This Blog Has Moved On!
After about three years of considering migrating to another blog service, I had a brief conversation with a
Harpo, a high school student (and serious blogger) yesterday who assured me that a migration to Word Press would be painless and easy. So late last night I made the switch!
I will no longer blog here (but I will keep this blog up with all my previous posts). You can find all the same posts over at the new site--
Peterson Toscano's A Musing.
Please update your links and visit me at the new site!
Puzzled
Last night I performed
Transfigurations-Transgressing Gender in the Bible at
Imago Dei Metropolitan Community Church in Glen Mills, PA (about 15 miles outside of Philly).
I had a diverse audience of about 45 people -- college students, Quakers, straight, bi, trans and lesbian, young and old. I took my time with the piece maintaining a gentle meditative pace.
For the ending when I reveal the identity of the narrator, I had instructed the light tech to dim the lights. Then as the closing music swelled, I asked her to raise the lights to their brigthest intensity. With the music playing, I exited.
Always (up until last night) at this point the audience applauds, I wait 5 seconds then come out to take a bow. Last night I exited and then nothing. No one clapped. They sat quietly as the music played.
I stood back stage puzzled, baffled. Now what do I do? Wait? Go out anyway? And I wondered for a moment, Did they hate it? Did I confuse them? Offend them? Bore them into a coma?
After what felt like 5 minutes, I walked out onto the stage, and the audience erupted into enthusiastic applause, so much so that I had three curtain calls (I normally do two or ony one.)
So what happened? In talking to Kody and others in attendance they said they knew the play ended when I excited.
I felt the silence helped to settle the messages and images--many new and even startling for some. In many ways I felt pleased with the audience sitting in the stillness of that moment. As a performer I wonder if I did something differently this time. If so, what, and can I do it again? The whole thing puzzles and intrigues me.
Any thoughts?
Labels: performances, tour, Transfigurations
On the Road Once again
After a few weeks of barely leaving the house except for social reasons, I head out today by train to Philadelphia for the beginning of travel that will bring me to Washington, DC, Baltimore, MD and Vancouver, BC (that's in Canada). After that I am off to Nashville, TN, Denver, CO, Boulder, CO, Colorado Springs, CO and Seattle, WA. You can see my full schedule
here.
This weekend I will be in Glen Mills, PA at Imago Dei Metropolitan Community Church about 15
miles out of Philadelphia. Tonight (Fri) I will perform
Queer 101—Now I Know My gAy,B,Cs, a play that looks at homophobia, identity and activism through the words and lives of lesbian and gay poets. I last performed this piece in April at Manchester Community College. In it I get to perform my FAVORITE scene of any of have written, the fantasy date between Chad and Federico Garcia Lorca. (Which you can see
here.)
Tomorrow (Sat) I will present
Transfigurations—Transgressing Gender in the Bible. This play is probably the hardest one I do requiring the most concentration and work as an actor. It also feels like the most spiritual for me. There is one moment of intimacy and vulnerability that that has taken me years to get to.
Alex once asked me how writing and performing this play has changed me. It's a profound question, and I have yet to fully grasp the impact of this piece on my own life. I guess that is what I like about art. As
Kurt Vonnegut repeated often towards the end of his life, "Everyone needs to practice art because art enlarges the soul."
On Tuesday I head to Washington, DC to perform
The Re-Education of George W. Bush—No President Left Behind! How exciting to present this piece at the nation's capital. There is a whole section about Russia with Vlad using an Russian folk pop interpretive dance to seduce Condoleezza Rice to see Russia as foreign enemy number 1. Of course when I premiered the play back in January 2007, Russia seemed much more of an ally than it is today. Vlad's moves are working! (That and Russian aggression and a return to Cold War politics)
From what I have scheduled thus far this presentation of the Bush play will be my penultimate performance before I retire it. :-( I am happy that I won't have to perform it anymore after the November election, but PLEASE don't make me have to write a play about McCain/Palin--Bridge to No Where and Beyond! (Goodness! I already have a title) If you live in the US, register to vote.
