sexuality

Feb

2023

Conversion Therapy Workshops/Seminars

With the recent passing of the bill to ban Conversion Therapy, many are asking exactly what that means.

This workshop explains everything from the basics of what “LGBTI” is; the reason why religion has reviled it and the misunderstanding of biblical texts; what Conversion Therapy is and the damage it causes; what the legislation is all about and how to access support services.

Everyone is welcome, this is all about education and finding hope and help!

I will be running two free workshop/seminars in Auckland:

EVENT RESCHEDULED!

The first seminar in Auckland CBD has been rescheduled due to the cyclone forecast for the region.

New date: Friday 17th Feb, 6:30pm at Ellen Melville Centre, 2 Freyberg Pl, Aukland CBD)

Friday 24th Feb, 6pm at Te Manawa, 11 Kohuhu Lane, Westgate, Auckland

This event is a “safe space”. Abuse in any form will not be tolerated.

Click here for Pride Month event listing

Mar

2022

Masturbation!

There, I said it!

MAS-TUR-BAY-SHUN

The big religious taboo!

It’s something most religions don’t talk about, unless some pastor gets brave enough to attempt biblical justification about why it’s so evil. And, usually, the gullible faithful swallow the botched biblical narrative presented by the only scripture that even comes close (pun intended).

We’re talking about Onan of course, who was the second son of Judah, slain by God as retribution for being “evil in the sight of the Lord” and disobeying a direct order from the Lord by being unwilling to father a child by his widowed sister-in-law, and “spilled his seed” on the ground.

Of course, the faithful fail to recognise that this text is NOT about masturbation. Rather, it’s all about God getting really pissed off when he pulls out of his sister-in-law before ejaculating, because of complex Levitical hereditary laws.

The truth is, masturbation is not mentioned anywhere in the bible – nowhere – zilch.

So why the big fuss? For some reason, European theologians decided it was completely disgusting in the 18th/19th centuries, and that mentality continued into most western cultures, and any other culture that was taken over by colonialism and infected with Christian missionaries.

Apart from that, masturbation has always been accepted as a normal/natural activity, especially as an alternative to getting someone pregnant. And yet it’s still something most “decent” people don’t want to talk about – perhaps because of the lingering effects of Victorian prudish attitudes, despite the fact that everyone does it.

Fortunately, medical/psychological professionals are united in extolling its benefits to all humans.

When kids hit puberty, there’s not a chance in hell you can stop them from enjoying this wonderful pastime (unless you happen to subscribe to toxic religious beliefs that you delight in inflicting on your children). So let them enjoy it. In fact, educate them about it!

It’s fun and healthy, so go for it!!

Mar

2022

Enough Already! (Cody’s story)

I’ve been a friend of Cody’s for a few years now, and stood alongside him through his extremely difficult journey of “coming out of religion”. Cody’s story is no ordinary one, however, and he has asked me to write and share it on his behalf.

Cody is a 50 year old trans man (assigned female at birth, identifies as male). He also has cerebral palsy (CP) and lives in an assisted living house with 24/7 care. He’s also adopted. His adoptive family are fundamentalist pentecostal Christians. He’s a survivor of sexual abuse, as a baby and on through childhood and as an adult. He suffered a range of physical and psychological abuses as a teenager in the care of Wilson Home in Auckland, and on into adult life. All of this created a “perfect storm” for serious mental health issues.

His journey, then, has been that of leaving abusive religion, facing a complete lack of love at any stage in his life, coming to terms with his gender identity, and finding who he really is, all exacerbated by his CP.

Although his adoptive parents had the best of intentions, and tirelessly provided for his physical wellbeing, they were incapable of providing him with the genuine, unconditional love he desperately needed as a young child and on through the rest of his life. The reasons for this are, of course, complex, but the most damaging has been the religious indoctrination present in the pentecostal church, which was echoed in his family life.

He was constantly made aware of his sinful nature, and as he grew he was pushed more and more to be “responsible” for sinful thoughts and actions in a way that constantly destroyed any sense of self-worth, which was pretty much non-existent from the start anyway.

