Amazon Removes Books Pushing Of Ex-Gay Torture

Expect to hear shrieks from Christofascists that they are being censored or even persecuted by Amazon which has ceased selling books advocating "conversion therapy,"a debunked, fraudulent therapy pushed by charlatans and shysters masquerading as legitimate therapists (Michele Bachmann and her husband run one of these fraudulent clinics).  One of the high priests of this harmful scam was Joseph Nicilosi who sought to give a false veneer of science and legitimacy to what in truth is snake oil at best and a deliberately harmful practice at worse. The end goal of conversion therapy? First, to enrich its practitioners who prey on desperate and gullible individuals, and second, to support the false claim that sexual orientation is a "choice" and, therefore, no LGBT non-discrimination protections are needed.  A piece in NBC News looks at this welcomed move by Amazon.  Here are highlights:

Amazon has removed English-language books by a man largely considered “the father of conversion therapy” from its site following mounting pressure from LGBTQ activists.

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, founder of the now-shuttered Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic, as well as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), authored several how-to guides directed to parents of LGBTQ youth, including “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.” His books are some of the most well-known works about conversion therapy, the pseudoscientific practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

“I would say many survivors of conversion therapy could trace their trauma to Nicolosi,” Sam Brinton, head of advocacy and government affairs at The Trevor Project and a survivor of conversion therapy, told NBC News. “His work lent credibility under the guise of ‘science’ to conversion therapy, even though the practice has been disputed and discredited as dangerous and harmful by medical experts.”

According to The Trevor Project’s 2019 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, 2 in 3 LGBTQ youths reported that someone tried to convince them to change their sexual orientation or gender identity, and youths who have undergone conversion therapy are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who did not.

Though activists have been urging Amazon to remove the books for several months, as evinced by a Change.org position that has amassed more than 82,000 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon, one man in particular made it his mission to prevent the company from selling the books.

Roger Alan first learned about Nicolosi’s books from Peterborough International Christian Centre, a church in his native United Kingdom, around three months ago. The church planned to show “Flying Blind,” a video about conversion therapy, to its parishioners, and when met with widespread criticism, it defended the screening by referring to Nicolosi’s work.

While the church ultimately canceled the event, the books remained available for purchase on Wordery, an online bookseller, and Amazon.

Alan said he reached out to both sites and called for the books’ removal. Wordery removed the books the next day, but Amazon informed him that his request would be passed along to the “relevant team.”

After a month had passed with no action, Alan reached out the British Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association — organizations that have acknowledged the harm associated with conversion therapy — in an attempt to gain medical and legal context to strengthen his request. The BPS calls conversion therapy “unethical” and the APA says it has "serious potential to harm young people because they present the view that the sexual orientation of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth is a mental illness or disorder, and they often frame the inability to change one's sexual orientation as a personal and moral failure."

Then, three months after he submitted his first request, something changed. While Alan was completing his daily ritual of searching for Nicolosi’s books on Amazon on Tuesday, he realized the English-language versions of the books were no longer available (some of the works can still be found in Spanish and Portuguese).

Amazon has not contacted Alan about its removal of the books, but the company confirmed to NBC News that several titles by Nicolosi are no longer available and that it reserves the right to not sell books that go against its content guidelines.

Last December, Amazon removed a gay conversion therapy app from a religious group called Living Hope Ministries, which included anti-gay podcasts, articles and devotionals.

“These books were outrightly lying to parents on how they could cure their children from being gay or trans and essentially teach ways you can mentally and physically abuse your child.

“These books will still be accessible and will still be a risk for youth,” Brinton, the co-founder of 50 Bills 50 States, the largest campaign to protect LGBTQ youths from conversion therapy in the U.S., said. “But you can compare removing them to the surgeon general announcing smoking is dangerous: People now know the side effects of the practice.”

“The best way to save lives is to pass legislation,” Brinton added, noting that in the last 30 months, 13 laws have been passed protecting minors against conversion therapy. Currently 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, ban the practice on minors.

Organized Religion: The Worse Bully of LGBT People

Now, in the midst of the Christmas holiday season, many LGBT individuals across America and so-called Christian areas of the world find themselves disconnected from any religious aspect of the season.  Why?  Very simple: through out much of its history - at least since the 1100's - Christianity has been one of the worse tormentors and enemies of LGBT people. Much of this mistreatment of LGBT individuals traces back to the ignorant writings of the Hebrew Old Testament - ignorance which was sadly also picked up by Islam.  Add to the poison of a few passages in Leviticus the sick need of many to fell superior to others and to have some target for abuse as "other", and organized religion has been a toxic evil to so many LGBT people throughout history since the rise of Christianity and the dissemination of the message of hate by Christian missionaries.  A piece in The Advocate looks at this sad truth.  Here are excerpts:

As a gay youth, I attended church like I attempted suicide: half-heartedly, with a lack of conviction, and pretty sure it wasn’t for me. That makes me one of the lucky ones.