Have a great weekend! And if you live far from all those places where I will be the next few weeks, check out
Doin' Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House--the DVD!
Labels: performances, The Re-Education of George W. Bush, tour, Transfigurations
Marvin on the Airwaves
Since coming back
out of the closet (ex-ex-gay) in April, Marvin Bloom, a devout Jew for Jesus, has been making the rounds at various podcasts. His gay-friendly rants have been heard on
Spanking Bee Arthur,
The Flatus Show and more than once on Joe G's
Bored Beyond Belief.
Currently you can hear Marvin on
Episode 81 of Mila and Jayna's
Trans-ponder. In fact, you will also get to hear me too since in his new segment,
Moments with Marvin, he interviews me.
In other news, I have a boyfriend, and he is not Marvin.
Labels: Marvin Bloom, media
Assorted Goodies
So much good stuff out there that has come to my inbox recently.
- Candace Chellew-Hodge, the creator of Whosoever.org, has a new book out, Bulletproof—A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay & Lesbian Christians. You can hear a public reading here. Check out what Desmond Tutu has to say about the book.
Gay and lesbian Christians are constantly demoralized and told they are not children of God. In Bulletproof Faith, Chellew-Hodge reassures gays and lesbians that God loves them just as they were created and teaches them how to stand strong, with compassion and gentleness, against those who condemn them. -Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
- Allyson Robinson gets quoted in a great piece that appeared in yesterday's Washington Post, Ruling Inspires New Hope for Transgender People.
But for transgender women such as Robinson, the County Council's passage of the law was a key reason she chose to live in Montgomery when she moved to the area this year from Texas to take a job at the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and transgender civil rights organization. Before settling on a townhouse in Gaithersburg, Robinson and her family sought to rent an apartment. She worried, unnecessarily as it turned out, that the landlord would want to pull out of the lease upon meeting her. Until the law took effect this week, Robinson said, the landlord could have rejected her application because she is a transgender person.
In the past, Robinson has also worried about taking her four young children to public restrooms at restaurants, because she fears that someone will identify her as a transgender woman and call security. "You find yourself on guard, and mentally and emotionally prepared for that," Robinson said. "You just never know. For many of us, this kind of thing we fear happens rarely; for others it happens constantly, and the fear of it is very real."
- Over the weekend I got to hang out with poet Karla Kelsey. She has done collaborative work with her partner visual artist Peter Yumi. You can see samples here.
- If you go in for the whole debate thing, check out Opposing Views, which includes polar opinions on politics, religion, money, health and more.
Labels: Christian, ex-gay, media, poetry, transgender
Bitch Needs You!
I adore
Bitch Magazine, which provides a feminist approach to pop culture. I've been a subscriber for the past two years and never fail to learn something each issue. Well written, funny, insightful and at times outrageous, Bitch provides an excellent resource for creatively exploring women's issues, gender and the media.
In the current edition,
Loud, they offer a bunch of great topics including an article about women in comedy, the untold story of the
beauty secrets the cosmetic companies don't want you to know, and a piece about
New Jersey 4 with the injustices faced by a group of young lesbians of color who responded to a hate crime against them and ended up incarcerated
.
Bitch serves a well needed purpose and speaks directly to the inconsistencies and injustices that women face.
I received a call tonight from the Bitch offices. They need money to keep the magazine afloat. If you want to receive an excellent magazine and help out a worthy cause, visit
the Bitch site. If you have more than enough subscriptions, than get it as a gift for someone (I'm giving Christine a subscription for Columbus Day, shh, don't tell her!) or just give a donation. Think about how much fun it will be for you or your friend to sit on the bus or a plane or in the doctor's office with your nose in Bitch as you read and learn and grow.
In other news, I just heard that I was recently featured on the nationally syndicated queer radio program,
This Way Out and will be on again this week.
