Vice Shares an Inside Look at a Texas 'Ex-Gay' Camp

In the first part of a series, Vice takes a look at the industry that claims to help people change their sexual orientation.

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Michelle Garcia

www.advocate.com/ex-gay-therapy/2015/02/25/vice-shares-inside-look-texas-ex-gay-camp

Inequality Is Connected, Any Color Any Land
I probably surprised many people when I fell in love with a woman. After all, I didn’t look like a lesbian, but like an average, long-haired, white girl from the Midwest. My college best friend Lois was probably the most shocked of all, though she hid it well. That is, until I announced my wedding. Then she sent an email, saying how “Congratulations” would be a lie, given that I was walking into darkness and suffering and all.

I was inseparable from Lois in college. I was quirky and loud to offset her soft sweetness. We took road trips across states, ate ice cream every day, studied, joined clubs as a pair. I convinced her to sneak around town at night, writing happy messages in sidewalk chalk. We invented holidays. We threw corn kernels into obscure places to make wishes. She was alternately baffled at my unpredictable fire, and my biggest fan. I was amused at her naiveté, and loved her devotion to me.

Sometimes I went with her to church. I believed in the overarching ideas of loving neighbors and a humanity that was headed somewhere, while Lois was what Rob called a turbo-Christian. Rob and I would know. We gravitated toward the Christian crowd because they didn’t party and made reasonably good choices. In whatever time I wasn’t spending with her, I dated Rob. He and I skated on the periphery of the Christian circles, unsure together.

We finished college and Lois got married in a way that only God or Disney could orchestrate. I stood up at her wedding wondering if she was savvy enough to be out in the world. Yet she seemed to live in a different world than most of us. The God tentacles then reached into every region of her brain, into every conversation. I admired this. Her faith was a testimony for her magical life and vice versa. She settled into marriage and I filled my life with new best friends.

Calls, visits, updates, our different paths still inspired each other, right up until the email. I wrote responses, some in God language, some not. I never sent any of them.

My life grew in some ways she would have relished: my wedding on a farm near our college, with a double rainbow; my efforts to become a writer, an undertaking she began long before I did; the shared transition into motherhood, as we both started families.

I also didn’t talk to Lois about my move to a neighborhood and country that struggles with inequality in ways that take my breath away. Each morning in the car I see hundreds of black South Africans walking miles from township to suburb to work for white people. I squirm when the servers in the restaurants are all black, the management and patrons all white, and when housecleaners are referred to as “domestics.” I heard a rumor that white South African women have babies by C-section, because they don’t want to give birth the way black women do. I collect scenes when I witness genuine camaraderie across racial lines. In two years, I can still count these on two hands.

On the day Mandela died, the air in the country resonated with loss for their leader, love pulsing and gathering. Signs and billboards bidding him Hamba kakuhle grew out of the ground like weeds. I saw teens weeping in each other’s arms. My family and I drove out of our complex, and waving to our black guards, Joseph and Shaka. We went to Soweto, to the street where Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu once both lived. Joseph and Shaka were stuck at work.

Vilakazi Street was filled with parading, dancing, singing and celebrating. We were among very few white faces. Everyone except us knew the words to the resistance songs, the stomping and spinning, the call and response orchestrated like they’d been rehearsing for weeks. In reality, these songs were simply etched in their story. Some of these people sang in the same streets when apartheid raged.

We sat at a crowded outdoor restaurant and from within the celebration a woman approached. Her poster showed a picture of an older Mandela, fist in the air, and the words Your freedom and mine cannot be separated. She sat and collected herself while the songs and colors swirled. “Thank you for coming to Soweto to be with us,” she said.

“There is nowhere we would rather be. Thank you for sharing your leader with the world.” I smiled.

“This is all Mandela wanted,” she replied. “To have whites and blacks sitting at a table together.”

A few months later my father contacted me with news that Lois had called, crying, saying she needed to talk me, to apologize.

That evening I sat on the couch, looking at my wife, feeling so tender, so protective. I suddenly sensed how deeply the taproot of discrimination sinks in, through layer upon layer of self. With Lois, I was preparing to face a judge about to pardon me, when I had no reason to be on trial in the first place. I fumed with resentment that her judgment my marriage seemed smaller, less than hers. There was no way I could ever feel she respected me, not with her words in our past.

What surged in me that night was a new shade of empathy for black South Africans. After being beaten down for generations they were told, “Our bad. You can be equal now.” That those in power could grant equality demonstrated that they were, in fact, superior. Steps like these, in the right direction, are still embedded in the systems they try to erase.