Growing up in Wilmington, Del., in the 1970s and 1980s, I had no idea how lucky I was to be brought up in a hodge-podge of faith traditions. My parents were raised in different Protestant traditions, but my mother had converted to Catholicism to marry (and shortly divorce) her first husband. They had an ethical and moral basis in the teachings of Christianity, but neither was particularly connected to the trappings of any specific tradition.  They were married in the Episcopal Church, the best option for a divorced woman in 1971. Early on, and because of that choice, they were part of a congregation that was less judgmental of difference. 

Additionally, since my parents had met onstage in community theatre, they had many friends who were gay and this was the world into which I was born. I went to Sunday school for a few years and went to services on Christmas Eve and on Easter Sunday.

It wasn’t until I came out to them in the late '80s that the subtle insidiousness of church teachings reared its head. Despite having gay friends in the theatre, in their social groups and even in our living room on a regular basis, having a gay son was not an option my mother wanted to consider. I was told I could never bring a boyfriend home, and she openly confessed to worrying what people would think of her. She worried that people would think she was a bad mother and that she’d done something wrong when they found out she had a gay son.

This was not the reaction I expected. Nowhere in her secular life was I given any clue that she would feel any differently about a gay son. Years later, as I reflected on this painful (and thankfully, brief) period, I came to understand that it must have been feelings ingrained by her own religious upbringing.

Like most LGBTQ+ youth, when I started feeling different and out of place (Steven Carrington on Dynasty was the only significant LGBTQ+ character on TV in those days), I was confused. I was depressed. I was anxious. I’d been the subject of bullying for most of my life,  . . . . In the absence of other factors and in the presence of other LGBTQ+ people in her social circles leads me to believe that the religion of her upbringing had coded these feelings deep into her subconscious, and that is where religion became an issue for me.

For too many LGBTQ+ teens, though, religion IS the issue. According to data from a 2011 study from the University of Texas at Austin’s Research Consortium , gay and lesbian youth who reported that religion was important to them were 38 percent more likely to have had recent suicidal thoughts.  . . . Only 5 percent of the heterosexual youth surveyed had considered suicide.

No person, no matter their sexual or affectional orientation, their gender, their class, their beliefs or their interests should be made to feel inferior, particularly in a community that is meant to provide support and love. Religious bullying, whether direct, or in my mother’s case, subconscious, can serve as one of the most destructive forms of bullying and more has to be done to prevent it.

Religious-based bullying of  LGBTQ+ people is insidious. It can lead to isolation, disrespect, and exclusion. According to the National LGBTQ Task Force, nearly 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ+, and many of them are likely homeless because their families’ faith could not accept them for who they are. Worse, it is killing LGBTQ+ young people.

[W]e have a moral obligation to embrace each other’s differences: true faith doesn’t bully. It is about love and support. I’m proud to have recently joined the team at the Tyler Clementi Foundation, where our “True Faith Doesn’t Bully” campaign is working to provide tailored resources to help faith communities affirm the value of the lives of every single individual, no matter their identity. . . . We all deserve that.

I have more or less walked away from Christianity in any organized form.  Like many of their generation, my children are now "Nones" despite having been raised Catholic, and my grandchildren, thankfully, are being spared from Christian indoctrination and all of the self-hate and judgment of others that it sadly embodies.

Virginia Needs to Ban Conversion Therapy in 2019

The movie "Boy Erased" starring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Lucas Hedges now playing in theaters will hopefully bring a much needed on the fraudulent practice known as "ex-gay therapy" or "conversion therapy."  Long condemned by legitimate medical and mental health associations and admitted to be fraudulent by some prominent former proponents, the practice unfortunately remains legal in Virginia even for minors despite the fact that it ultimately constitutes a horrible form of psychological child abuse.  Its supporters laughably call it a form of "free speech" that should not be regulated by the state always underplaying, of course, (i) the cash cows these farcical "ministries" are to their operators - e.g., Michelle Bachmann's husband's "Christian counseling center" - and (ii) the manner the myth that sexual orientation is a choice that has been used by Christofascists for decades to block LGBT non-discrimination laws.  The "free speech" argument is particularly specious since most LGBT teens are forced into such "ministries" by their parents who place Bronze Age stories above the well-being of their children.  A piece at WTVR out of Richmond looks at the effort of one victim of the conversion therapy fraud to make the practice illegal in the 2019 session of the Virginia General Assembly.  Here are excerpts:

PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY, Va.-- Is homosexuality a choice? That's what 29-year-old Adam Trimmer was taught  while growing up in Prince George and attending a Southern Baptist church.  At the age of 17 Trimmer revealed to his mother, Paulette, a closely held secret.  "We were sitting at a stoplight and he said, 'Mom, I have something to tell you,'" Paulette recalled. Adam told his mother he was gay.

"I looked at him and said, 'Adam, a man shall not lay with another man," she responded. "When he came out to me I quote scripture to him. I did not hug him and I did not tell him I love him."  A year later in college, Adam attempted suicide feeling rejected by his parents and his first love.