Last time on "This Way Out", ex-ex gay activist and performance artist PETERSON TOSCANO gave a rousing description of the once-a-decade LAMBETH CONFERENCE of ANGLICAN bishops. That mid-August gathering in ENGLAND was expected to be a make or break event for the worldwide Anglican Communion. The 2004 consecration of openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire Gene Robinson and the blessing of same-gender couples in Canada and the U.S. have been the main targets of schism-threatening conservatives in the Church. In the conclusion of his conversation with "This Way Out" correspondent HEATHER KITCHING [CITR/Vancouver, B.C.s "Queer FM"], Toscano shares more about the human approach that transformed a potentially explosive situation [www.beyondexgay.com]
They don't have a podcast yet, but you can find out
here where and when you can listen.
And speaking of women, comedy and feminism,
check out Tina Fey and Amy Poehler spoofing Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live.
Labels: media
My Faith Odyssey--Oh the Places You Will Go!
My religious trajectory began in the Roman Catholic Church and landed me in many of the Christian religious movements of the past 30 years.
At age 17 I left Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Lake Huntington, NY with its tinny sounding organ and hymns sung in impossible keys through the noses of old ladies, and I began to attend
Gospel Tabernacle, a fundamentalist Bible Church in Honesdale, PA. This church encouraged their youth to attend Word of
Life Bible Institute and
Bob Jones University (Also known as BJU). After I graduated from high school, I opted for what my pastor considered a liberal institution,
Nyack College, a Christian and Missionary Alliance school. While there I attended an independent Evangelical church in nearby New Jersey. They talked about grace and provided gourmet coffee in the Fellowship Hall after service.
Following a stint with the Evangelical mission
HCJB in Quito, Ecuador, I moved to New York City where with hands raised and feet stomping I jumped into
Glory Tabernacle, a non-denominational Charismatic church that put the happy into the clappy. We railed against principalities and powers, and in ancient pagan fashion regularly drove out evil entities ensconced in every corner of the city. (
And to the god of the North, I bind you and in the mighty name of Jesus I command you to depart with your evil minions!)
Right before this Holy Ghost-filled church fell apart because of a sexual scandal between the young charming pastor and his children’s nanny (a result of The Enemy attacking The Man of God, who apparently failed to build a strong enough hedge of protection around himself or else inadvertently opened a door to demonic oppression or quite possibly both), I moved onto
Times Square Church. With services held in one of Broadway’s premiere theaters I sang in their rocking Gospel choir and sat under their teaching, seasoned in a Pentecostal/Holiness tradition with a prophetic punch brought on by senior pastor
David Wilkerson (He regularly warned us that North America would fall because of homosexuals who would then roam in homosexual gangs. Apparently it is part of our agenda)
Through my connections with people in the Manhattan-based L.I.F.E. Ministries ex-gay program (and unemployed Broadway actor support group), I also occasionally attended Household of Faith Ministries (now
Christian Cultural Center) a word of faith non-denominational church in Brooklyn that adhered to the teachings of Kenneth Copeland, Marilyn Hickey, and Kenneth Haggin. Oh the things I claimed in faith!
Through Times Square Church I became acquainted with a small house church in Yonkers, NY called the New Testament Missionary Fellowship. Without a pastor or Sunday program, the congregants of this small assembly needed to produce the ministry themselves, which included prophecies, spontaneous original songs, dancing in the Spirit and Bible lessons.
From there I moved to the UK and Zambia where I mostly attended non-denominational charismatic churches. After my world fell apart in Zambia, I attended a small charismatic church in England that bought into the
Toronto Blessing with full-blown laughing in the spirit. At one Toronto Blessing-inspired conference I endured, “God” tried to minister to me through animal noises and grunts. All very entertaining (and terrifying) but I struggled to grasp what “God” was trying to tell me. During that time in England I also attended Wednesday communion services at the local Anglican parish.