He was sexually abused by an older adopted brother at the age of 12. His family did what they could to some extent, but much of the blame went on him and they eventually brushed it all under the carpet of family shame. This was the event that led them to placing him in full time care, to ostensibly give some space between him and his brother. His brother went on to be convicted of multiple rapes and has spent many years in prison.

This is just the tip of the iceberg though. Every aspect of his religious family upbringing dealt blow after blow of self loathing, inadequacy and failure, leading to behaviours that echo the desperate need for love that was never met – depression, anxiety, psychosis, self harm, suicide attempts, eating disorders… the fact that he’s survived this long is a testimony to his dogged resilience! But as you can imagine, the cost has been catastrophic.

He’s recently taken the massive step to walk away from church and renounce his faith, and to distance himself from his family. He’s decided that making a clean break is the only way to move forward. But this decision hasn’t come easily! To resist the indoctrination of a lifetime of fundamentalism, while still trying to maintain contact with the church community and friends, is impossible. Walking away from this, in reality, has taken a few years! So many attempts ended in giving in to the pressure, guilt and shame, returning to his abusers in a type of Stockholm Syndrome. The ongoing legacy of this religion will take time to unravel, as the layers of abuse are peeled away, but each layer removed allows love to enter.

So Cody is now free to start his life as a gay man! His dream is to begin physical transitioning, although he recognises the medical difficulties due to his disability.

His passion is to bring to light, the traumatic lives of LGBT+ people with disabilities – the complete lack of support in institutions, the ignorance of sexuality and gender issues within staff and clients, the bullying and shaming and the unwillingness of institutions to even acknowledge the sexual needs of those with disabilities in general. His other passion is helping those with Religious Trauma Syndrome.

You can join him on his journey on LinkedIn and Facebook

Apr

2020

Sy Rogers – the legacy

For those who haven’t heard, Sy Rogers died the other day.

In the interests of integrity and honesty, and respecting Sy’s desire to be a man despite his gender dysphoria and even living as a trans women for a while, I’ll use “they” as the pronoun to reflect this conflict.

Sy was one of the most prominent “ex-gay” preachers and traveled the world with their message that God can transform us into happy, fulfilled straight people. They rose to fame in the 80s and was even president of Exodus Ministries for a while.

One of their most famous quotes was “If you want to stay gay, that’s your business,… But the bottom line is, you have a choice to overcome it. You can change. The goal is God – not going straight. Straight people don’t go to Heaven, redeemed people do.”

As a fellow human being, my heart goes out to their family and friends.

But I find myself rather triggered. It’s brought up all the misery I went through trying to be a straight man all my life. And already, I’m finding countless others feeling the same.

Their very public teachings and testimony were adopted as “proof” that LGBT people could change. It was given extra weight because their story included their gender as well as their sexuality. Sy never really addressed the differences between the two, which we know are completely unrelated human attributes. Of course, we all know that no one actually changes either of these attributes. We either repress, deny or employ diversions such as religious obsessions to delude ourselves that we are changed or cured. We also know that most of the time this ends up causing mental illness and suicide.

Sy’s legacy would be impossible to quantify. Their message and ministry is directly responsible for bringing incalculable pain, misery, suffering and even death to literally millions.

Of course, there are many others who contributed to the abuse of LGBT people. But Sy is exceptional in that he had the opportunity to bring life instead of death, but refused to do so.

In 2007, during a meeting with Anthony Venn Brown, Sy said “I no longer preach a re-orientation message”. However, they never made this public! They’d said the same thing to other ministers as well over more recent years. And yes, if we look at their ministry over the last 15 years or so, it became more about relational wholeness through Jesus and similar topics. Sy had indeed carefully sidestepped his original message without so much as a word. Their only comment was about not wanting to cause public controversy. Perhaps it was more about saving face and finance? We may never know.

For me and so many now, this is the ultimate betrayal. How many lives could have been saved if Sy had had the guts to be honest and care more about others. Was Sy that unaware of the damage of their message?

