San Francisco is known for its dreary, foggy mornings, but on January 20, the sky was almost black as unseasonably heavy rain soaked the city. The rain had been falling for almost the entirety of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial, the federal challenge to California’s Proposition 8, which revoked the right of same-sex couples to marry in that state. A week into the landmark trial – which is expected to reach the Supreme Court and could have sweeping repercussions regarding the constitutionality of state amendments banning same-sex marriage – a 26- year-old Coloradan took the stand to tell his story. Though he spent just 30 minutes on the stand, the story he told was perhaps the most heart-wrenching of any presented during three weeks of testimony. That man was Ryan Kendall, a Colorado Springs native, and he had been contacted by the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) to testify about the harm of reparative therapy, also known as “ex-gay ministry.” But unlike most of the other 16 witnesses presented by the plaintiffs, Kendall wasn’t an expert academic speaking to the theoretical harm that comes from anti-gay bias. Instead, he was another type of expert – a survivor of ex-gay ministry. Kendall was 13 years old when his fundamentalist, evangelical Christian parents discovered that their son was gay by reading his private journal. He was in the shower when his parents stumbled across the journal, and he says that they immediately began screaming at him, telling him he was eternally damned to hell. He was so frightened that he ran away from home for the night. He had no way of knowing that this was just the beginning of his struggle. “My parents took me to a Christian therapist first,” Kendall explains. “It was really uncomfortable to be confronted with the fact that you were being rejected by your family and your faith.” When Kendall and his therapist weren’t able to pray away the gay, his parents turned to Focus on the Family, where they were referred to the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). NARTH purportedly offers a more “scientific” approach to curing homosexuality. According to its Web site, “NARTH’s primary goal is to make effective psychological therapy available to all homosexual men and women who seek change.” Kendall spent two years under NARTH’s treatment, including time at NARTH’s treatment center in California and weekly telephone therapy sessions with Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, who was, at the time, the organization’s president. “I was being told every day that I was abhorrent, that I was evil, that I was bad, and that God hated me,” Kendall says. “My parents’ rejection was so intense – they were verbally and emotionally abusive.” He stopped attending the NARTH sessions when he was 16, but his abusive home life continued. One night, Kendall’s father locked him in a basement room and forced him to watch videos from Focus on the Family about the evils of LGBT people. That night, Kendall climbed out the basement window and ran away from home. Within a matter of weeks, he had turned himself in to the state, and dependency and neglect proceedings were initiated against his parents, which resulted in the revocation of their parental rights. He was 16. “I lost the whole world I had,” says Kendall. “I had no support network, no parents to look out for me. I had this fundamental belief that something was wrong with me and I wasn’t loveable, so I hated myself and my life, and I went off the deep end.” Kendall went through periods of homelessness and heavy drug use. Although he was no longer attending therapy, NARTH’s message had gotten into his psyche. “It was a constant assault on me as a person and on this worldview that I had,” says Kendall. “That kind of level of rejection and demonizing – I internalized it for a while, so my life was very, very dark.” Kendall moved to Denver when he was 20 years old, and slowly began creating a new life for himself. Today, he works with the Denver Police Department as an agent for the National Crime Information Center, which includes an elevated security clearance through the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, and is the former chair of the Mayor’s GLBT Commission. Moving to a larger, more LGBT-friendly city helped Kendall find the strength to speak out about the harms of reparative therapy. As is often the case, more metropolitan, densely populated areas have a higher concentration of LGBT people, making it easier to find safe spaces, allies and friends. Christine Bakke is one person making Denver a safer place for ex-gay survivors like Kendall. Bakke, a 38-year-old artist and graphic designer, is the co-founder of BeyondExGay.com, an online community for those who have survived reparative treatments. Bakke is intimately familiar with the extent to which some people will go to be “cured” of their homosexuality. In 1998, Bakke moved from Santa Cruz, Calif., to Denver to attend an ex-gay ministry that had a women’s program, a rare characteristic in the ex-gay movement. After seeing a slew of ads from anti-gay “treatment programs” like Focus on the Family and Exodus International the previous year, Bakke went willingly to therapy, as she believed that she couldn’t have a relationship with God and be a lesbian. In addition to religiously oriented ex-gay ministry and support groups, Bakke attended reparative therapy sessions, sought out books on changing her orientation, attended conferences and even underwent deliverance, a religious ceremony that many, she says, liken to an exorcism. For a time, Bakke thought her orientation was, in fact, changing. But while she could look at a man in her church and recognize that he might make a good husband, she wasn’t attracted to men in the same way she was to women. “I just shut down my whole sexual side of myself,” explains Bakke. “I shut down my creativity. I shut down so many things.” Whenever she felt her attraction to women resurface, she delved deeper into the ex-gay ministry, absorbing herself in prayer, repenting and convincing herself that her attraction was a consequence of straying from God. After five years of ex-gay ministry, Bakke began seeing signs that change wasn’t possible. In 2000, then-board-chair of Exodus International, John Paulk, was caught in a gay bar in Washington, D.C. “I kept looking at people around me and realizing they weren’t changing,” Bakke explains. “They married their best friend, but then they would still talk about how they couldn’t go to Cheesman Park [a Denver park popular with gay men]. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not change. That’s not change as I would define it.’” Ex-gay ministries preach orientation change, but as Bakke discovered, what these programs actually teach is behavior modification. And although Bakke had been out prior to seeking ex-gay therapy, she had never been romantically involved with anyone – so she had no behavior to change. “When I understood that they weren’t talking about [changing] orientation, it was really devastating to me,” Bakke says. “It was a huge blow, because I’d invested so much of my life – I’d moved and started over in my career – so I ended up pulling back from everything.” Bakke had always been religious, but stopped going to church after her counseling pastor said that God told him their counseling time was through. “I was living this shell of an existence of denial,” says Bakke. Eventually, Bakke found the Gay Christian Network (GCN), which allowed her to express her confusion in an understanding environment. Although she no longer identifies as Christian, Bakke credits GCN with helping her move forward from the harm done by ex-gay ministries. “Some good things came out of the exgay therapy,” Bakke concedes. “But it’s kind of like saying ‘Oh, I’m so glad I had a car wreck because I got my car repainted.’ There are other ways to go about dealing with things you need to deal with in your life.” Indeed, the contention that homosexuality is the result of childhood trauma, sexual abuse or a dysfunctional parental relationship is a common theme throughout ex-gay ministries and therapies. NARTH’s position statements claim that “early sexual experiences with an older, same-sex person are commonly reported by our homosexual clients. And some studies do suggest that such experiences may be more common among homosexuals than heterosexuals; in proportion to their numbers, that is, homosexuals may be more likely to sexually abuse a same-sex minor.” That theory didn’t apply to Daniel Gonzales, now 29 and living in Denver, who sought reparative therapy treatment through NARTH. Gonzales was 18 and attending Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo when he sought out NARTH’s help to overcome his samesex attractions. He chose NARTH because he’d been raised in the American Baptist Church and hadn’t found any relief in praying to be straight, so NARTH’s “scientific” approach of cognitive talk therapy appealed to his logical side. Gonzales came out to his parents when he was 18, after reading Nicolosi’s book on the efficacy of reparative therapy. “The exact words I used,” Gonzales explains, “were, ‘I am, but don’t want to be, homosexual.’” A week later, he signed himself into Nicolosi’s treatment, initially attending therapy sessions at Nicolosi’s home office in Ventura, Calif., where Gonzales and his family also lived. “Nicolosi was somewhat skeptical that I had never been molested,” recalls Gonzales. “Or that my parents weren’t divorced, or that laundry list of predictable things that they say makes you gay – none of those really applied to me. ... But I told [Nicolosi] that I’d sat down and read his book, and it applied to me, and I was already sold.” Gonzales spent roughly a year and a half in treatment with Nicolosi. Eventually, he says, they “ran out of things to talk about,” and Gonzales left treatment. After another 18 months of identifying as asexual, Gonzales was ready to come out – again – as gay. He is currently an architect, a blogger for The Denver ELEMENT, a local gay men’s organization, and an outspoken activist against reparative therapy. Through his activism, Gonzales has been able to process ˜his experience and move forward. Kendall, Bakke and Gonzales are only a small sample of ex-gay survivors. And, in truth, they are the lucky ones. They have been able to come out of the ex-gay movement to lead mostly happy, healthy lives. Others are not so lucky. While NARTH, Focus on the Family, Exodus International and similar organizations argue that homosexuality is changeable, all major medical and psychological organizations have concluded that reparative therapy is not effective and is, in fact, harmful. “[Reparative therapy] is legitimizing people’s personal animus or bias against GLBT people by saying this is a disorder, this is a sickness, this is sinful, this can be cured,” says Kendall. “It legitimizes people saying, ‘Oh, I can treat you like crap because there’s something wrong with you.’ It flies in the face of science and reality.” The overwhelming majority of scientific, peer-reviewed studies have concluded that reparative therapy and ex-gay ministry simply do not work. The American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, National Association of Social Workers, National Education Association and several other groups have condemned reparative therapy as ineffective. What’s more, as early as 1998, the APA issued the following statement regarding the harm done by reparative therapy: “The potential risks of ‘reparative therapy’ are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient.” For those considering reparative therapy for themselves or a loved one, Kendall, Bakke and Gonzales all echo the same sentiment: Seek help from a licensed professional who is not associated with the ex-gay movement. While mental health issues may be present, they are not connected to sexual orientation. Trying to change one’s inherent identity will only complicate and exacerbate existing issues. If a loved one has already entered reparative therapy, Gonzales suggests following his mother’s example of quiet, unconditional support. “Don’t tell people [the treatment] won’t work,” explains Gonzales. “Because when they realize it doesn’t work, they’re going to be mad at you – they aren’t going to admit you were right. Make sure they know that you’re there, no matter what. Gently encourage them to look at testimony of both sides.” Then follow through and support them – no matter what. At press time, a federal district court decision was still pending in the Proposition 8 trial. However, it’s Kendall’s hope that his testimony – and the countless other stories like his – can bring a human face to the debate and that such true-life accounts will be the key to reality’s triumph over textbook rhetoric in this exceedingly human issue. ¦