When I returned to the States to attend the Love in Action ex-gay residential treatment facility in Memphis, TN, the program leaders forced us to attend Central Church, an Evangelical mega church with a mega choir and a theater-like atmosphere that dazzled us week after week in a giant round building resembling an abandoned space ship. As a struggling ex-gay, I attended the Men’s Sunday School class and Promise Keepers while avoiding the many rest rooms. We learned by experience about the a reputation for spontaneous gay sex during the service. Those crazy straight Evangelicals and their toilets!
When I could elect to go to a church of my choosing, I attended an Episcopal church led by a husband/wife ministry team that taught conservative theology with a sprinkling of Charismatic hands-on ministry and a failed attempt at the
ALPHA Course (which I guess one could term as a success of sorts.)
When I came out as gay, I attended the monthly meetings of
Integrity, a gay Episcopal group in downtown Memphis and latter became an officer in that group. On Sunday evenings I walked a half-block to a campus Episcopal church led by Samson, a Kenyan pastor who created a community feel to our services and organized gorgeous pot-luck dinners afterwards.
In 2001 I moved to Hartford, CT and soon after 911 I entered a Quaker meeting house and have been a
Quaker ever since. So far I have found a home of sorts among "Friends" as we call each other. Quakers are big time pacifists. I have discovered that Quakers don't get violent, just passive aggressive. My favorite part has to be all the quiet we practice during our weekly meetings (and I have to say, for me it requires practice.)
In an upcoming post I write how some of my current Quaker experiences mirror some of my earliest Roman Catholic ones.
What about you? What does your faith odyssey look like?
Labels: faith, Personal, Quakerism
Ex-Gay Survivors who never attended a program
Over at the
FAQ page of Beyond Ex-Gay we have the question,
What is an Ex-Gay Experience? with the answer:
It can be as simple as gay guys trying their hand at football and lesbians sitting in on a Mary Kay Makeup makeover to something as serious and severe as electroshock therapy.
The idea is to find change from unwanted same-sex desires and gender differences. In some cases the experience is religious-based, but not always. It can also be done within a group, in one-on-one sessions or solo.
An ex-gay experience seeks to change desire, behavior and/or gender presentation. People have tried multiple methods including
- counseling (with a trained counselor or pastoral counseling with a minister)
- attendance in an ex-gay support group or a residential program
- dating (or marrying) someone of the opposite sex in hopes of experiencing change in desire
- dressing and acting according to the gender normative standards in one’s society
- reading books and narratives by people who say they changed
- attending ex-gay conferences
- submitting to prayer, fasting, exorcism, aversion therapy, hug therapy, same-sex heterosexual mentoring, and twelve-step programs.
Lots of people have had ex-gay experiences even though they never attended an ex-gay program. The theories of the Ex-Gay Movement get spread through books, radio programs, men's and women's groups, pulpits and in counseling sessions. But even non-gay people who do not conform to gender norms who who may be transgender can be affected by the pressure to "change" or fit in with the norms and demands around them instead of being pursuing a path of authenticity.
I hear from lots of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people who never once stepped foot into an ex-gay program, yet they can say that they have been negatively affected by the ex-gay movement, especially because of their faith background.
Ray Boltz, a well-known contemporary Christian singer, came out publicly yesterday via an
interview with the Washington Blade. In the article he references the Ex-Gay Movement.
It got to the point by the early-to-mid ’00s that keeping his homosexuality hidden had become an increasingly wearying notion.
“You get to be 50-some years old and you go, ‘This isn’t changing.’ I still feel the same way. I am the same way. I just can’t do it anymore.’”
There was some exploration of “ex-gay” therapy though Boltz never attended an “ex-gay” camp or formal seminar.
“I basically lived an ‘ex-gay’ life — I read every book, I read all the scriptures they use, I did everything to try and change.”
As with many ex-gay surivor narratives, Ray was not the only one affected by ex-gay experiences. The interview mentions Ray's wife, Carol, and their children.
One of the challenges that many of us who have been in "mixed orientation" marriages face is how to be honest about ourselves and the marriage while seeking to validate both the good and the difficult aspects of the relationship. Some have called these unions between a gay man and a straight woman (or the other way) "sham marriages," but for many of us who had been in these marriages, they contained genuine partnership on many levels. Yes, we hid a part of ourselves that we struggled with privately, often apart from our partners, but that does not invalidate the years of relationship building, of loving, of growing and giving.