Accepting an apology is costly, in ways I hadn’t dared imagining. My heart knotted each time I passed Joseph and Shaka at the gate, knowing they must have similar moments of gathering their pride in the stale air of unfairness. I wanted to hug them, to yell from the rooftops, You have always been equal! Instead, I lamented on my couch for my own tiny drop in the injustice bucket.

After a few days of looking around with a wider, more sensitive heart, I called Lois. Not because I wanted to. I called because I felt a kinship to the black people in this country who still held their heads up high.

I recognized every nuance of her voice. “I need to ask your forgiveness. I don’t want to break relationships. I’ve learned a lot about God’s love in the last few years …” On and on she went. I remained guarded, but relieved she was growing.

I told her I forgave her. I told her how the past few days had stretched my heart in ways I was ultimately grateful for. I asked what changed her mind.

“I still believe you what you’re doing is wrong. I’m just sorry I said it in a way that hurt you. Maybe this is a topic we shouldn’t discuss.”

My heart stumbled and I looked around the room, trying to figure out what conversation I was actually in. She wanted to be friends, but ignore that I had a wife and kid? “Well,” I said, “if you ever learn about love in some other new ways and want to talk as equals, I’ll be here. Happily married and willing.”

“God’s word is unchanging,” she said.

“But… we are always learning. And there are many new lands still ahead for each of us.”

I hung up, sweating, filled with a victorious sense of self-preservation. And shortly afterwards, guilt. I was the gay person in Lois’s life. Didn’t that make it my responsibility to show her the goodness of my marriage, to schlep her heart across to that other shore? Though she lived in Tennessee and I in South Africa, wasn’t that my assigned role in advancing human rights?

I called Rob, now a lawyer for the ACLU. He told me not to worry, that people like Lois were his job. Again, the landscape shifted in my heart. With a few words, an atheist ex-boyfriend showed me the power, the aching gratitude, buried in solidarity.

I thought of the men at my gate and the people in the country around me. When it comes to equality, I stand on one side of the struggle as a gay person, but on the other side every day as a white one. Both of these positions are hopeful, daunting, and powerful, on every shore I call home.

www.huffingtonpost.com/kelsey-heeringa/inequality-is-connected-a_b_6749792.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Brave Spaces Premiers at HRC

Last Wednesday proved a compelling night of discussion in HRC’s Equality Forum, as community members and faith leaders gathered to watch the premiere of Brave Spaces.
HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/brave-spaces-premiers-at-hrc?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Antigay Hate Group Publishes Ominous Map With Directions To LGBT Organizations Across The Country

Well, this is kinda creepy.

The American Family Association just published a “bigotry map” that lists the addresses of LGBT organizations and charities around the country.

The purpose of the map?

To identify “groups and organizations that openly display bigotry toward the Christian faith,” the AFA claims.

But it gets even creepier.

The map also gives specific directions on how to get to the various offices in case people want to… visit?

The whole thing brings back frightening memories of the time Sarah Palin published a map with cross hairs of a rifle scope over Gabrielle Gifford’s district with the instructions “Don’t retreat. Instead–RELOAD” back in 2011. We all know how that ended.

Thankfully, many of the markers on the AFA’s “bigotry map” appear to be inaccurate, although there are plenty that provide correct locations.

One of the organizations listed on the map is the Human Rights Campaign headquarters, which AFA describes as “the nation’s largest homosexual organization in America” with a “driving agenda” to legalize gay marriage, [bully] American corporations to embrace sexual perversion and [encourage] lawsuits against Christian-owned businesses and states.”

Also listed on the map is the anti-bullying organization GLSEN, which the AFA believes “infiltrates public schools with pro-homosexual indoctrination tactics, confusing many young people and misleading them into making dangerous and unhealthy lifestyle choices that will negatively affect their entire lives.”

“These groups are deeply intolerant towards the Christian religion,” the AFA says. “Their objectives are to silence Christians and to remove all public displays of Christian heritage and faith in America.”

Sooooo yeah.

We can’t see this ending well.

h/t: Pink News

Graham Gremore

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/RAFCk78FeyM/antigay-hate-group-publishes-ominous-map-with-directions-to-lgbt-organizations-across-the-country-20150225

#ThisIsLuv: A Black Bisexual Manifesto
When I first realized that I found both boys and girls attractive, I didn’t have the language to describe my sexuality. On the playground, the word “gay” was thrown around as an insult — one that I also ruthlessly hurled at other kids. But “bisexual”? That was not a part of our lexicon. As a pre-teen, I remember scribbling on the pink pages of my journal an ominous question: “Am I gay?”

