PLEASE MEET PAUL: ¨I hate telling this story. It is a story of guilt and shame. So why tell it? I know I am not that rare and maybe this will help someone else avoid or escape the torture chamber...¨

¨I called out to God to deliver me from my attraction to the same sex. There was never a hint of a question in my mind that I was bent, warped, deviant, and that I needed to be saved from this. I knew God would be my ally in this fight. At least I wasn't alone, God was with me. After all, wasn't it God who didn't want me to be attracted to men?¨  Paul 

¨When Peterson first suggested to me that I write a personal narrative focusing on my struggle with compulsive sexual behavior, I admit, I groused at the notion. This is not exactly what I want to be known for. But, as I considered the proposition, I realized, this needs to be talked about, maybe this will help someone else.

I know my story is not unique. I know there are many gay men out there who have this struggle because I’ve met them.

I was raised in a conservative fundamental Christian home. I 'knew' from an early age that my attraction to the same sex was bad and to act on it would be sin. At age 14 I became an ardent follower of Jesus. While I had been raised in a Christian home, my Christianity was just how I was raised. At 14 I made a personal decision to “follow Jesus.” By the time I graduated from high school, I had read the bible several times and memorized a great deal of it. Jesus was my life...¨  please read Paul´s narrative HERE

·  Thanks to Ex-Gay Survivor Narratives, http://www.beyondexgay.com/narratives
·  Thanks to Paul
·  Beyond Ex-Gay, HERE

¨Is it wise to entrust a loved one to unconventional treatments being administered by people who have a vested interest in rejecting the American Psychological Association's assertion that same-sex attraction is not a psychological disorder?¨

¨I was a fairly sensitive, creative child with a bright outlook¨

The “Ex-Gay” Movement and The Negative Impact It Has Had On My Life

By Seth Guyette

¨...I am a gay man who has never identified as “ex-gay”. Regardless of the fact that I have never partaken in any sort of “reorientation” counseling (aka “conversion therapy”), “ex-gay” politics and philosophies have harmed me and the relationship with some of my family members. I am not the only one this has happened to. The following personal account is not meant to vilify any of my loved ones or negate any form of religion.

I was a fairly sensitive, creative child with a bright outlook. Although my family had its share of unusual dynamics and classic dysfunction, we always pulled through in a spirit of love, doing the best we could. My siblings and I were brought up as Baptist/Evangelical Christians within a fairly sheltered environment and we were instilled with a desire to live an honest, clean life. My brother and I were even educated in a private, Christian school and our intake of non-religious media was monitored and regulated well into my later teen years. This form of Christianity, while it has a lot of positive aspects, also relies on a very literalistic interpretation of the Bible, which condemns homosexuality as being, by nature, sinful.

The religious social circles where my family circulated always presented a negative view of homosexuals. This attitude started to generate a lot of personal anxiety around age eleven, when typical male biological changes began and I found myself experiencing strong physical and emotional attractions to other males. This directly contradicted what I was taught, causing me to fear my life and spiritual salvation. I knew that I could not risk telling anyone about it in light of the possibility of social stigma and harsh, religion-based counseling. Therefore I kept my sexuality deeply hidden. After graduating from high school life became more complicated. Everything had been structured around the false notion that I was heterosexual and it was assumed that I would start living my life in the fashion of a conservative, Christian man with an innate attraction to the opposite sex. I was constantly at war with the steady diet of dogma and anti-gay condemnation that had been drilled into my mind from a very early age.

Despite this, I had developed a small, hidden circle of gay friends with whom I felt a sense of comfort and camaraderie. My issues were later compounded when I decided that 'coming out' to my parents was the honest, logical thing to do. I had seriously considered the prospect of living a double life where I would masquerade as a heterosexual, possibly taking on a girlfriend or wife, but this form of living seemed dishonest, needlessly complicated, and unnatural (not to mention the damage that this type of deceit can do to one's spouse and family down the road). So I stopped hiding my social circle and began leaving strong indicators to help my parents understand the true nature of their son...¨ please read it all,
  HERE

·  Thanks to Beyond Ex-Gay, HERE
·  Thanks to Seth Guyette

PLEASE MEET ¨ALEX¨: ¨I am a female to male transsexual in the middle of my transition, but mostly, I'm human...¨

¨My name is Alex. I guess an introduction is in order but I don't really know who I am.¨

¨Actually Alex isn't really my legal name so even in my first words this starts to get a bit complicated.