Realistically these marriages often need to end for both parties to move on and continue to grow and live a healthy life. At the end of these marriages, just like at the end of an ex-gay journey, we often need to find creative ways to mourn the loses of dreams we once held dear. As we get beyond our ex-gay experiences, we will find a new found freedom, hope and even joy, but it comes mixed with regrets and even damage from what we've gone through, damage from which we may never completely recover.
My hope is that as people like Ray step forward to tell their stories that others will make better informed choices about their own lives and loved ones so that they can avoid the destructive nature of false promises.
If you are a praying person, pray for Ray and Carol and their family as they publicly step into the light and may have to face some ugliness from folks who feel threatened and challenged by the realities that the Boltz family reveal. Many have come forward in support of them and their courage. May the Boltz family find love in every quarter.
Labels: ex-gay, marriage
Trapped in the Ex-Gay Board Game
Hello, my name is Vlad. I have been in this Homo No Mo Halfway House for 27 days. Here in Homo No Mo Halfway House we have five phases, we do 12 Steps and there are approximately 275 rules. First I tell you about the phases. When we move from phase to phase, this is called a “Phase Bump,” and technically only the staff is allowed to bump you.
-Excerpt from Doin' Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House
At the Love in Action residential program that I attended for two years the staff led participants through a game know as
The Five Phases and The 12 Steps. Participants preoccupied themselves with moving up (and down) artificial gradations like a twisted version of
Chutes and Ladders.
- In Phase One the staff forced participants to look at themselves in order to acknowledge they had a problem, in fact that we were a problem— sinful, addicted, and broken.
- In Phase Two the focus turned to God, the ultimate perfection and means of escape.
- Phase Three turned the spotlight on the family where we created new mythologies about our childhood and family dynamics to fit in with the program theories about dysfunctional families and the developmental model.
- In Phase Four we deconstructed former friendships rebranding them as unhealthy, emotionally dependent, and sick with the charge to develop new, healthy relationships with heterosexual mentors from the church.
- Finally, we moved to the Fifth Phase where we began to transition into the world outside the program.
While slowly working through the phases, the staff also pushed us through an intensive 12-Step program with the belief that our desires for people of the same sex had to be wrong, sinful and addictive. We needed to account for every past sexual encounter and reframe them to fit in with the addiction model the staff gave us. Through our weekly "Moral Inventories" we wrote about and discussed former sexual experiences reworking them into a clinical narrative designed to reinforce the construct provided by the staff. Instead of a way of expressing love or just being horny, we had to restate our motives for sex so that they instead sprung from our own emotional, psychological or spiritual illnesses.
The Steps, the Phases, and the hundreds of written moral inventories required many hours of concentration and will power. The effort distracted me from the reality that "change" was not possible and was not happening, except for the negative change leading to depression, hopelessness and faithlessness. Instead advancement through the steps and our celebrated "Phase bumps" (which took on the quality of a some sort of tribal celebration with clanging of pots and pounding on the walls) gave the illusion that we experienced actual movement and growth.
Whenever we faltered in our resolve to sublimate our sexual desires and gay identity, the staff and fellow participants urged us to
work the program! Instead of questioning the failure or the methods, the staff compelled us to dive into the "therapy" with greater effort and intensity. Whenever progress in the Steps or Phases, the staff lessened some of the many restrictions placed on our time and activities thus giving a false sense of autonomy. Once we failed again to meet program expectations, the staff returned us to an earlier Phase slapping on us restrictions and sanctions on free-time and hard-won privileges.
At times it felt like I lived in an elaborate board game where I got to move three spaces forward only to find that I somehow landed back in jail. I spent so much time and energy on the structure of the program and the hurdles I had to vault that I had little left to question just how ineffective the process proved. We labored towards the goal of graduation when we would stand before the community affirmed by the staff—victors of the game—examples to others that we could achieve success. Little did I understand just how much they deluded me (and I deluded myself) into believing that program success equaled some sort of real change. And little did I realize the paradox that only in losing the game that they set before us did I actually begin to win in life.