While in the hospital recovering, a youth pastor recommended Adam seek help through reparative or conversion therapy. "Healing from homosexuality, that was the verbiage that was presented to me," Adam explained. "I believed [the pastor] and I was ready to change. He recommended Exodus International."

Since the 1970's, the American Psychiatric Association established homosexuality wasn't a mental disorder.  However, since then multiple religious organizations, like Exodus International, offer conversion therapy to individuals who aim to move from a homosexual to a heterosexual lifestyle.

James Parrish, the executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Virginia in Richmond, has lobbied the General Assembly to ban the controversial practice for years. "It is fraudulent and it is junk science," Parrish stated. "It is operating under the assumption that there’s something wrong with being gay and there’s nothing wrong with being gay. Unfortunately, some of these parents think they are helping their children, but they’re actually putting kids in harms way."

A bill that would prohibit licensed professionals from performing the therapy on minors was voted down in the Virginia Senate Education and Health Committee back in January. State Sen. Amanda Chase (R-District 11), who represents parts of Chesterfield County, all of Colonial Heights and Amelia County, was one of eight republicans who voted against the bill.

"I don’t think the government should be in the business of restricting free speech and that’s what we are talking about here," Chase said. "If the pastor is also a licensed counselor he should not be afraid of losing his license. We want freedom for all of our constituents we don’t want to shut down that opportunity for help if they want do that."

Multiple medical associations warn against the practice explaining it does more harm than good and research shows children who undergo conversion therapy are more likely to commit suicide.

Equality Virginia's Parrish considers all forms of conversion therapy as abuse, which can be harmful to an individual.  "We’ve stood in front of them year in year out and showed the science and the data that this puts kids in danger," he stated.
 Adam became distant from his parents. "They had brainwashed Adam thinking it was my fault that I was a bad mother and his dad was a bad father," Paulette said. "Exodus all about destroyed our relationship. He came home hating me hating, his dad and being so upset with himself."

A new movie out in theaters called Boy Erased depicts classes to teach boys how to act more straight.

"All that was happening was I was entering a life of suppression," Adam explained. Exodus International's owner shut down his organization saying he's never seen it work. He also issued a public apology.

However, the practice of conversion therapy is still occurring in Central Virginia. One organization that Adam sought help through was the Christian ministry, Set Free Richmond, which currently lists its address on Monument Avenue.

Paulette Trimmer regrets helping her son attend conversion therapy sessions. "It’s misleading and conversion therapy can destroy families. That’s not good, that’s not good," she said.

Adam left conversion therapy on his own and is now openly gay. He created the support group Love Actually Won RVA for survivors of conversion therapy.  His mother wishes she told her son that she loved him when he came out to her nearly 10 years ago.

Contact your members of the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates and make it clear you want the practice banned in the 2019 session of the Virginia General Assembly and that they have more to fear from constituents like you than The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading anti-gay hate group.  As for State Senator Amanda Chase, she needs to be openly targeted for defeat in November, 2019. 

Gays Can't Be "Converted" - Exposing the "Ex-Gay" Lie

This weekend the movie "Boy Erased" opens in a few Hampton Roads theaters.  Based on a true story and with the star power of Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe, I sincerely hope that some who most need to see this movie but are most likely not to see it will open their minds enough to buy a ticket and see the movie (find tickets here).  Trying to change the unchangeable inflicts severe emotional and psychological harm and can lead to suicide attempts since death is the only way to end something that cannot be changed.  Growing up with "my secret" I cannot count the number of times that I contemplated suicide. On two occasions, I acted on the thoughts, one incident putting me in Norfolk General after taking a bottle of Xanax tablets.  No one should feel driven to that point, yet that is what the "ex-gay" lie has driven many to feel.  Indeed, estimates that some 700,000 individuals have been the victims of ex-gay "conversion therapy" which needs to be illegal.  A piece in The Advocate recounts the experiences of a victim of this fraudulent and dangerous practice who, like myself, found that part of the solution to find inner peace was distancing himself from religion.  Here are highlights:

Growing up religious, it was this new experience for me to come out as gay. After I did, I left religion behind. I felt that I had to choose one or the other. I was just living my life. I had a partner. We bought a house together at 18 years old. But then we broke up. This is the time just before the big recession. Of course, I was sad and depressed. I end up losing my job. Things weren't going well. I then started to think maybe it's because I have strayed away from my religion. I'm experiencing all this because I've turned away from God. I ended up talking with a roommate, who was a very religious person and actually wasn't fully comfortable living with two gay people. But she and I started just talking more and reading our Bibles. Then I finally decided I was going to this conference.

I was living in Kansas City, but I went to a “Pray the Gay Away” conference in Nebraska. After that, I was completely messed up. Everything they talked about was exactly what I experienced. I need to be straight again, I thought. I decided to start the process. I lived the straight life for about three to four years.

The conference was affiliated with Exodus International. It was at a really large church in Omaha. I remember seeing protesters, which I thought was interesting at the time. That must have been part of an LGBTQ rights group trying to sway people from going. The conference itself was very morose. It was almost this sadness that existed in the air, that everyone was there either because they were inflicted with this sin or to try to help someone overcome this sickness.