I am a student, and if you ask any of my classmates who I am, you will probably hear that I am a 19-20 year old boy, well-read for my age, openly gay and that I am someone almost everybody likes but nobody knows. If you ask my mother, the picture may be somewhat different. I believe that she will tell you that I am a 27-year-old married mother of three.

It's two different pictures and they are both quite right. I am 27 years old according to my papers, but I have missed so much in my life that I feel like a teenager but at the other hand, I have lived through so much, so in some ways I feel more experienced than some middle aged.

I am a female to male transsexual in the middle of my transition, but mostly, I'm human, and transition isn't something just us trans dudes get to experience. Everyone has to change; it's a part of life and living. Transition is universal everyone has to re-experience themselves in order to grow. I have to do a lot of changes that are ordinary and some changes are more unusual.

I grew up in a very small village in Sweden at the same latitude as Alaska. My family was Pentecostal Christian and the rest of the village was “heathen”. They saw my family as very strange, and I was the weird one in my family. By then I had no words to express what was wrong with me, all I knew was that I wasn't ok.

I saw my childhood as a waiting room with uncomfortable chairs where you don’t know if they will call your name in the next minute or in a couple of years, and that my life was not going to start until they called my name.

When puberty struck me I got more and more clues about what was wrong with me. I never heard of transsexualism, and I didn't make any bright science realizations either. Instead I used my knowledge from Church...¨ please read it all, HERE

·  Thanks to Beyond Ex-Gay, HERE
·  Thanks to ¨Alex¨ Narrative

CENTERS FOR SEXUAL HYGIENE IN EQUADOR: Clinics torture LGBT to ¨cure¨ them

¨At age 24 Paola Ziritti says she suffered "forcible confinement" in a clinic which her parents were led to believe would "de-homosexualize" their daughter. There, for 18 months, she suffered battering, sexual abuse, deprivation of all kinds, constant insults and being chained. Guards threw urine and ice water on her. She spent nearly three months in chains before her mother realized what she had done and freed her, Ziritti told Têtu magazine.¨ HERE

¨Ecuadorean authorities have so far this year closed 27 'ex-gay' clinics which claimed to “cure” homosexuality following allegations of torture and abuse by former 'patients'.

For a decade, lesbian groups have been calling for government action on the physical and psychological torture inflicted on lesbians to try to "cure" them...¨ please read it all, HERE

·  Thanks to LGBT Asylum News, sidebar
·  Thanks to Paul Canning
·  Thanks to Tetu Magazine

MEET ¨BEYOND EX-GAY¨ PEGGY: ¨It has been 2 years since I came out to my family. They still love me very much...¨

Beyond Ex-Gay:  ¨It has been 2 years since I started dating exclusively women¨

¨An ex-gay is someone — usually Christian — who believes that non-hetero sexual orientations and behavior are unnatural, sinful and require change. An ex-gay usually believes that a gay identity can be eradicated if one strived to understand, through ex-gay therapy, where one ‘went wrong’ in their sexual development as a child.¨

¨One of my prized possessions is a pair of sexy, slick, black stiletto-heeled boots. Very femme-fatale.¨

Peggy´s Narrative:

¨As I type this up, I’m wearing a t-shirt pulled over a workman’s blue shirt, pop-collared, and my favorite pair of ripped blue jeans held up with a tattered cloth belt. Not exactly a model for femininity.

I speak English with the faintest hint of an accent.

I live frugally, probably a habit learned from my hard-working, white to blue collar parents, who immigrated here over 18 years ago. When we first got here, the Chinese evangelical Christian community opened its arms and welcomed my family into its folds. I grew up feeling loved, cared for, and have a lot of respect for the men and women who gave up literally everything, so that their kids could grow up in Canada. To my people, Canada is freedom from political oppression and post-secondary education opportunities for future generations.

I have heard my dad cry twice. One of them was as he told me over the phone, that he loved me; that even though work is so hard and people treat him so bad, that it is all worth it because I am working towards my PhD in Chemical Engineering; that he is tremendously proud of me. My mother and I use to have touching mother-daughter talks about men. Over dinner prep, mother and I have dissected the personalities of many of my guy friends, to help me find a good match. My mother has also gently explained to me what my future husband will expect from me.

It has been 2 years since I came out to my family. They still love me very much. My parents and I don’t talk about my love life anymore.