Labels: ex-gay, Love in Action
Design by Bakke
Christine Bakke works as a graphic designer. You can see her fine work at
Beyond Ex-Gay and especially on the
ex-gay survivor collage page. She recently updated my promo card which she originally designed in 2006.
You will see that
Homo No Mo is no more, well, at least the play is retired (but is
available on DVD and will soon be performed live by another queer solo artist!) Instead I now offer a talk about the ex-gay movement:
Homo No Mo?!? Orientation, Gender and the Ex-Gay Movement—A Lively Lecture with Performance.You can see my performance schedule
here. Later this month I will perform three of my plays and lead a few workshops that will take me to Baltimore, MD, Washington, DC, Wethersfield, CT and Glen Mills, PA.
Click on images for larger view.
Christine, great work!
Labels: ex-gay, tour
I Blame David Lynch
When I sleep, I have cinematic dreams. They can be sweeping epics, romantic comedies, sci-fi flicks or even sitcoms. Often I find them entertaining, rarely scary, occasionally erotic, and typically not helpful in understanding my inner world.
This morning I awoke to a dream that must have been intended for someone else. In it a Cortney Cox looking character comforts a Jennifer Aniston looking character. I think there was a man involved in "Jennifer's" distress, but I lost this detail as "Cortney" crawled into the front seat of a car with "Jennifer." They were gently lit as it was nighttime. I mostly saw their faces in a warm glow. They leaned up against each other cheek to cheek. "Jennifer" wept softly as "Cortney" wiped away tears. And BAM! The next thing you know they are making out.
I awoke and cursed filmmaker
David Lynch.
I know this has something to do with
Mulholland Drive, his 2001 bizarre mystery thriller replete
with gorgeous lesbian lovemaking scenes. Some years ago I sat through three quarters of the DVD when the player encountered a problem with the disc. Up to this point I sat confused by the unravelling plot and the random appearance of a man in a gorilla suit. I had to know how it ended, if nothing else than for my personal sanity. I tried to skip the damaged section by jumping a chapter, but turns out Lynch did not put any chapter breaks in the DVD. He wants you to watch the whole thing through. Ugh!
Holding onto to the fagments (um fragments) of the story that made some sense, I dashed to the DVD rental place around the corner and asked for a replacement to the damaged DVD. I ran home then I fast forwarded through the entire film until I got to the spot where I had to stop on the first DVD. I watched the rest of the movie, and as the credits rolled I cursed David Lynch for making such a beautiful and enigmatic film.
I have since decided that the Mulholland Drive serves as an elaborate joke that Lynch played on the rest of us for his personal satisfaction. Sometime in the near future he will stumble upon my blog post (I feel certain he does a Google vanity search at least thrice daily) and laugh and laugh.
So then I have this dream, a dream that must have been designed for
Christine Bakke, or
Mila or Jayna or
Carcker Lilo or some lesbian or bisexual woman in the world (or hetero guy who gets off on watching two women which I find kinda weird).
Joe G will most likely chalk it up to multiple personalities asserting themselves in my sleep. Conservative Aglicans will asset this proves to their previous diagnosis of schizophrenia.
But I blame David Lynch, and you should too.
Labels: Personal
Prevention Week
Chris Paige from TransFaith Online sent the following message this week.
This week is National Suicide Prevention Week, with World Suicide Prevention Day landing on September 10. In honor of the occasion, TransFaith Online has launched new InterSections on Suicide and Depression. Please spread the word!
The Transgender community faces incredible stigma and isolation. Transgender people, when faced with depression, are too often unsure where to turn for support. Fearing judgement from family, from friends, and from mental health providers, transgender people may not get the help that we need to manage depression. And untreated depression is the number one cause of suicide.