Everything was stereotypes. They focused on how your dad wasn't a prominent figure in your life, and your mother really was. You've taken on that idea of just being matronly and you therefore think that you want to be with a guy. At the time that made sense. That was the one that I related with the most; this absent, non-prominent father figure.

After that, I surrounded myself with other strong-minded individuals that felt this could also happen. I was connecting more with my roommate’s family. I ended up moving from Kansas City down to Birmingham, Ala., to literally put myself in a community where I would be confronted.

Then I went to a private Baptist college. I had done my associate's degree in Kansas City and then transferred to Samford University. That helped me too, because I would talk with the counselors about my gay experience and trying to be straight. They would help me try to fight off temptations and continue to remind me to be strong and pray. I started going to church very regularly.

But I did have these times when I would fall. I would watch porn and lust over another guy. There were a couple times that I would engage in activity with another guy. We didn't get too far in our escapades. But we would always feel awful and sick; both of us. I was with another person who was also going through the same thing. I remember with that person that happened one more time and he's like, we can't see each other anymore — this has to stop because we're awful people.

It wasn't until starting to leave Samford when I was finishing up my senior year that something switched. I've been praying and praying and praying for years to change, and I've changed my whole life around from what it was. I should be in God's good graces. I didn't get it; it didn't make sense that I'm still feeling this way. I still have these feelings when I've asked God to take them away from me.

Then I started wrestling with those thoughts and finally telling others about them. I heard there are several men going through this exact same thing here on campus. What? I literally thought I was the only one on campus dealing with this. I started scouting them out. I learned of someone — he lived in the hall across from me and was an active member of my church who I really respected. He was who I looked up to, as far as being the ultimate heterosexual who's found this amazing alignment with God and his religion. His whole life seemed peaceful. I learned he was struggling with being gay and I was baffled. That turned my life upside down.

After leaving Samford, I didn't come out again as gay for seven months. It took a lot of people around me just telling me "you're gay" to be okay enough with life to accept it again. It's like you retrace your steps. You've had these thoughts for a long time. You've really felt this way. At one point it seemed fine — just being around other gay people helped, because I completely isolated myself from anything LGBTQ-friendly. I made them the enemy. Then I let that back in to my life and was seeing how it's okay; it's normal.

Now, I would just consider myself non-religious. 

I know today we have unity churches and different sects of churches that didn't even exist back then. I know that those places are out there and accepting of LGBTQ people, but I don't see myself becoming a Christian again.

Telling my mom I was gay was awful. And then when I told her that I was straight, she had just gotten used to the fact that I was gay and started to embrace it. Then when I told her I was gay again, she was like, "Oh, thank God. I’m so glad you finally realize." She saw I was not being myself. So now even my mom and dad are supportive.

What is so sad to me is that the entire right wing Christian insistence that being gay is wrong tracks directly to their fear of admitting that a few fragmentary passages in the Old Testament - passages that literally originated with uneducated herders - are wrong.  They will go to any lengths and and inflict all kinds of harm on others rather than admit that their belief system is based on unproven myths and legends. Thankfully, the author of the piece did the right thing and walked away for a toxic and malignant force. 

Gay Conversion Therapy Continues to Ruin Lives

Thankfully, I was never formally subjected to "gay conversion therapy."   But that is not to say I don't have some sense of the damage it does to loves having been raised Roman Catholic and subjected to the Church's odious brainwashing when it comes to the issue of homosexuality.  The result was decades of self-hate and ultimately suicide attempts - all because of the psychosis of  12th century "Church fathers" who by modern standards likely deeded mental health interventions of their own.  Sadly, despite society's overall rejection of Medieval medical and mental health knowledge, forty-one states continue to allow minors to be subjected to witch doctor-like or worse forms of efforts to "change" one's sexual orientation, something that is rejected by every legitimate - i.e., every non-Christofascists funded - medial and mental health association in America, not to mention the world.  Here in Virginia, a ban on the practice faces a perilous fate in the Virginia General Assembly.  A column in the New York Times looks st this dangerous practice that continues to ruin lives, sometimes ending in suicide.  Here are highlights: 

In the early 2000s, when I was a middle schooler in Florida, I was subjected to a trauma that was meant to erase my existence as a newly out bisexual. My parents were Southern Baptist missionaries who believed that the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy could “cure” my sexuality.

For over two years, I sat on a couch and endured emotionally painful sessions with a counselor. I was told that my faith community rejected my sexuality; that I was the abomination we had heard about in Sunday school; that I was the only gay person in the world; that it was inevitable I would get H.I.V. and AIDS.

But it didn’t stop with these hurtful talk-therapy sessions. The therapist ordered me bound to a table to have ice, heat and electricity applied to my body. I was forced to watch clips on a television of gay men holding hands, hugging and having sex. I was supposed to associate those images with the pain I was feeling to once and for all turn into a straight boy. In the end it didn’t work. I would say that it did, just to make the pain go away.

I have begun to repair the damage that conversion therapy caused me and my family. But the failed promise of change has very likely caused a permanent tear in our relationship.

