Ex-Gay. Is There Such a Thing?

Still, there probably aren’t as many claiming to have changed as you might think. This self-identity of “ex-gay” is quite the revolving door. Those claiming it today won’t be the ones claiming it tomorrow. Just as a new crop of potential “ex-gays” floods the front doors of “change ministries,” a massive hemorrhage occurs at the back door. Even by the organizations’ own self-serving definition of success, few succeed. Almost all just throw in the towel after a while, often emotionally devastated. Of course the religious and political outfits that thrive on spreading the lie of “change” never tell us about that. There is a reason why the “ex-gay ministries” generally don’t allow outside researchers to examine their

results. If their programs worked, they’d be running to independent researchers, begging them to examine their work. Most don’t even keep track of people for any reasonable amount of time after they leave the program. And why would they, when they know the “successes” exist only through contrived definitions?

The internet is chock-full of documentation of this sad revolving door phenomenon, including stories of some prominent purveyors of the false promises, such as John Paulk, who appeared on the cover of Newsweek claiming to have turned straight, only to appear in another story in the same magazine later—the story of his being found fraternizing in a gay bar. ...And such as Colin Cook, former SDA pastor and early darling of the “ex-gay” movement who fell out of grace after being caught repeatedly falling to temptation with his counselees—after loudly proclaiming he’d been “healed” of homosexuality.

At any given moment, the current crop of those claiming by faith to have changed is adequate enough for fundamentalists and politicians to hear what

they want to hear—and the money keeps rolling in. The same phenomenon occurs in courtrooms every day, where you can find professional expert witnesses on any topic testifying to exactly the opposite. Our job, as the jury, is to hear both sides and determine which is true. On this topic, it’s not a difficult judgment for anyone sincerely wanting to know the real truth—the data is overwhelmingly on one side of the balance: sexual orientation does not significantly change. Some people can successfully assimilate a different lifestyle, but most cannot. Telling gay people they should change, and can change, doesn’t help them—it hurts them.

It is society that needs to change. When fundamentalist preachers and conservative politicians stop telling people they’re freaks and sinners just because their sexual orientation isn’t the same as theirs, then maybe the change “ministries” will be rendered unable to exploit young people who discover they’re growing up gay.

- Larry Hallock

Is there such a thing?

The short answer is no. A person’s basic sexual orientation does not change to any significant degree.

Can a person

assimilate

a different lifestyle?

(play act, in other words)

The short answer is, “Of course!”

Whatever your sexual orientation, you can pretend it’s different. Depending on your level of cleverness, ability and determination, you could stop having much to do with the gender that turns you on, and start behaving as though the other gender does. But read on....

Gay people have been choosing to live as if they were straight for centuries—from just quietly being “in the closet” to dramatic religious declarations of turning straight “by faith.” Doing so in Iran keeps you alive. Doing so in the USA spares you ridicule, saves your job, can get you children and, according to some, keeps you out of hell. If you’re gay, there are plenty of reasons for assimilating a straight lifestyle. Countless gay people have gotten married and had kids, for example. That doesn’t make them straight. Remember, “homosexuality” is not a lifestyle, it is just a label used to describe a person’s basic sexual orientation. “Lifestyle,” on the other hand, is how one chooses to behave. People don’t get to pick their sexual orientation—they just grow up with one—but they can pick their lifestyle.

Then why wouldn’t ALL gay people assimilate the straight lifestyle?

The short answer is, it’s not that easy!

Pretending isn’t changing. Not only is it difficult to pretend, day in and day out, but not living authentically can take an enormous toll. If your charade is so extreme as to deny yourself love and intimacy (in the way that is natural for you), a great deal of meaning, purpose and fulfillment vanishes from your life. A few people don’t find this to be a significant problem. But most can’t sustain it and many who try become emotional basket cases. Horror stories are a dime a dozen.

See The Sad Lives of Colin Cook.

Oh, but wait...

God can change

the actual sexual

orientation itself!

So there’s no pretending.

You actually turn straight.

“God can do what man cannot!”

Let’s say you’re right, that God can do anything. But the issue isn’t what God can do, it’s about what he does do. Or not. Say he can turn gays into straights; is there any evidence he does? No, there is not. Acknowledging this fact is no insult to God. I mean, look around... there’s obviously a lot of stuff he doesn’t do! He could choose to re-create limbs lost in accidents, but he doesn’t. Nor does he choose to instantly bring back to life little girls who are raped and strangled to death. Why should it be so shocking that he doesn’t choose to pass out new sexual orientations?

And why should they even have to? How insulting to be told you have to sacrifice your own well-being on the altar of prejudice and societal bigotry! (Who would dream of telling blacks they must use fading creams until they can properly fit in?) Shouldn’t all efforts be toward education of the public, to increase understanding and lessen prejudice? Oh..., right, there’s the religious element. People will always be motivated to loathe themselves (or preach it to others), so long as it is believed that a powerful deity condemns homosexuals under threat of eternal torture. They get this from a handful of relatively obscure biblical texts which they hang onto, as if life depended on it, while at the same time conveniently ignoring many clearer texts on all kinds of things! See detailed discussions of texts in both these categories.