Suicide is yet another area where research and statistics are scarce. Studies generally report a pre-transition suicide attempt rate of 20% or more, with MTFs relatively more likely to attempt suicide than FTMs. But some studies indicate that the rate of attempted suicide for transgender youth is higher than 50%.
Please help us break the silence about depression and suicide. Don't be afraid to ask the question, "Are you thinking about suicide?" Educate yourself about suicide prevention and how you can help.
Suicide is not a solution. Don't be afraid to ask for help, if you need it. Don't try to journey through depression and/or suicidal thoughts alone. Help is available.
With isolation and stigma such important factors in the disproportionate suicide rate among the transgender community, we hope to further expand this new area of the website to include stories from suicide survivors, who can speak about what it means to have survived and found supportive community. If you would be willing to let your story be told through TransFaith, please contact Chris Paige (215-840-2858 or chris@transfaithonline.org).
Labels: transgender
Vice Presidental Contender & the Ex-Gay Treatment
It's been on
the blogs all weekend, and now the
Associated Press also reports that Sarah Palin, the Republican vice president nominee, attends a church that promotes ex-gay ministries, namely Focus on the Family's
Love Won Out day-long conference that tries to convince parents and pastors that God can "transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality." What they don't mention is the
kind of transformation that will take place.
Those of us who are former consumers of Focus on the Family/Exodus/NARTH ex-gay theories and practices can attest to the transformations that we experienced as a result of our time in ex-gay programs. The vast majority of people who attempted to sublimate their sexuality did not find a cure, instead we experienced a curse that affected us psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, developmentally, physically and relationally. In the article
Ex-Gay Harm Let Me Count the Ways I highlight some of these and also offer testimony of those who have experienced these things.
Sadly many of the ex-gay theories and treatments also negatively affected our relationships with our parents. I don't doubt that many parents and even pastors go to a
Love Won Out event looking for answers as they fear for the welfare of the young people under their care. These adults still live with misconceptions of what it means to be lesbian, gay or bisexual. Instead of getting honest answers though, the speakers at Love Won Out dish out more misinformation. You can hear a first-hand account of what happens at
Love Won Out from Jim Burroway who sat through the conference and
thoughtfully shares his experience. In the article,
Can My Gay Child Change? I raise some of the questions and fears that parents may have as I outline the negative effects that often occur when forcing a child to attend an ex-gay program.
In February ex-gay survivors, those of us who endured these theories and treatments and have worked past the damage to reclaim our lives, traveled to Memphis and
stood outside of
Love Won Out as a witness to the potential harm that can come from these misguided teachings. We even gave Focus on the Family staff member Melissa Fryrear
framed collages of our experiences so that she could hear the other side of the story and consider the majority of people who end up on the other side of they happy clappy ex-gay experience they project on the big screens at
Love Won Out.
Perhaps Sarah Palin is woefully ignorant of the potential damage that comes from ex-gay theories and treatments. Maybe it is just because of partisan politics that she
comes out against LGBT rights (no matter how the McCain spin wagon tries to paint her as sympathetic), but people are more important than politics. Religious leaders need to reject the propaganda of James Dobson and instead provide intelligent and informed pastoral care. In regards to ex-gay theories and treatments, we see a
growing body of evidence that they cause much more harm than good. For those people who clamor for national security, consider the security and welfare of the LGBT youth of this country and oppose ex-gay theories and treatment.
Labels: ex-gay, ex-gay survivor, focus on the family, sarah palin
On the Front Porch Looking Out
I'm sitting on my front porch at my house. It's suddenly crazy humid and I'm living AC free this summer. I live on a one-way street and someone just zipped along driving in the wrong direction. Wait, she's getting out. She's walking towards me. Hold on...
Okay, that was weird. She comes right up to me and introduces herself and starts chatting. I'm like, okay. She tells me all kinds of personal info about her child and the child's husband and then asks, "So are you going to give me a tour of the place?" I'm like, "Wait, What?" Turns out she is here to see the downstairs apartment (I live in an old Victorian house and the first floor is for rent).
