reading of Desta is that this is a person who experienced castration, likely against their will at a young age. When Desta reads Isaiah 53 about a suffering servant and grows curious about the identity of the sufferer, I believe it is a personal interest in a familiar narrative. Desta reads about someone who like a sheep was silent before shearers, humiliated and denied justice with the potential for descendants cut off. For Desta the text is not about the sufferings of Christ, rather the sufferings of an unwilling eunuch.

As an official from Ethiopia, this dark skinned, male-bodied person without a beard, with a high voice, with a body not affected by testosterone or a male puberty enters the temple grounds in Jerusalem. This would have been a highly gendered heteronormative space jammed with families where one must decide if they belong to the spaces specifically for the men and young men or the side with the women and children. Without family, being so distinctly different, it must have been a complicated and potentially painful experience for the Desta. In my performance I seek to tap in to this pain, longing, and deep sadness as well as the joy that comes when Desta hears new words of affirmation.

Last night as I performed this section, I heard weeping in the audience coming from at least four different parts of the room. The weeping grew larger in both volume and the number of people throughout the rest of the play. As I ended and exited, the audience then erupted in applause and a standing ovation which felt to me like a giant hug. Then during the Q&A people spoke. They had few questions. At least three individuals spoke about how they saw themselves represented on stage and in the text and how much this meant to them.

One man stood up choking back tears warning that he may not get out what he wants to say. He caused me to tear up when he spoke. (I paraphrase. If someone present remembers his words differently, please share them in the comments.) He said, “Thank you. I do not feel alone anymore because you have revealed to me my ancestors, and I will never be alone again.”

We have many types of theater and performance shared for many different reasons. The reasons may change with the audience. Last night I felt honored to enter into the suffering, the joy, and the wonder of gender non-conforming people in the Bible. And in doing so, I became one with my audience. For me we became more than kin. For a moment we became “one flesh,” a communal being.

So I head home full of joy, exhausted from sharing, buoyed up with so many kind words and hugs and smiles from new friends and old.

Bishop Tonyia Rawls and First Lady Gwen Rawls, two of the lead organizers of the conference.
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If you have a chance, tune into National Public Radio’s Morning Edition tomorrow (Monday) morning to hear a segment on the Ex-Gay Movement and Michelle and Marcus Bachmann. I was interviewed for the piece and hope the producer did an expert job of editing down a 80 minute interview into less than three. Now that is miraculous!

Demons in my Behind and other Ex-Gay Blasts from the Past

Have you noticed an uptick in stories about ex-gay ministries, reparative therapies, and the slogan “Pray Away the Gay?” You have Republican presidential primary candidate, Michelle Bachmann to thank for that. The family business she liked to talk about in her early speeches is actually a Christian counseling center run by her husband, Marcus. Like most of these benign sounding places, this clinic actually offers treatments to alter or suppress sexual orientation and gender differences. Hat tip to Truth Wins Out for breaking the story.

Seems everyone is running their own “news” story on the topic, and ex-gay survivors who have been public about their stories are getting calls from various news outlets for an interview or sound-bite. Lots of satirical pieces have gone up on-line, some real funny stuff. Shoot, I even have seen an increase of sales of my DVD, http://www.homonomo.com. At the heart of it all though, most people realize that this is no joking matter. Not only are these treatments ineffectual, many people who have endured them say they caused considerable psychological and emotional damage.

The media does not typically do a good job with the ex-gay story. In fact, they often end up helping promote ex-gay treatment and give spokespeople access to the airwaves. It’s not like we are talking about a political issue with two opposing opinions. This is about appropriate, safe mental health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people, including those distressed over their identities and feelings. Instead of providing informed help based on tested treatments in accordance to recognized standards of care, often unlicensed, misinformed, religiously motivated practitioners with a strong bias against inclusion and equality of LGBTQ people serve up their own version of re-fried Freud mixed with a heaping portion of macho Jesus.

But what about someone who is desperately unhappy with being LGBTQ? Don’t they deserve to go to someone and get the help they want?

People deserve to get that help they NEED. Help that will HELP. We go to medical professionals because we cannot always accurately diagnose our conditions let alone know what sort of treatments to pursue. If I went to my fabulous family doctor complaining of abdominal pains and with the proclamation, “It’s appendicitis! Quick open me up and take the sucker out!” he would likely calm me down and carefully walk through a series of approved and sanctioned protocols and tests to determine the cause of my distress. “Peterson, turns out, you will live. You just have gas. Lay off the chips and salsa for awhile. Oh, and get some exercise.” Stupid doctor, what does he know about my appendix.

