Former Ex-Gay Leader Interviwed on GCN Radio

Gay Christian Network Radio offers program entitled: Formerly Ex-Gay

Ann Phillips was a leader in the ex-gay movement, heading up the women's ministry at one of the most prominent ex-gay Christian ministries in the world. Her story of "becoming straight" has been used by many to "prove" that ex-gay therapy works, yet now she's out of the movement and admits that she's still gay (and Christian!) after all.

In the interview, she talks about her ex-gay experience and in particular how quickly became the head of Love in Action's women's ministry. She also shares about being a subject in the Spitzer Study and the blurred line between truth and fiction when it comes to ex-gay testimony.

Listen here.

Doin' Time in London

I spent an excellent day in London today with Auntie Doris, who is sitting next to me right now debating right now if she should blog. I was booked to present at the Courage meeting in the evening, and I also had an interview for BBC radio Ulster (Northern Ireland and will air on Sunday May 18). Auntie witnessed me as I moved through various degrees of personal energy conservation and distribution.

I forced Auntie Doris into a vegan restaurant, a lovely Thai/Chinese vegan buffet with excellent fresh food. YUM! We walked around a bit and landed in a Starbucks (mainly because of the large plush chairs). After my soy latte, I fell fast asleep. We wandered some more and landed in Convent Gardens then the National Portrait Gallery. The whole time I kept my energy to myself, conserving as I knew I needed to have a reserve for later in the day.

As we got closer to 5 pm for the BBC interview, I began to awake and animate. Being a medium to low energy person, I have to build up the energy levels for an interview or else I sound too serious and heady. The interviewer, William Crawley, asked interesting questions and even stumped me with one about George W. Bush and what I would say to him if I had five minutes alone. The problem is that my Bush play is ultimately not about Bush, but much more for progressive liberals who bitch and moan about Bush but not much more than that.

We then tottled off to a pub for a quick drink then to the Courage meeting, where after the meal, I did a bunch of stuff that I am too tired to write about coherently. I was pleased with the turnout and the response and believe I made some of the right choices. I subversively set up the room in Quaker fashion in a circle, and then made a big plug for the Religious Society of Friends. Hey, why not? Quakers have been awesome to me, and I have found Friends Meetings to be healthy and affirming places for me.

Okay, to bed with me. Off to Oxford tomorrow.

More Ex-Gay Survivors Share their Stories

Gabriel Arana spent three years as a patient of Joseph Nicolosi, former president of the National Association for the Research and Treatment of Homosexuality. Gabriel, a Cornell University 2006 PhD graduate in linguistics, recently chose to tell his story in the Cornell Daily Sun.

For three years I had weekly sessions with Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, president of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Dr. Nicolosi thought that homosexuality was a pathology, a sublimated desire to reconnect with one’s lost masculinity. The theory: under-attentive fathers and over-attentive mothers create gay children. The purpose of therapy was to put me in touch with my masculine identity and thereby change my sexual orientation.

I would like to say that I resisted therapy throughout, but the truth is that I liked and respected Dr. Nicolosi. And the theory sounded plausible (I was too young to know that plausible does not mean true). It is a period in my life that I do not think about often, not because it hurts especially but because it has become increasingly irrelevant.

He goes on to talk about the now infamous Spitzer study and how he was asked by Nicolosi to take part in it. Dr.

Nicolosi asked me to participate in it, but instructed me not to reveal that he had referred me; while he wanted his organization’s views represented, he did not want to bring into question the study’s integrity.

Read all of Gabriel's The Red Line.
hat tip to Dave Rattigan at Ex-Gay Watch.

The other day I received an e-mail from Chris Tyler, a man who grew up in a Mormon family and tried for the longest time to go ex-gay. He put up 13 audio podcasts on YouTube in which he shares his story. It is amazing the time and care he put into these recordings.

The list grows almost daily of men and women who are choosing to come forward to share their stories with thoughtfulness and vulnerability. Many of these ex-gay survivors explore what they were looking for and why. You can read more narratives of people who tried to go ex-gay and found it was not possible or necessary and in many cases actually caused more harm than good.

Beyond Ex-Gay in the Advocate

The Advocate magazine published long article about ex-gays and ex-gay survivors and the changing landscape of the ex-gay movement. They quote quite a lot of people including Christine Bakke and me. (They often overlook the lesbians, so I am so glad they gave her plenty of space to share).