Many think that conversion therapy — the snake oil idea that you can forcibly change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity — is an artifact of the past, a medieval torture practice. But in fact it is still legal in 41 states, including so-called progressive ones like New York and Massachusetts. New York City fully banned the practice only last month.

We constantly hear from survivors of conversion therapy who have been so hurt that they are contemplating suicide. So we know the severity of the problem. A new report tells us just how huge it is. Nearly 700,000 adults in the country have received conversion therapy at some point, including about 350,000 who received the treatment as adolescents, according to a study by the Williams Institute, a think tank on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy at U.C.L.A. It is heartbreaking that the study estimates that 20,000 L.G.B.T.Q. teens will receive conversion therapy from a health care professional before they turn 18. An even larger number of youth, an estimated 57,000 teenagers, will receive the treatment from a religious or spiritual adviser before adulthood.

Every prominent professional health association, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, opposes the use of conversion therapy on youth, calling it harmful and ineffective.

The practice can be performed by a licensed therapist in an office, in a correctional-style campground, by a parent continuously punishing a child for acting too feminine or by a pastor who wants to pray the gay away. The trauma of conversion therapy can cause depression, suicidal ideation, family rejection and a whole host of horrors that children must then face without the knowledge that mental health professionals are supposed to help rather than harm.

In the past couple of weeks, Virginia, Washington, Arizona and Missouri have introduced bills to ban conversion therapy. But there are still challenges in stopping this barbaric practice. In fact, New Hampshire recently rejected an effort to protect L.G.B.T.Q. youth from conversion therapy with a close vote in the Legislature, being swayed in favor of allowing the practice to continue; many legislators falsely believe that no such practice could exist. The new data from the Williams Institute shows just how wrong they are. We must pass legislation to stop licensed therapists who seek to harm L.G.B.T.Q. youth with conversion therapy. Everyone should know that you can’t change what you never chose.

Not only do we need to ban licensed therapists from engaging in conversion therapy, but it needs to be illegal for  religious "ministries" to subject youths to practises which are nothing less than child abuse. Religion cause much harm to mankind in my view, and this is one of the more insidious harms still widespread in America.  No parent should have the right to inflict such harm on their children simply because they cling to archaic beliefs. It is nothing less than child abuse. 

Coming Out for the Holidays: Family Acceptance Could Save Lives

As I noted in my most recent VEER Magazine column, studies indicate gay men are significantly more likely to attempt suicide than their straight counterparts, with the numbers increasing exponentially during the holidays.  To me, the reason for this phenomenon is: (i) the family rejection many gays have experienced, (ii) alienation from the religious backgrounds in which they were raised and (iii) the forced effort to be "happy" during the holiday season.  Indeed, my holiday seasons during the first years of my "coming out" journey could be best described by two words: depression and therapy.  It took literally years of therapy to overcome the emotional and psychological damage I suffered from my Catholic upbringing.  And deep depression can lead to suicide attempts.  I survived two such attempts, both of which sent me to the hospital.  Thankfully, that was years ago and I have moved on in my life and I now find myself in a very different place emotionally and psychologically. But many in the LGBT community, especially those still in the early stages of "coming out" still find the holiday season to be challenging at best.  As a piece in USA Today notes, how families react to those coming out can literally make a difference at times between life and death.  Here are article highlight:

Holiday gatherings feel fraught for many families, but around-the-table affairs can put distinct pressures on those newly out as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Maybe your cousin is going by different pronouns than last year. Perhaps a nephew makes first mention of a boyfriend from school. How a family reacts to such revelations can seriously impact that relative's wellbeing, said Jaime Grant, director of the LGBTQ advocacy group PFLAG.

Grant, a lesbian, was shunned by her mother when she came out in the early '80s. She missed a decade of holiday gatherings thereafter, she said, carrying a rejection that led to years of drug addiction. LGBT youth who feel highly rejected by families are three times as likely to use illegal drugs, according to 2009 research from San Francisco State University's Family Acceptance Project. They're eight times as likely to have attempted suicide. 

"It’s not just a feel-good thing. It’s a life-saving thing," said Grant, now a mother herself. "One of my kids is bi, and he is coming home for Thanksgiving to talk to me about his first semester at college — new crushes, student government, the whole bit."

Here's how to best offer support should a newly out guest join your table for the holidays, according to PFLAG.

First: Thank them for opening up to you“The first thing to say is, 'I feel so honored, blessed, happy, like a treasured person in your life that you want to share this with me,'" Grant said. "And then listen." Show interest and empathy. For some, coming out is a struggle, she said. For others, it's exciting. The person may offer up preferred pronouns, or mention a previously undisclosed partner, but don't rush the process or overstep by asking prying questions, Grant said.

Set the tone for acceptance among your familyReactions from family members may vary from surprise, to gladness, to dismay. Let them know how to address this new-to-them aspect of your guest's identity and that you expect them to be treated no less than anyone else at the table, said Marsha Aizumi, a PFLAG national board member from Pasadena, Calif. If a relative's coming out announcement came at the dinner table, "I would jump up and immediately give them a hug," she said. If unkind remarks fly, call them out; the brief discomfort doesn't outweigh any potentially damaging effects.