It will take a while for me to process my emotions around this. I would encourage any of us who find ourselves confronting the anger and frustration of all we’ve been through to be brave, give yourself permission to feel and process it all. Get some help if needed, talk to safe friends or a counselor.

So yeah…. I don’t like to “talk ill of the dead” while family are still grieving, but I feel I have no choice. The Sy Rogers legacy is horrific.

Mar

2020

Vulnerability

For most of us, coming out and working through religious issues has required huge amounts of vulnerability (opening ourselves up to be easily hurt, influenced, or attacked).

We open ourselves up to others to share our deepest secrets, our shame, our mental health and the pain we’ve lived with.

Even with strong relationships and a solid loving community, this can be very traumatic. But without them, it can be a long lonely journey. Whatever the process for each of us, it’s something that requires guts, determination and bravery.

If we have come out of fundamentalism/pentecostalism etc we have the pain of losing those who we thought loved and cared for us. We become the target of their abuse, disguised as love and concern at best, or outright condemnation and assignment to hell at worst.

Eventually we have to turn our backs on these people and establish a new life with people who really do care, who actually love us unconditionally. To keep contact with those who abuse us is simply too hard, especially if our mental health has been affected. Our vulnerability can only stand so much and we must protect ourselves to survive.

Personally, this has been a complex battle. Part of me would love to walk away and never engage with this type of religion again. But I’m also confronted with the reality that I was part of the system that causes so much abuse, being a leader in Living Waters conversion therapy for so long. I shudder to think of the damage I did and perhaps the loss of life I was implicit in.

Silent Gays has been a work of passion and compassion for all those who have experienced religious abuse. But it puts me in a constant state of vulnerability. I share my life over and over. I am constantly confronted and condemned by traditional Christians. The more I reach out to those silently suffering in churches, the more I’m abused. It’s a situation of constant vulnerability, and honestly, some days it’s really hard. It takes it’s toll.

Despite this, my heart for the abused is stronger than ever, so I have to work with the balancing act of self preservation and confrontation. I will not stop confronting the religious fundamentalists because I know that in doing so, others are watching – those who would never speak out in vulnerability. I know that my strength in being vulnerable is an inspiration.

In writing this, I’m once again being vulnerable. Some will say it’s the least I can do given my participation in the abuse. Other’s will say to just let it all go and get on with my life. Perhaps one day I will walk away, but I think I’d never stop feeling for the countless others struggling under the deathly weight of religion.

Meanwhile, I do all I can to walk that fine line, and live my life to it’s fullest.

Feb

2019

Beyond LGBTI+

I’ve often written about the limitations of our sexuality and gender labelling and encouraged people to examine the the fluidity of it all. Of course, labelling is needed in terms of finding others who understand our particular needs and preferences, but we get stuck there, to our own detriment.

As the various scientific disciplines explore sexuality and gender, it’s becoming clearer that every single person on the planet is actually on a continuum of various sexuality and gender factors. And people are discovering that it’s possible to move along these different continua throughout our lives!

I just read an interesting article how women, in particular, are discovering same sex attraction in their late 30 and 40s, even though they have been happily “straight” up until then!

We are discovering so much about the biology of gender that almost every other day there’s more understanding of the nuances of our genetics and the chemistry that surrounds it. Nothing is as it used to be understood. The idea of “binary” gender is no longer valid.

Being a chronic idealist and dreamer, I long for us to embrace this as a species. I imagine a world where there really are no assumptions, no boundaries or expectations around any aspect of this core part of our being.

The only factor that needs any consideration in how we live this in a practical way is the birth and nurture of children. A womb is the only place a child can gestate, and a stable loving environment is the only place a child can grow.

I feel my goals and activities are shifting to enable this to become real. I need to put my money where my mouth is, as it were.

I’m actively looking at ways to educate/enlighten, and build communities based solely on unconditional love and support. I ache for a world beyond labels, where everyone is simply their unique selves.

I’ve found that most people, especially LGBTI+, long for the same thing, but regard it as nothing more than unachievable dream, and a waste of effort. But if no one even attempts this, how will we ever know?