It didn’t matter that I fell in love with boys, too. As far as I knew, my crushes on girls were an indication that I was broken. Growing up in a conservative, black Pentecostal church, meant that I — and most of my family — had been taught for generations to believe that heaven was strictly reserved for straight people. I felt terrified of my same sex attractions, tried to suppress them and focused my attentions on the handsome boys I met at church.

I didn’t learn that bisexuality was an actual identity until well into my college years. By this time, I was in a long term relationship with a man. While I told him of my attraction to women, I was too afraid to share my secret with most of the other people in my life. I had no openly bisexual role models of any color to look up to. I didn’t know anything about June Jordan, the gorgeously talented African-American writer who also happened to be openly and proudly bisexual. And while I was a millennial growing up with the internet, there was no Web 2.0 in my youth that could instantly connect me to other queer and bisexual people of color.

I hope #ThisIsLuv can highlight acceptance of LGBT folk in black communities without glossing over significant tensions, homophobia and biphobia. Black bisexual women are often misunderstood, excluded or fetishized. Black bisexual men, on the other hand, are routinely vilified. Who expresses love and support for our black bisexual brothers? Bisexuals comprise over half of LGB-identified people in the United States, yet we are routinely rendered invisible and marginalized. The erasure of bisexual people is particularly problematic for African-Americans, who already face the strain of racism. Bi black people exist at the intersections of many forms of oppression, and this difficult positionality makes it complicated for us to find love. We not only have to deal with homophobia in our families — we also have to navigate biphobia among black gays and lesbians — while dealing with racism in the broader LGBT “community.” There is also the reality that most “LGBT” spaces are actually not for us. Very often, they are implicitly white centered and/or mostly geared toward gays and lesbians.

On top of this, bi black women have to deal with sexism and hetero-patriarchy. Some black bisexuals are transgender and experience the violence of transphobia. These multiple burdens might explain why it’s particularly difficult for bisexual people to “come out.” We are routinely given the “side eye” from multiple communities — misunderstood, implicitly or explicitly excluded or reduced to exotic sexual objects. We also experience poorer physical and mental health relative to other sexual minorities. It’s a lot to deal with.

With all this said, I have found love and support as an openly bisexual woman, but it’s a journey that has taken time, vulnerability and resilience. One of the challenges of being bi is that we often have to come out again and again when we date people of different genders — a process that can be frustrating and exhausting. I’ve had family members who know I’m bi begin to believe that I “turned straight” when I dated men. On the flip side, I have also had to learn that black queer women are not always my allies. I remember once coming out as bi to a black lesbian, only to later overhear her ridiculing another bisexual woman for being “confused.” At the time, my internalized biphobia made me feel ashamed rather than angry. I imagined that I, too, had fulfilled “bad, confused bisexual” stereotypes. It took me years to realize not all lesbians are biphobic and to stop giving a damn about those who are. But my early experience was jarring and taught me that, as a bi woman, I can’t expect other queer women to necessarily be bi-inclusive.

The biggest transformation, for me, was actually “coming out” about my spirituality. For many years, I kept my relationship with God in the closet and on the back burner — afraid of being judged by other academics and people in my professional life. But once I experienced a profound shift in my relationship with God, I could no longer keep quiet about the divine love I’d discovered within myself. Stepping out on faith, I found the strength and courage to love myself exactly as I am. This self-love, in turn, allowed me to raise the bar for the love I wanted to give and receive in my relationships. My spiritual practice also helped me cultivate compassion for people in my life who reacted negatively to my dating women. The more I came to forgive myself for my own biphobia and homophobia, the more I felt compassion for those who are still struggling with the limitations of their social conditioning.

Today, I’m in a loving relationship with a lesbian woman who has done the work to recognize and transcend her own biphobia and homophobia. I’ve been blessed to build connections and friendships with other LGBT black folk. Finding support within my family has been a process that has strengthened my faith, patience and capacity to forgive. My mom’s path toward acceptance has taken years of difficult conversations and internal work. At one point, she even refused to have Thanksgiving dinner with me and my girlfriend, because she felt uncomfortable with our relationship. I felt hurt, angry and disappointed. I couldn’t reconcile the loving, generous, spiritual woman I know to be my mother with her inability to sit down and break bread in thanksgiving with me and my partner. I made it clear that if she wanted me — her only child — in her life, she would have to find a way to move past her discomfort. Drawing a line in the sand with my beloved mother wasn’t easy. But part of love is setting boundaries, even and especially when it is painful to do so. I knew that I had no control over her feelings, but I prayed that God would somehow heal the rift.