So all those

ex-gays are lying?

Well, that’s putting it a little harshly. Many are very sincere. But self-honesty is the hardest form of honesty. In truth, they refer to changes in lifestyle, not a significant change in orientation. But some do claim they’ve changed their basic orientation, because they can have more or less satisfactory heterosexual relations. But how can you claim your basic orientation has changed, if you admit you expect to have to battle homosexual urges for the rest of your life?

But there are so MANY

claiming to be “ex-gay.”

There must be

something to it.

Every year, millions of new young people come into an awareness of their sexuality, and a significant number of them discover they are gay or lesbian. In our current society, who’d want to be gay? It is not surprising that this discovery is typically unwelcome and that many latch onto the promises of those who earn their livings claiming to be able to turn gays into straights. So it’s no surprise at all, that the market for this “industry” is constantly replenished, and at any given moment, many will be in the process of claiming by faith to have changed. Add the religious element and you have a powerful motiv-ation for many to chase the promises.

Telling people they can change their sexual orientation is a hugely profitable business. Intensive counseling therapy can last ten years or longer. Plus, as a wedge issue, it helps bring millions of fundraising dollars into the coffers of religious and political outfits. But does it work? Can sexual orientation really be changed? And so what if it can’t? What’s the harm, if people want to go for it and are willing to pay all that money? The following overview is about as succinct as I can get it. Follow the embedded links to a wealth of documentation and additional information. (I’ll be adding links over time.) Or just go all Google-eyed and do it that way. — LH

Most self-identified “ex-gays” are highly motivated by religion. But does it work for them? From the moment they make a commitment to try to change, they declare themselves to have changed. In their own jargon, they tell themselves they’ve been heterosexual all along, it’s just that their sexuality got screwed up somehow along the way; now they reclaim their God-given heterosexuality by faith. They speak of being “healed” or “recovered.” The fact that they must continue to battle against their

Not convinced? Here is something amazing to observe. Even the "change ministries" themselves are careful not to actually say a person can change from gay to straight. Their methods ("reparative therapy") and their claims have been thoroughly denounced by every reputable agency, and they don't want to be sued. So they simply mislead you into assuming they're saying something they're not. Look at the ad at the top of this page. It doesn't say the guy changed, it only says he "chose" to change. It is a statement of intent, not accomplishment. Then when it says, “thousands of us already have,” hasty readers will assume it’s saying thousands have already changed. It’s only saying thousands have decided to attempt it.

Scour the literature and advertisements of the biggest outfits involved in this, such as Focus on the Family and Exodus International. See if you can find any statement that actually says, forthrightly, that sexual orientation can change. What you'll see is a lot of talk about intent and hope and changing "by faith." You see words like "recovery from" and "freedom from" and "healing." As stated in the main article, if you once thought you were healed of breast cancer, but it keeps recurring again and again, can you really claim to be healed of it?

So these outfits craft misleading phrases to make you think they're saying gays can change to straight, without actually saying it at all. Then they toss in statements of actual behavioral changes—hoping you'll confuse behavioral changes with orientational change. We can always laud the replacement of destructive behaviors with constructive ones—but that goes for all of us, whatever our orientation. Cleaning up our acts has nothing to do with changing from gay to straight, but it's tossed into the rhetoric to confuse and to falsely imply that such changes mean sexual orientation has changed.

homosexuality is interpreted as ordinary temptation to sin. Becoming heterosexual doesn’t mean all temptation disappears, they say—which by normal definitions means the orientation did not really change from gay to straight.

They have changed their behaviors to better comply with what they feel God and society want of them. But with the basic homosexual orientation still there, they are still subject to the hellish downsides of living inauthentically, as described above. There remains no documented case in history of anyone changing from basically gay to basically straight. Truly straight people do not have to spend a lifetime doing battle with gay urges, large or small. If you were healed of breast cancer, but the cancer kept coming back again and again, you really couldn’t honestly claim to have been healed of it.

Should we support “ex-gays” in their efforts? Yes and no. We should always support an individual’s best efforts to do what he or she thinks is best for his or her life. But we cannot, must not, support the deceitful overall proclamations that gays can change—as if the orientation changes, or as if a good percentage of people can be even minimally successful in assimilating a heterosexual lifestyle, or as if that would be a good thing. It is misleading, untrue, and cheats people out of the full information they need to make informed decisions about how they will live their lives. It is the rule, not the exception, that attempting to change their orientation will only derail their happiness and postpone the time when they will accept themselves for who they are and begin to enjoy the mental and spiritual health that comes with living authentically. Millions of gays have spent mountains of cash, eons of time, and years of ceaseless prayer. If it worked at all, we’d see significant results, given the numbers. Yet the people who earn their livings perpetrating the lie can’t point us to them—because they don’t exist. These points are well illustrated in: The Sad Lives of Colin Cook.