By the way, my landlord loves me because I am never home which saves him a ton of money since utilities are included in my rent. So yeah, feeling very much at home these days never wanting to leave again, well at least until next week.
The
fall schedule has really come together nicely with performances in Vancouver, British Columbia, Washington, DC, Nashville, TN, Denver, CO and Seattle, WA. Also this month I will be outside of Philadelphia. A few other gigs are still coming into place. Sadly nothing in Texas yet :-( Although I have Paige in Austin who is seriously plugging for me.
I have begun to work on a new play that I am not ready to write much about yet. What I can say is that it will be completely different from anything I have ever done before. Oh, and it will not be a one person play. That's all you get for now. Also, this fall I will begin working on a book that I've been asked to co-author. It'll be about gay stuff. I'll let you know more when I have more to say about that.
This fall will see the final performances of
The Re-Education of George W. Bush (PLEASE do not make me have to re-write this play so that it is about President John McCain!) The big news is
Transfigurations--Transgressing Gender in the Bible. I just performed it for two audiences with several transgender people in attendance. It's important for me to hear what they have to say about it and to get their input. All around I have gotten positive feedback both about the scholarship of the Biblical portions and about the portrayal of the trans people in the play. some folks are interested in having come to San Francisco to do it there in 2009.
So back to school for me (I perform at a high school on Tuesday) and soon I can break out the fall sweaters. I do have some wonderful personal news happening, but I will keep that under my hat for now.
Wait, here comes the woman looking at the apartment...
She likes it especially because the landlord is gay. She says that gays are clean and quiet. I'm not sure if I should feel pleased or offended. Maybe a little bit of both.
Okay, if this humidity breaks, I might just do a YouTube video. If you get totally bored this weekend, check out
Joe G's podcast. He doesn't mention me in it for a change (I think he has been fixating on me lately.) Also, check out the
video or
podcasts of the amazing Mila & Jayna.
Labels: gay, Hartford, The Re-Education of George W. Bush, tour, Transfigurations
Homeward Bound
Today I leave Seattle and spend a long day traveling home to Hartford. Because of Gustav, the conference I had hoped to attend in New Orleans got canceled. :-( The upside is I now get 10 uninterrupted days at home. This has not happened since March.
I cannot begin to write about how special I found the
Gender Odyssey Conference.
Gender Odyssey is an international conference focused on the thoughtful exploration of gender. We strive to create an empowering environment where people of all genders can share their experiences and learn from the experiences of others.
Through dialogue, peer-led presentations, and sharing skills and expertise, we work to create broader and evolving language, social support, and life pathways that support all gender identities. By doing so, we hope to strengthen ourselves and develop communities that celebrate all expressions of gender at any age.
I met so many amazing trans men, heard many of their stories, and participated in excellently facilitated workshops. You know when you step into a place that at first seemed foreign with new people and new constructs but suddenly you find yourself in the midst of community? That's what it has been like.
Last night I had a long and fruitful discussion with Ron, an ex-gay survivor, about the Ex-Gay Survivor Movement and our next steps. He attended the
Ex-Gay Survivor Conference we held last year in Irvine, CA and has felt a desire to get more involved with the movement. Now that the summer has ended, I feel able to begin to prepare for our upcoming ex-gay survivor events in Nashville and Denver later this year.
Anthony Venn Brown, an Australian ex-gay survivor, also attended the conference last year. He recently posted a blog entry that consists of a series of questions for ex-gay leaders to consider. You can check them out at his blog:
20 Questions for Ex-Gay Leaders.
I leave the Pacific North West excited that I will return soon. In October I will go to Vancouver, BC and then in November return to Seattle to commemorate Transgender Day of Remembrance. I'm still hoping to get back to Portland soon to visit Doug and Bruce and the guys at Anawim.
Now that summer is basically over, how is everyone doing?
Okay, I must get ready to board my plane...
Labels: ex-gay, ex-gay survivor, tour, transgender