For more than a year, the website BeyondExGay.com has been a virtual gathering point for ex-gay survivors, many of whom now picket ex-gay ministries events and conferences and attempt to share their stories with attendees. Beyond Ex-Gay also holds conferences of its own. “Our primary goal is being a support group for ex-gay survivors,” says Toscano. Like Christine Bakke, who runs the group with him, he attended ex-gay ministries for years before finally accepting his gayness. “Our secondary goal,” Toscano adds, “is to talk about the harm of reparative therapy” -- therapy meant to de-gay you --“in ex-gay ministries.”

The reporter, Tim Murphy, spent time getting to know the subjects of the piece and took a humanist approach to each one. In his conclusion he admitted an affinity for John Smid, who recently resigned as director of Love in Action.

I laid down my reporter’s notebook (metaphorically -- we were on the phone). Smid was funny and thoughtful and affable. I told him that I’d like to be his friend, that as a comfortable, happy gay man raised Catholic but now more inclined toward a broadly spiritual liberal humanism, I’d like to meet for coffee and discuss these issues more. And I said I truly had no interest in changing him. Could he say the same thing?

Some people find it hard to believe, but many ex-gay leaders can be charming, interesting and fun people. But hey, most are gay after all.

It is a long piece that helps to flesh out some of the events over the past year.

The Believers—Ex-gay Survivors Making Peace With Those Who Tried to "Cure" Them

If you want to see the LOGO Be Real program on-line with wonderful footage from the Memphis bXg event and more of Christine, my own dad, and John Holm, another ex-gay survivor, click here.

On a personal note, I finished a few days with the delightful John Henson in Wales and have moved in with Auntie Doris for a few days in London before heading off to Oxford. Purrrrrfect weather--so sunny and clear.

Happy Birthday Blog

Today Christine Bakke pointed out to me that my blog will turn four years old this month (May 25th to be exact when I posted my first entry as a virgin blogger.) I originally only planned on posting poetry, but turned to prose at some point.

To commemorate the upcoming birthday, I will post a poem, a love poem at that. (But that is all you get--love poems are intimate affairs).

Kisses,
Not stolen,
Freely given—freely received,
Stored in bulk,
Easily accessible day and night.

Uncovered,
the smooth glass jar,
(Larger than our two heads lying on the same pillow as we speak truth with our eyes,)
Contains our love.

Take what you need, what you want,
Whenever,
Day or night.

Take a pinch or a heaping scoopful.
Take,
Eat,
Drink.

You cannot steal what is already yours.


Also to celebrate I want to share the following poem, A Joyful Occasion by Seth. Seth is a trans man with a Mormon background. Of the poem Seth says,

This is a stychomythic poem where two poems are read independently and then together by alternating lines. There is no video, because I didn't want to distract from the poem itself.

In poem Seth states,"I almost lost myself endeavoring for a life that did not fit for me."



hat tip to Jayna.

New Videos on the Ex-Gay Experience

For the first time since the 2005 summer protests in front of Love in Action, Zach Stark, who was 16 at when he was placed in LIA, is now 19 and speaks out in this new clip from Morgan Fox's film, This is What Love in Action Looks Like. Morgan first showed this clip in February during Deconstructing the Ex-Gay Myth—A Weekend of Action & Art in Memphis, TN.


Daniel Gonzales at Box Turtle Bulletin posted a video about how he believed his orientation had begun to believe he was changing when he received reparative therapy.

Oftentimes when I meet someone who’s been through ex-gay therapy I ask them if they ever reached the point where they believed they were beginning to change — It’s how I gauge just how deeply they got into the whole “ex-gay thing.” Ex-gay leaders often assert, “change is possible and I’m proof because I changed.” In my opinion the strongest response is “I too once believed I had changed.” Here’s my own explanation of how I believed I had changed:

Daniel also uploaded the following video, and he uses the analogy that ex-gay therapy and the quest for the causal factors of gayness is like throwing spaghetti to see what sticks. .

This video is a criticism of the 2008 paper "Clients' Perceptions Of How Reorientation Therapy And Self-Help Can Promote Changes In Sexual Orientation" written by Dean Byrd, Joseph Nicolosi and Richard Potts.