It has been 4.5 years since I admitted to myself my childhood crushes on women have stayed with me into adulthood. It has been 2 years since I started dating exclusively women. I finally understand why abstinence can be such a difficult decision. In between coming out and dating, I chose to live as an “ex-gay”.

An ex-gay is someone — usually Christian — who believes that non-hetero sexual orientations and behavior are unnatural, sinful and require change. An ex-gay usually believes that a gay identity can be eradicated if one strived to understand, through ex-gay therapy, where one ‘went wrong’ in their sexual development as a child...¨  please read it all, HERE

·  Thanks to Peggy
·  Thanks to Beyond Ex-Gay, sidebar, HERE
·  Thanks to Flickr Photo Sharing

EXODUS FROM EXODUS: I was in love with the Lord, and fell in love with Linda. Six months later, Linda committed suicide...



¨Words are strange. Exodus refers to a “coming out” leaving the desert experience behind. Of course, “they” would view that as leaving homosexuality and coming into the promised land of heterosexuality.¨

Darlene Bogle
¨My Exodus from Exodus¨

¨My name is Darlene Bogle. I attended a Christian College in Seattle and had studied for the ministry. I believed that God had laid His hand upon my life and called me to be a voice of His Grace to the wounded and emotionally crumpled children who were just outside the traditional church ministry. I believed that Christ came to love all of his children and make them whole. In that Christian college, I not only experienced His call upon my life, but I experienced my first Lesbian relationship. I was in love with the Lord, and fell in love with Linda. Six months later, Linda committed suicide because she couldn’t handle family, church and society’s rejection of her sexuality. She was 17 years old.

I was devastated, went for counseling for the next few years to deal with my own journey of sexual abuse and the brokenness of my wounded and crumpled spirit.

For several years I lived a yo-yo experience of being in church or being in the gay bars. Both lives had degrees of rejection for the other. In l977 I determined to return to an active relationship with the Lord and leave my gay friends and longings behind. I finished my degree, and became a licensed minister with the Foursquare church. I started writing articles, speaking in Churches, and working on a book of my journey. In 1985, Long Road to Love was published and was followed in 1990 by Strangers in a Christian Land.

I was involved with Exodus International by this time because they were the only group offering support of Ex-gay folks. That is what I thought I was, because I was not involved with women. I soon formed a ministry called Paraklete, in Hayward, California. We were an Exodus referral ministry. I began to speak at Exodus conferences, teach nationally, and was on several TV programs such as Jerry Springer, Sally Jessie Raphael, CBS 48 hours, the 700 club and many local television shows.

I held a full time job as an Insurance Underwriter and was assistant pastor of my church. I directed the ministry, wrote and spoke at conferences or churches at every opportunity. I KNEW I was ex-gay because I any longer felt attraction for women. Of course, I had no attraction for men either, and in fact, I was pretty much a non-feeling person. I knew that sexual behavior could be changed, because I had changed my own behavior for several years. I preached that sexual orientation was a choice also, and for that, I NOW APOLOGIZE!

In 1988, Exodus LA (the Exodus conference in Los Angeles) had a picture taken with about 200 attendees. The Title across the photo was: Can Homosexuals change? We did. Now, as I look at this poster, more than half of the people in the photo are no longer in ex-gay ministry or involved in the Church. Their orientation wasn’t really changed, and neither was mine! We wanted to change behavior that we were told would separate us from a loving God. We were never told that we had an option, that God would still love us as Gay and Lesbian people. What grieves me is that so many have left the church because they believed that lie. I have come to believe that God not only accepts us but wants to bless our relationship with our same-sex partner...¨  please read it all,   HERE

·  Thanks to Darlene Bogle
·  Thanks to Beyond Ex-Gay, sidebar
·  Thanks to Survivor Narrative

HERE

FINDING MY TRUE IDENTITY IN CHRIST: ¨Being a pastor and practicing spiritual disciplines did nothing to diminish the power of my innate sexuality...¨

¨Throughout two decades I sought reparative therapy and other ex-gay treatments and methods¨

¨...My story is similar to many others I've heard. A childhood centered in church and family. A growing awareness that I was attracted to guys, not girls, coupled with systems of massive denial. My identity was centered in being a good boy, an obedient son, a committed Christian.

Inner nudges toward ministry set me on a path that included a Christian college and seminary - places where being gay was just not an option. I couldn't imagine a life that didn't include a wife, children, and the respect of others for being a Christian role model.

