澳彩开奖

TWO is a think tank and advocacy organization that works against right-wing extremism and anti-LGBT prejudice and has also spent years tracking the ex-gay movement. 鈥淐onversion鈥� or 鈥渆x-gay鈥� therapy is the harmful and pseudoscientific practice聽of attempting to make homosexual or bisexual people heterosexual and to keep trans people from affirming the gender with which they identify.

Matheson's fellow ex-gay leader Rich Wyler announced his exit in a post to a private Facebook group that TWO acquired. Wyler is director and founder of the infamous ex-gay program 鈥淛ourney into Manhood,鈥� which Matheson helped design. The think tank said Wyler wrote, 鈥淒avid 鈥� says that living a single, celibate life just isn鈥檛 feasible for him, so he鈥檚 seeking a male partner. He has gone from bisexuality to exclusively gay.鈥�

Matheson did not respond to a request for comment from Hatewatch, but in a , he stated, 鈥淎 year ago I realized I had to make substantial changes in my life. I realized I couldn鈥檛 stay in my marriage [to a woman] any longer. And I realized that it was time for me to affirm myself as gay.鈥�

Further on in the statement, Matheson took both the right and left to task, noticing 鈥渉ow my coming out has been co-opted by people and groups with agendas on both ends of the ideological spectrum.鈥� It鈥檚 sad, he continued, 鈥渢o think about how impoverished these adamantly ideological groups remain because they don鈥檛 know how to dialogue.鈥�

I used to be caught in an ideological prison of my own. I know my work helped many, many people because they鈥檝e told me so. But I鈥檓 sure I鈥檝e hurt some people too. Not that I would excuse myself, but any shortcoming I had as a therapist came from too narrow a view of what 鈥榚motionally healthy鈥� can look like. They came from my own homophobia and narrow mindedness. I am truly sorry for those flaws and the harm they have surely caused some people. And I鈥檓 sorry for the confusion and pain my choice may be causing others.

鈥淲hat you can take from this,鈥� Matheson continued, 鈥渋s that my time in a straight marriage and in the 鈥榚x-gay鈥� world was genuine and sincere and a rich blessing to me.鈥� But, he said, he had quit growing and had to change.

Matheson joins a growing list of prominent people who have left the ex-gay movement. Those include , one of the original founders of the well-known ex-gay group Exodus (the U.S. branch shut down in 2013); , the poster-child for ex-gay group Love Won Out; , former director of ex-gay group Love In Action and , former outreach director at Love In Action. Alan Chambers, former head of Exodus U.S., 聽that he was shutting the ministry down and apologized to LGBT communities for the pain and hurt the organization had caused through its attempts to change them.

Matheson 聽in ex-gay therapy in the early 1990s when he worked in Utah with ex-gay Mormon organization Evergreen International. He would later open a practice in the New York City area in 2002, but he returned to Utah in 2007. (The Gender Wholeness site linked in this paragraph was working earlier this week but by Tuesday appears to have been closed; an archived version still exists on archive.org.)

He holds a master鈥檚 degree in counseling and guidance from Brigham Young University, and trained under the late Joseph Nicolosi, a prominent ex-gay therapist who spent his life pushing conversion therapy. Nicolosi, 聽male homosexuality was a developmental disorder caused by childhood trauma and 鈥済ender confusion,鈥� was a founder and past president of the National Association of the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), perhaps the best-known secular organization pushing conversion therapy in the U.S.

NARTH 聽as conversion therapy came under more public scrutiny and criticism. Now the NARTH Institute, it鈥檚 embedded within the ex-gay organization Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity, which launched about the same time as the NARTH rebrand.

Matheson鈥檚 emphasis was on developing 鈥済ender wholeness,鈥� . One of the underlying premises of ex-gay therapy is that LGBT people need to act in accordance with a strict gender binary, which will help them be heterosexual. Matheson鈥檚 聽called 鈥淕ender Wholeness,鈥� which was supposed to help members of the LDS faith struggling with being gay or bisexual, launched in 2013.