Fast forward a few months. Unbeknownst to me, my mother had been praying, too. At some point, her heart miraculously expanded. She reached out and invited me and my partner to spend a weekend at her home in New England. To our surprise, Mom rolled out the red carpet, welcomed us with open arms, cooked up a storm and showered us with love. Last Christmas, she sent gifts for both me and my girlfriend — and even contributed to my partner’s surprise birthday dinner. My hysterically funny aunt T. has been supportive since I came out in my early twenties. When she calls, she checks on both me and my partner. Although she doesn’t necessarily understand my sexuality, she expresses unconditional love for her niece and celebrates the love I’ve found. When I came out to my southern grandma, she told me that it didn’t bother her one bit: “As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.” Then she added: “When can I meet her?” One of my cousins is also openly queer and provides a shoulder to lean on, hilarious dating advice and wisdom beyond her years.

This is love: The everyday journey of learning to live in our authentic truth. It is a journey that takes time, for ourselves and for the people in our lives. I could never have imagined, as a young queer kid, that my shameful secret would become something I would proudly and lovingly share with the world. It is this path to radical self-acceptance that allows me to know and affirm:

I am a black, bisexual woman.
I am a black, bisexual woman.
I am a black, bisexual woman.

And I am love(d).

www.huffingtonpost.com/crystal-fleming/thisisluv-a-black-bisexua_b_6752374.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Jason Collins Supports The People’s Brief

HRC.org

www.hrc.org/blog/entry/jason-collins-supports-the-peoples-brief?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss-feed

Male College Student Bravely Opens Up About Being Raped By Another Guy

“As difficult as it has been writing this, there’s a point–a perspective, mine and other men’s, that shouldn’t be silent,” Joseph Rogers writes in a new op-ed titled “Men are survivors of sexual assault too.”

Rogers is a senior at Chico State University in California, finishing up his degree in sociology. The article was published in his college newspaper, The Orion. 

“Statistics regarding male victims of sexual assault are scarce and inconsistent,” he writes. “Some will say that 10 percent of all victims of ‘sexual assault, sexual abuse and rape’ are male. Others will go higher and put the number at 38 percent of victims.”

Rogers blames the lack of consistent data on the stigma surrounding male sexual assault, and the belief that only women can truly be victims.

“There’s a belief that a man wasn’t strong enough to prevent the assault,” he writes. “Or that straight male victims might think that they will be perceived as gay. Or gay male victims may feel targeted because of their orientation.”

He continues: “Male sexual assault survivors experience similar psychological effects to those of their female counterparts. Depression, fear, anger, disbelief, guilt and doubt plague assault survivors of any gender identity.”

“It hurts,” he writes. “A lot.”

And he would know. Rogers himself was sexually assaulted on two separate occasions.

The first incident happened when he was just 9 years old. He was in a public shower when a teenager who worked for his family molested him. He didn’t tell anyone about the assault, instead quietly carrying it with him, letting it fester for more than a decade, until it happened again.

The second incident occurred just a few years ago. Rogers recalls being at a friend’s 21st birthday party and talking to another guy. The man handed him a drink and, Rogers says, “I have no memory until the morning.”

He woke up the next day “naked and disoriented” and “being licked by his big-ass Dalmatian while he [was] getting dressed.”

“It [was] the sexual comments about ‘last night’ that confirmed sexual activity,” Rogers writes. “And I didn’t find a condom wrapper anywhere.”

“I didn’t end up reporting these assaults,” he says. “When I was 9, there hadn’t been the conversation about child molestation or rape so who’d believe that I wasn’t making it up. As for the second one, I was frightened. I was dealing with self-doubt. I didn’t want to deal with the police. Would the responding officer mock me? Make inappropriate comments?”

It has taken some time, but Rogers says he’s finally found the bravery to share what happened to him.

“One of the greatest men I know once told me if I really wish to make a difference in the world I have to tell my story,” he says. “Not the public story I share with others in polite arenas — the real, personal one.”

Perhaps in doing so, Rogers hopes, he will help empower other male victims of sexual assault to stand up for themselves, too.

Related stories:

15-Year-Old Kentucky Boy Gang Raped By Five Men In Videotaped Assault

Was This Guy Date Raped Or Not? He Isn’t Sure.

Brutal Gang Rape Forces Gay Man To Flee His Home Country For The Safety Of The U.S.

Graham Gremore

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/nYpM9oi9RkQ/male-college-student-bravely-opens-up-about-being-raped-by-another-guy-20150225

There's Now An Official Song To Send People When You've Decided To Come Out: VIDEO

Sean Mandell

www.towleroad.com/2015/02/theres-now-an-official-song-to-send-people-when-youve-decided-to-come-out-video.html