Skip to content Skip to footer

Surviving Ex-Gay Therapy

There’s a growing movement, led by survivors of ex-gay therapy, to disprove and ban these harmful practices for good.

Truthout Logo

The growth of the ex-gay movement in the last two decades gave rise to hundreds of therapy programs aiming to change people’s sexual orientation. Many were explicitly religious, and claimed to be able to “pray away the gay”. But there’s a growing movement, led by survivors of ex-gay therapy, to disprove and ban these harmful practices for good. On this edition, stories of recovery from conversion therapy, and becoming ex- ex-gay.

Special Thanks to Robert Frazier of Monitor Studios and Terry Gildea of KUER.

Featuring:

Russ Gorringe, Kim Mack, Ben Jarvis, Evergreen therapy survivors; Gabriel Arana, writer and American Prospect Web Editor.

​​Not everyone can pay for the news. But if you can, we need your support.

Truthout is widely read among people with lower ­incomes and among young people who are mired in debt. Our site is read at public libraries, among people without internet access of their own. People print out our articles and send them to family members in prison — we receive letters from behind bars regularly thanking us for our coverage. Our stories are emailed and shared around communities, sparking grassroots mobilization.

We’re committed to keeping all Truthout articles free and available to the public. But in order to do that, we need those who can afford to contribute to our work to do so — especially now, because we have just 7 days left to raise $45,000 in critical funds.

We’ll never require you to give, but we can ask you from the bottom of our hearts: Will you donate what you can, so we can continue providing journalism in the service of justice and truth?