Matheson is also a co-creator of the infamous 鈥� 鈥� program, which involves taking groups of men 鈥渟truggling with same-sex attraction鈥� on retreats into the woods, though the program claims it鈥檚 for any man 鈥渨ho wants to address unresolved issues around men and masculinity in a safe, supportive yet challenging group environment.鈥�

Matheson鈥檚 2013 book, Becoming a Whole Man, purports to help men struggling with homosexuality to 鈥渞each their masculine potential鈥� and to 鈥渆njoy community with other men.鈥� At the website for that book, Matheson states:

This may beg the question, 鈥淎re you saying that wholeness will cure homosexuality?鈥� No, I鈥檓 not. I haven鈥檛 found anything that 鈥渃ures鈥� homosexuality. Cure implies getting rid of a disease. Homosexuality is not a disease. Nor is it, in my experience, something one simply gets rid of. But it is something one can diminish, give different meaning to, and move to the sidelines in one鈥檚 life. This is why I use the term 鈥渞esolve鈥� when I speak of journeying with unwanted same-sex attraction. 鈥淩esolve鈥� can imply clearing something up, reaching a decision, or creating consonance out of dissonance. That鈥檚 a good way to think of the kinds of changes that wholeness can bring to your journey. It鈥檚 vital, though, that we view resolving same-sex attraction as an imperfect and ongoing process鈥搉ot as a short path leading to a final conclusion. In this way it鈥檚 much like many other character traits a person might want to change.

The ex-gay industry suffers setbacks, but rebrands and keeps going

The ex-gay industry has taken several hits in recent years, including the loss of prominent leaders and groups. Exodus U.S. shut down in 2013 and soon after that, an 澳彩开奖-brought lawsuit against ex-gay group JONAH (Jews Organizing for New Alternatives to Homosexuality; later Jews Organizing for New Alternatives to Healing) shut it down in 2015 after a 聽that the group鈥檚 practices amounted to consumer fraud.

Conversion therapy has been targeted on the political front, as well. Currently, fifteen states, the District of Columbia, and several municipalities .

None of this has ended the practice. Conversion therapy practitioners and supporters are simply 聽under new names like the Restored Hope Network and the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Integrity while JONAH allegedly 聽of a court order to shut down. There are also attempts to rebrand the practice itself.

Joseph Nicolosi Jr. (the son of the late Joseph Nicolosi), for example, has re-packaged conversion therapy under something called 鈥渞eintegrative therapy,鈥� which Nicolosi Jr. insists聽is 鈥渆ntirely separate from鈥� conversion therapy, and rather is an approach that is not unlike established counseling approaches to address trauma and addiction. Nicolosi Jr.鈥檚 website claims that 鈥渁s these dynamics are resolved, the client鈥檚 sexuality can sometimes change on its own.鈥�

Anti-LGBT and ex-gay groups have also begun using 鈥渞eligious liberty鈥� and 鈥渇ree speech鈥� arguments to promote and defend conversion therapy and, in 2018, started calling bans , rebranding the practice as 鈥渋ndividual choice鈥� while negating the practice鈥檚 harmful history. Currently, a conversion therapy app is , despite backlash and the fact that both Apple and Amazon refuse to carry it.

Update: David Matheson 聽published Jan. 31. He told interviewer Minnie Stephenson that he looked back on his participation in the ex-gay movement as 鈥渉orrifying鈥� and added that the pseudoscientific treatment 鈥渃reates a lot of sorrow.鈥� Matheson said, "I regret my part in perpetuating those ideas. Perpetuating the idea that being gay is a pathology, a disorder, perpetuating the idea that God is not okay with people being gay." He also repudiated the idea that therapy can change a person's sexual orientation and, according to Stephenson, pulled his book, Becoming a Whole Man, from publication.

Matheson told Stephenson, "Any therapy that is based on the idea that being gay is a psychological disorder, which it's not, that believes that being gay is wrong or bad, which it's not, and that it can be changed and ought to be changed 鈥� any therapy based on that idea has a great potential of harming people. And that kind of therapy should be stopped."

Photo credit Hume Clinic