A skilled, knowledgable, ethical mental health professional will help a distressed individual unearth the causes for their aversion to being LGBTQ–and there are many possible reasons that get piled up inside a person leading them to cry out for help, even help that likely will ultimately harm them. An informed clinician will also know about LGBTQ-affiriming treatments proven effective in helping someone integrate their identity and desires into the rest of their lives.

Ex-gay survivor and sexologist, Dr. Jallen Rix, (my friend Marvin Bloom refers to him as “the ass whisperer”) just posted a video where he discusses the media and Ex-Gay Movement. Check it out.

And speaking of ass whispering, David Rattigan just published <a href="http://Guardian Article“>a piece in The Guardian about Frontline, a church in Liverpool, England NOT the deworming medicine for dogs. Recently The Guardian profiled the positive community service work Frontline did in Liverpool. Sadly in addition to excellent programs to help the homeless, sex workers, and others, seems Frontline is also in the business of straightening out queers. Influenced by L.I.F.E. ex-gay ministries in New York City, the Liverpool Church runs its own branch of LIFE.

I attended L.I.F.E in NYC back in the early 1980′s as a young person looking for answers about my sexuality and faith. In addition to meeting some new friends, having raucous praise times, receiving Bible lessons, and sharing spaghetti dinners with fellow strugglers, I also got tangled up with an exorcist who tried to extract demons of homosexuality from my anus. She suggested they crawled up there during a sex act. Really I’m not making this up. I was desperate to try anything, but soon after the session started, I felt so uncomfortable I aborted the procedure. Likely the “therapist” assumed it was the demons in my anus who were making a fuss and influenced me to shut it down. In his piece about the Liverpool LIFE program, David quotes me about these US-based anti-LGBTQ treatments getting exported to the UK. (As if tobacco, greasy burgers, and the Jonas Brothers was not enough.)

Surely Marcus Bachmann does not get caught up with butt demons. I imagine the talk and prayer therapy they offer at Bachmann and Associates runs along the lines of many reparative therapists. They assume something bad happened in the past–blame the parents, capitalize on any hint of childhood abuse, hunt down any gender variant experiences or influences, then they push a series of outdated, debunked treatments mixed in with scripture, gender policing, and prayer. They offer their services with a smile and assurances of how much they care about people who are hurting. Sadly they likely exacerbate the emotional and psychological torture their clients hope to alleviate. These dangerous, unethical treatments are denounced by every major medical association for good reason. Health care providers seek to “Do No Harm,” but the majority of us who endured these treatments point out that we experienced great harm.

My hope is that in this current news cycle about reparative therapy the public will gain more understanding about how unnecessary and how destructive these treatments and theories are to those who endure them. I also hope the public hears the stories of people who have successfully resolved the conflict with their faith and sexuality, and about the peace and joy so many of us have discovered in being authentic, and the informed and affirming people in our lives who helped us along the way.

Gender Equality and the Religious Society of Friends

Coming to the end of my week with Quakers at the Friends General Conference held in Grinnell College in Iowa, I have been wondering about the experiences of Quakers who currently or have ever identified as female. I know that for a long time Quakers have aspired to gender equality, but as a male identified/male-bodied person (aka cisgender male) I know I have blind spots.

So I have a query (fancy Quaker language for a question that hopefully will encourage deep thinking and sharing.) My intention is to hear exclusively from people who currently or have ever identified as female. THEREFORE I want to exclude other cisgender males like me from commenting. I know that may seem very un-Quakerly of me, but that’s how I want to go about this query for now. Some folks may identify as genderqueer, so I will let them decide for themselves if this is a relevant query to their experiences. I imagine we can have a huge and full discussion about gender non-conformity and Friends at some point.

I do not have fully formed opinions about the topic of gender equality and Quakers. I imagine there will be a mixture of responses. For some, the Religious Society of Friends may be a space of equality and respect far different from the wider world. Others may have and still do experience sexism and misogyny as they bump up against male privilege. As Friends we value integrity, equality, and social justice, so I ask the following query?

As someone who currently identifies as female or has identified as female, in regards to gender and gender equality what are your experiences among Friends at local Quaker meetings and in the wider Quaker world?

Again, cisgender men like me (birth sex=male and gender identity=male) refrain from commenting. Don’t make me elder you

(photo from South Africa’s Constitution Court)