This criticism is by Daniel Gonzales, a former patient of Dr. Nicolosi. Daniel has renounced his attempts to change his sexuality and now speaks out against "ex-gay" or "reparative therapy."

Doin' Time on LOGO

The LOGO program Be Real will feature ex-gay survivors and me in their second episode. I won't get to see it myself, but I know my dad will be featured in it along with Christine Bakke, Scott Tucker and John Holm. If you see it, let me know how it came out.

Episode 2 - New Beginnings
Peterson Toscano spent the better part of 17 years in the "ex gay" movement struggling to change his sexuality. Now, after 5 years of performing his one person show, aimed at inspiring other ex-gay survivors to come out and tell their stories, he is ready to pass the torch and move on. Stephen, a 45-year-old former Mormon, decides to attend an all men's workshop in central Utah to learn how to confront his past and heal painful family memories.

Mon 05/05 10:00 PM
Wed 05/07 7:00 PM
Sat 05/10 10:00 PM
Mon 05/12 7:30 PM

(Oh, and to see some photos of Auntie Doris and Me in St. Albans and Windsor and on the party boat last night, go here.)

UPDATE: You can now view on-line video of the LOGO program here.

Out with the Old & In with the New

It is just lovely here in St. Albans, England with so many cool LGBTIQ Christians from all over Europe. (I got an invite to Malta in July!!) I got LOADS of time with Auntie Doris (in fact I will hang out with her next week after my trip to visit John Henson in Southern Wales.) I also got to hang out with Nancy Wilson, the moderator of the Metropolitan Church. She had come to the Ex-Gay Survivor's Conference last June, so we were finally able to catch up.

Last week I performed my last performance of Doin' Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House and tonight I made my UK premiere of Transfigurations—Transgressing Gender in the Bible. These are such different pieces that my fear has been that people who have seen Homo No Mo come in expecting much of the same zany, piled on humor.

Transfigurations is nothing like that. It functions more as a drama than a comedy with a slow, steady, meditative pace to it. As a performer, I don't have the advantage of hearing the audience laugh, so I still find it hard to gauge the audience until the very end. Tonight's audience gave me a long sustained standing ovation. Phew. I worry before a new show.

The local paper where I performed Homo No Mo wrote a piece about my final performance and quoted me from my Q&A session. I talked about the early days of my faith when I first came out as, about my feelings towards ex-gay leaders, and a little about my marriage to a woman. We were actually married for seven years, but had only been together for five of those years before we dramatically separated.

Toscano was so convinced that he could conquer his sexuality that he married a woman he met in New York City. The union lasted five years. He said it ended in disaster, as do most such marriages involving men who are ex-gay. He said, however, that while he was married, he was treated with more respect than before he was married, because people assumed he was straight. He said, “I was more respected, accepted at church, on jobs, everything. There’s some real straight privilege in this country, and you earn some of that when you get married.”

When Toscano ultimately rejected the notion that he could become ex-gay, he also rejected religion, at least for a time. Because, he said, “I was taught over and over that you can’t be gay and Christian.” He heard that message from the church and, often, from the gay community as well.

“For a time,” he said, “I aspired to be an atheist and failed miserably because I’m just far too wired for God. That caused me to go on another journey to try to figure out what I believe. And how I integrate my spirituality, my sexuality and my personality altogether.”

I even get a plug in there for the Quakers. (No, I don't get any kick backs from Quaker Oats when I do Quaker evangelism).

Ultimately, he said, his answer was the Quaker community, where he is now active at local, national and international levels. “For someone who’s been oppressed by the church, and bullied and told what to do so often, it’s very validating to go in a place where they basically say, you’re coming with something valuable and you’re welcome to share it here,” he said. “Also, they are very concerned about the environment and peace and social justice and equality, and those are things that are all very meaningful to me.”

About the play and my personal relationship to it, they write,

Critics have called the play funny and hysterical, but they have also remarked that Toscano does not bash the members of the organization that tried to help him change his ways. Instead, he treats them with a degree of affection. Responding to a question about this, Toscano said, “On the one hand, I’m being highly critical of them, but I do it with a great deal of passion and understanding because that was my world for many years. I know what it’s like to be a born-again, evangelical, conservative, Republican Christian. And when I was in that world, I really believed I was making the right choices, often out of deep compassion and moral conviction.”

You can read the whole article by Fritz Mayer over at the River Reporter.