Help relatives process the new infoWhen Aizumi's transgender son came out during the holidays, she dealt with feelings of shame, fear and doubt. Family members might need time beyond a holiday to fully process the new information, she said. You can lift some burden from a newly out family member by having a dialogue and educating family members who have questions or seem less accepting. While it's important to allow space to reflect for yourself and others, Aizumi said, make clear to the newly out relative that you still love that person. "My son needed to hear it more than ever," she said.

Own your mistakes with graceEven family members striving to be inclusive can let an unintentional pronoun slip. Opportunities for fumbles and unintentional hurt abound as family members adjust and learn more about a newly out relative's orientation or identity. Fostering grace is key for all parties. There's nothing wrong with simply owning a mistake. 

Follow up after the holidayIn the days following a holiday gathering, check in with your newly out family member. Remind them you appreciated their presence. Ask them how they thought it went. Understand their journey with your family goes beyond this first holiday. Ben Hodges, the son of PFLAG President Jean Hodges, first introduced his partner to his family 21 years ago. "Remember that telling family and friends you are LGBTQ is a process," he said. "This is a healthy dialogue that will not be resolved over the holiday meal."

Sadly, far too many families do not follow this wise advice.  I was lucky and was fully accepted by my parents and siblings and aunts and uncles.  Even with such support, coming out was a difficult process.  Roughly 40% of homeless youths in America are LGBT, most having been disowned and discarded by their falsely pious parents who call themselves "Christian" or, in some cases, devout Muslims.  With three children of my own, I truly cannot fathom how anyone "Christian" can discard their own children due to the writings of ignorant, uneducated and unknown Bronze Age herders.   In memory of my parents, I endowed a scholarship fund to help graduating LGBT high school seniors who may have found themselves without parental financial support.  If you are inclined to donate to the fund, you can do so here.  The donation is tax deductible.

Reflections on National "Coming Out" Day 2017 - Why It Still Matters

It has been 16 years since I commenced my "coming out journey when I first began to reveal to family and friends that I was gay after many years of internal strife and immeasurable amounts of self-hatred engendered by my Catholic upbringing.  Since that time, I typically reflect on the state of my own life and other members of the LGBT community on October 11th, National Coming Out Day.  Past illustrative blog posts can be found here and here. For those unfamiliar with the term, National Coming Out Day was first observed in 1988 as a form of activism to fight against homophobia and anti-LGBT discrimination.  It can be described as follows according to Wikipedia:

[A]n annual LGBTQ awareness day observed on October 11 and October 12 in some parts of the world.  Founded in the United States in 1988, the initial idea was grounded in the feminist and gay liberation spirit of the personal being political, and the emphasis on the most basic form of activism being coming out to family, friends and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person. The foundational belief is that homophobia thrives in an atmosphere of silence and ignorance, and that once people know that they have loved ones who are lesbian or gay, they are far less likely to maintain homophobic or oppressive views. 

Some now argue that the observance is no longer needed given the advances in LGBT rights.  In fact a thirty something college professor at a liberal university makes such and argument in a column in the Washington Post today.  I respectfully beg to differ.  Strenuously, despite the seeming good intentions of the author.   The reality is that today the LGBT community finds itself under unrelenting attack.  Last Friday a law became effective in Mississippi that makes anti-LGBT discrimination legal and gays can be turned away for business, hotels and public accommodations, and, of course fired from their jobs.  At the national level, the Trump/Pence regime has declared war on the LGBT community and is both rolling back legal protections and under the ruse of "protecting religious liberty" granting Christian extremists a license to discriminate akin to what is now fully legal under Mississippi's foul law.  Here in Virginia, we are faced with a Republican statewide ticket that, if elected, would bring such anti-LGBT discrimination to the fore in Virginia (GOP attorney general candidate John Adams would work to rescind same sex marriage rights).

While LGBT citizens may lead much safer lives in liberal states, large cities and university towns than was the case in 1988, things are still frightening in much of so-called fly over country and even in places like Southwest Virginia.  

As one of the linked posts notes, my coming out saga when I came to realize that I just could not continue to live my life as an actor on a stage if you will, pretending to be something that I was not through no choice of my own. I had to either to do something about my situation and “come out” or kill myself. I chose the former, unwittingly almost on National Coming Out Day.  Along the way, I did end up having two serious suicide attempts motivated by my desperation to escape some of the bigotry LGBT individuals face, including being fired from my law firm and the ruinous financial nightmare that was triggered.

I survived, but sadly, many LGBT individuals succeed in taking their lives on a near daily basis.  Often, they are only in their teens and see suicide is the only way to escape relentless bullying. It saddens me greatly to know that a number of gay teens will never know the freedom I have eventually found because they chose to end their lives.  They simply saw no other option thanks to the bigotry that still thrives in "red America." 
 