Being a pastor and practicing spiritual disciplines did nothing to diminish the power of my innate sexuality. I eventually got married to a remarkable woman, hoping the Christian counselors were correct that it would be a sign of my 'healing.' No doubt a very bad decision, though I'm deeply grateful for the two wonderful children who came out of our marriage.

In 2001 the unthinkable happened. On the day after my 40th birthday, I met a man with whom I experienced an overpowering emotional connection. Until then I assumed my attraction to men was only physical and that periodic encounters with men had been a kind of addiction, but not related to who I really was. A very brief 'fling' with this man ended when he challenged me to be completely honest with myself. A gay, Jewish agnostic man demonstrated greater integrity than this married Christian pastor, and his words began what ultimately resulted in my coming out.

For over a year I committed myself once more to finding my 'true identity in Christ' as a heterosexual, or at least as a homosexually abstinent male. I cashed in everything. I told my story to my superiors in the church and surrendered my ordination credentials. No job, no income, no stability. Just incredible pressure and an understandably distraught wife. We attended a 10-day intensive counseling program in Colorado at great expense. I entered reparative therapy... again... realizing on some level that the treatment was sub-standard if not bogus, but hoping that God would honor my efforts and finally fix me.

Throughout two decades I sought reparative therapy and other ex-gay treatments and methods. Prayer, fasting, inner healing, accountability groups, medication, and 12-step groups. Even a scary exorcism attempt with lots of shouting. Since none of it made any difference, I became pretty despondent and hopeless over time. And because so much of it focused on environmental causes of homosexuality, my relationship with my parents suffered greatly

By Nov. 2002 I couldn't pretend to believe any more that the counseling was helping. I asked too many questions one day and received a lengthy tongue lashing from the counselor for my lack of faith. So I stepped back from a lifetime of effort and committed myself for the first time to pursuing the truth about myself and homosexuality...¨ please read it all, HERE

·  Thanks to Beyond Ex-Gay, sidebar
·  Thanks to Rick

ABOUT ¨BEYOND EX-GAY¨: We believe that ex-gay experiences cause more harm than good.

Beyond Ex-Gay is an online community and resource for those of us who have survived ex-gay experiences. So often healing comes through community and through sharing our stories and experiences with each other.

Our kinship in this journey gives us the opportunity to hear each other deeply, particularly in a world that sometimes scoffs at the many things we have done to change or contain our same-sex attractions and gender differences. Many of us have found healing, wholeness and understanding through facing our pasts.

This is your space to connect with other survivors, read survivor narratives and to share your own.

We believe that ex-gay experiences cause more harm than good. Certain people who currently identify as ex-gay say they are content as such. We don’t seek to invalidate their experience. For us such a lifestyle was not possible or healthy...¨

Not that it was all bad: Some of us received positive help through our ex-gay experiences. We grew to understand our sexuality better and in some cases even overcame life-controlling problems.

But for most of us, these experiences brought us inner turmoil, confusion, and shame. We are still in a process of recovery from the damage. Through sharing our stories with each other, we find wholeness and healing...¨ please read it all, HERE  (photos and bold emphasis added by Leonardo Ricardo)

EX-GAY WATCH

-The parliament of Liechtenstein unanimously votes to institute civil unions. HERE

-The mayor of Barcelona, Spain dedicates a memorial to LGBT people. HERE

-An immigration judge suspends the deportation of an Argentine lesbian who’s legally married in Connecticut. HERE

-Wendy Gritter offers a nuanced response to Lisa Ling’s “Pray Away the Gay?” special. HERE

-The Obama Administration prepares a declaration calling on the UN to work to end criminal punishments for LGBT individuals around the world. HERE

-A civil unions bill is introduced in the Delaware state senate. HERE

-The Mormon church fires a man for refusing to disassociate from his gay friends. HERE

-The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refuses to lift the stay on Judge Walker’s Prop 8 ruling. HERE

-John Gruber, the last original member of the Mattachine Society, passes away. HERE

-The Montana senate kills a bill that would have overturned all LGBT rights laws in the state. HERE

-The California Republican party elects an openly gay board member. HERE

·  Thanks to Beyond Ex-Gay, HERE
·  Thanks to Ex-Gay Watch, HERE
·  Thanks to Gay Uganda, HERE
·  Thanks to Flickr Photo Sharing