Just as disturbing is the reality that studies indicate that 40% of homeless youth are LGBT, perhaps the majority having been thrown out of their homes by their "god fearing" parents.  And yes, LGBT individuals continue to be fired from their jobs due to their sexuality or gender identity - I routinely get calls form those who have been fired.  All of this remains perfectly legal in Virginia and 28 other states.  Until these situations change and the laws change to provide full equal protection for every LGBT American, National Coming Out Day is still sorely needed.

On a personal note, I am largely at the place I imagined and envisioned in my mind's eye that I wanted to achieve when I started my coming out journey. I am married to wonderful guy who truly loves me, I now work at a law firm where my sexual orientation is not an issue - my burgeoning Hindu client base only care about me taking care of their legal needs and some have LGBT family members - and my husband and I are active activists in the LGBT community (see the photo above).  In short, I am  "totally out" and no longer feel the need to hide or apologize to anyone. It can "get better" and through National Coming Day we need to continue to make sure it gets better for every LGBT individual.   There is still so much work to be done.  There are literally lives to be saved.

Trump Regime Rescinds Protections for Transgender Students

When Donald Trump meet with a who's who of right wing Christian extremists in June of 2016, he made many promises in order to win the backing of these individuals and their organizations.  Among those promises were the rescission of transgender protections, passage of the First Amendment Defense Act that when passed will grant Christofascists the right to discriminate at will, and the rolling back of same sex marriage rights.  Yesterday, Trump - or as I call him, Der Trumpenführer - delivered on the first of those promises by rescinding Obama administration protections to transgender students and by extension transgender adults as well. To my "friends" who voted for Trump, all I can say is "I told you so" and that they are complicit in this act and in what will follow.  The blood of those who will choose suicide as discrimination increases is on their hands as much as Trumps and the less than "godly" Christians who sought these measures.  The one irony in this foul move was that even Betsy DeVos, a woman with a long history of funding anti-LGBT hatred, opposed the move.  Here are highlights from the New York Times on this triumph of hatred:

President Trump on Wednesday rescinded protections for transgender students that had allowed them to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, overruling his own education secretary and placing his administration firmly in the middle of the culture wars that many Republicans have tried to leave behind.

In a joint letter, the top civil rights officials from the Justice Department and the Education Department rejected the Obama administration’s position that nondiscrimination laws require schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice.

The question of how to address the “bathroom debate,” as it has become known, opened a rift inside the Trump administration, pitting Education Secretary Betsy DeVos against Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Mr. Sessions, who had been expected to move quickly to roll back the civil rights expansions put in place under his Democratic predecessors, wanted to act decisively because of two pending court cases that could have upheld the protections and pushed the government into further litigation.

But Ms. DeVos initially resisted signing off and told Mr. Trump that she was uncomfortable because of the potential harm that rescinding the protections could cause transgender students, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the internal discussions.

Mr. Sessions, who has opposed expanding gay, lesbian and transgender rights, pushed Ms. DeVos to relent. After getting nowhere, he took his objections to the White House because he could not go forward without her consent. Mr. Trump sided with his attorney general, the Republicans said, and told Ms. DeVos in a meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he wanted her to drop her opposition. And Ms. DeVos, faced with the alternative of resigning or defying the president, agreed to go along.

Ms. DeVos’s unease was evident in a strongly worded statement she released on Wednesday night, in which she said she considered it a “moral obligation” for every school in America to protect all students from discrimination, bullying and harassment.

Gay rights supporters made their displeasure clear. Outside the White House, several hundred people protested the decision, chanting, “No hate, no fear, trans students are welcome here.”

Individual schools will remain free to let transgender students use the bathrooms with which they are most comfortable. And the effect of the administration’s decision will not be immediate because a federal court had already issued a nationwide injunction barring enforcement of the Obama order.

[I]t showed how Mr. Trump, who has taken a more permissive stance on gay rights and same-sex marriage than many of his fellow Republicans, is bowing to pressure from the religious right . . .

[S]upporters of transgender rights said the Trump administration was acting recklessly and cruelly. “The consequences of this decision will no doubt be heartbreaking,” said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “This isn’t a states’ rights issue; it’s a civil rights issue.”

While Wednesday’s order significantly rolls back transgender protections, it does include language stating that schools must protect transgender students from bullying, a provision Ms. DeVos asked for, one person with direct knowledge of the process said. . . . was said to have voiced her concern about the high rates of suicide among transgender students. In one 2016 study by the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, for instance, 30 percent reported a history of at least one suicide attempt.

Mr. Trump appears to have been swayed by conservatives in his administration who reminded him that he had promised during the campaign to leave the question of bathroom use to the states. . . . . Trump’s decisions in office have been consistently conservative on social issues. And he has shown considerable deference to the religious right, naming many religious conservatives to top cabinet posts and pledging to fight for religious freedom protections and restrictions on abortion.

The dispute has underscored the influence that Mr. Sessions, an early and ardent supporter of Mr. Trump, is likely to exercise over domestic policy. As someone who has a long record of opposing efforts to broaden federal protections on a range of matters under his purview — immigration, voting rights and gay rights, for example — he has moved quickly to set the Justice Department on a strikingly different course than his predecessors in the Obama administration.

Perhaps went contraception becomes illegal - a goal for many Christofascists - intellectually lazy Trump supporters who failed to educate themselves on what they were voting for will wake up and realize that by falling for Trump's racism and xenophobia they voted against their own interests, both economic and personal. 

Is It Child Abuse to Make a LGBT Child ‘Change’?

The suicide of Leelah Alcorn has set off a much needed debate on whether efforts to change LGBT children - especially those transgender - is a form of child abuse.  I've made it clear that my answer to that question is a resounding yes.   The New York Times has a debate going amongst writers that looks at the issue and so far, the opinions side with seeing such change attempts as abuse and seek to limit parental control over children.  Here are highlights from one of the opinions:

L.G.B.T. youth need support from their families -- not derision. If you tell a child or teenager they’re not good enough, that they’re worthless, that who they are is broken or wrong, that’s abuse. So-called conversion therapy -- ideologically based counseling that teaches L.G.B.T people they can be “fixed” to be straight or cisgender -- is no different. I don't know the details of Leelah Alcorn's therapy or what her home life was like beyond what her online notes describe -- but forcing L.G.B.T children to attend counseling that tells them that who they are is shameful or "sick" is child abuse.

This kind of counseling -- which has been derided by the World Health Organization, the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association -- is illegal in multiple states for a reason: it’s wrong, it’s harmful and it actively puts young lives at risk. 

Trans youth -- who suffer from high suicide and suicide attempt rates -- are even more likely to make attempts on their lives when they have unsupportive or abusive families. This is not a matter of rhetoric or legalese, it’s an urgent issue of life and death.

Leelah Alcorn did not have to die. There are support structures already in place for young L.G.B.T people -- like PFLAG and the Trevor Project -- to get help with their families or on their own. Now we need more legal options, including easier emancipation for minors, to ensure that young L.G.B.T people facing abuse at home have access to the help they want and need.

Another opinion notes the following which ought to make "Christian counseling" illegal:

Those who received counseling from a religious adviser were actually more likely to have a later suicide attempt than those who sought no help at all.

It is far past time that children cease being treated as chattel property of their parents and that fundamentalist parents who reject their children be charged with abuse and have their parental rights terminated.  No child should have their life ruined or feel driven to suicide merely because their parents are ignorance embracing religious fanatics.

Transgender Teenager Leaves Suicide Note Blaming her Christian Parents for Her Death

I am on record as calling LGBT youth being raised by Christian fundamentalist parents a form of child abuse.  The heartbreaking suicide of 17 year old Leelah Alcorn over the weekend underscores this reality.   Leelah, who born male in a moving suicide note blamed her Christian parents for her decision to end her tortured life.  Rather than accept her or get her the legitimate therapy she needed, her parents forced her to see "Christian therapists" who shamed her and relied on the supposed teachings of the Bible, that book responsible for so much bloodshed and misery over the centuries, to try to force her to reject what she knew was her true self.  In my view, her parents (and the "Christian therapists") should be indicted, tried and convicted of felony child abuse.  Leelah's sad story underscores why "ex-gay" therapy needs to be banned nationwide and quacks parading as "Christian therapists" need to be put out of business. The Daily Mail looks at this sad story.  Here are excerpts:

A transgender teenager who committed suicide by walking in front of a tractor trailer in Ohio left a heartbreaking letter in which she blamed her religious parents.

Leelah Alcorn, 17, died in the early hours of Sunday on highway I-71 in Warren County, Ohio, a few miles from her family home.

The high school student left a poignant suicide note accusing her devout Christian parents of refusing to acknowledge her gender and forbidding her from transitioning.

The suicide note was posted on Leelah's tumblr account through scheduled publishing just a few hours after her death.

The note begins: 'If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.' 

Leelah goes on to reveal that her parents refused to allow her to transition and instead took her to 'Christian therapists' who told her that she was 'selfish and wrong'. 

'I formed a sort of a “f*** you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. 

'Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. 

'They wanted me to be their perfect little straight Christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.'

'On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.'

Leelah then adds: 'I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself.  

It's telling to me that Leelah'sparents said that she was "selfish."  If anyone was selfish, it was her parents who in all likelihood were more worried about what people would think of them than the welfare of their child.  If there is a Hell, her parents deserve to burn in it for eternity.   Here are excerpts for her suicide note: 

If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.

Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.

When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.

My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more Christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.

When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.

I formed a sort of a “fuck you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.

So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.

After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.

I cannot know what it feels like to be transgender, but it has to be far worse than being gay in a homophobic society. With two serious suicide attempts in my past, I can understand how Leelah came to the point where suicide seemed the best solution.  She wanted the pain and misery to stop and not much beyond that.  As for her parents, I hope they come to realize they murdered their child.  As for other "godly Christian" parents who reject their LGBT children, they have only my utter contempt.  I hope with time society as a whole will come to treat them with contempt and derision and make them social outcasts.  They deserve such treatment.