What’s The Truth About Me?

July 14, 2021

I’ve received feedback that some of my recent statements have confused or angered some people. Specifically, some people seem to have concluded that, as a therapist, I was a sham, a charlatan, and a hypocrite. There is a notion that I've called my past work "bullshit" or "bunk," and that I knew all along that conversion therapy didn't work and that I was engaged in consumer fraud. My intention here is to demonstrate that this is not the case and to provide the truth. By way of explanation, I'll present five interrelated considerations: 1) the historical context in which I began my career, 2) the deceptiveness of sexuality itself, 3) the way I engaged with my clients, 4) the consequences of tenacity, and 5) the process by which my perspective changed.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

During the 1990s, the psychological community was still roiling with discord about sexual orientation. Progressive mental health professionals were adamantly pushing acceptance and affirmation while the old guard was still clinging to decades-old notions and research that viewed homosexuality as a curable disorder. The situation was extremely politicized with professionals on both sides dismissing each other's research and conclusions. Studies showing harms associated with conversion therapy didn't yet exist. So it was easy for conservatives to defend treatments aimed to "cure homosexuality” and to dismiss the "liberal gay agenda" as being anti-science and anti-religion.

It was in this environment that I began my journey as a recipient and later, a practitioner, of "conversion therapy." As a very, very devout Mormon, I was also steeped in religious belief that homosexuality was evil, disordered, and unnatural. And I was certain that God would make a way for me to escape the "horrible" bondage I was in. I was equally certain that God had called me to "liberate" others who wanted to be free of their homosexuality. I was one hundred percent sincere in all of this. That doesn't mean I wasn't wrong. I just means I completely believed I was right.

DECEIVED BY SEXUALITY

The term I use now for people like myself is "flexisexual," which simply means that one is sufficiently bisexual to partner with someone of their non-preferred sex. This is different from being fully bisexual, which implies that you naturally enjoy both sexes. Flexisexual people with high motivation to NOT be gay can easily fool themselves into believing they are going straight. And there are lots of techniques that help flexisexuals sublimate or repress their undesired desires, providing what seems like evidence that, indeed, they are getting straighter and straighter.

Also, most of my daily work with clients was aimed at relieving shame, healing trauma, decreasing obsessive-compulsiveness, and stabilizing lives. I was pretty effective with those issues, so I saw various kinds of progress with most of my clients. As clients felt better, they tended to report that their homosexuality felt weaker. There are various complex explanations for that phenomenon, but it was NOT because they were experiencing sexual orientation change. However, at the time, I saw these improvements as additional evidence that my work was working. And given that clients usually stopped therapy once they felt better, I rarely knew their long-term outcome.

These two phenomena—techniques that repress and the effects of improved mood—deceived me for many years, both about my own orientation and also about my clients outcomes. It is horrifying to me now, and extremely sad, that I was fooled like this. But, considering the historical and religious context of the time, and the seemingly compelling clinical evidence, I understand why I was. Some people might be able to maintain a flexisexual lifestyle indefinitely, but I suspect that it eventually falls apart for most people. For me, it took nearly 34 years to fall apart.

ENGAGEMENT WITH CLIENTS

I was entirely honest with my clients. The best evidence of this is the informed consent paperwork I gave clients, which they had to read and initial section by section. In that document, I was explicit about the controversial nature of sexual orientation change therapy. Clients were told there was no guarantee of orientation change and that all types of therapy can cause distress. They were informed that the American Psychological Association (APA) allowed conversion therapy (at that time) but also that the APA considered homosexuality a natural and normal condition not in need of therapy. I made them aware of research I believed showed beneficial outcomes for conversion therapy and spelled out specific possible outcomes they might experience.

That document also places responsibility on clients to be honest with me. One section reads, "By entering treatment [with me] you acknowledge your desire to change your sexual orientation if possible and you expressly request the help of your therapist in that process." Another section states, "It is important that you feel in control of the direction of your treatment at all times…. [I]t is possible that your desires and goals may change. If so, or if the advice being offered by your therapist violates your convictions or intentions, you agree to notify your therapist at once to re-evaluate the direction of the counseling."

Also, at some point (I don't remember the year) I became aware that some people might be coerced into conversion therapy either consciously (e.g., parents bringing in a child) or unconsciously (e.g., pressure from family or religious leaders). At that point, it became standard practice for me to explore with new clients their reasons for seeking therapy to be sure they were doing it completely under their own volition. I remember four adolescent clients over the years who came to me at their parent's insistence but clearly didn't want conversion therapy. In each case, we either worked on other goals the adolescent set and/or I helped them tell their parents they didn't want the therapy. Never did I knowingly try to work conversion therapy on an unwilling person. Never. To do so would have been both immoral and futile.

MY TENACITY

I don't give up easily once I've set my mind to something. And I was convinced by religion that this "unnatural condition" MUST be changeable—after all, Mormon prophets had said so. And I felt a deep and genuine compassion toward my brothers and sisters who were "struggling with same-sex attraction." That was a mountain of motivation. Plus I had the false evidence of improvement to encourage me. But I also knew that I wasn't as effective as I wanted to be. Orientation change was taking too long, I thought, and it didn't seem to work for everyone. My response was always to look for a better way, undaunted by seeming failure. We can all be grateful that Edison didn't give up on the lightbulb; tenacity is a virtue in society. But it can also lead people astray.

MY PERSPECTIVE CHANGE

So, what actually caused my perspective to change? The suddenness of my "coming out," and all the speculation and accusations of people like Piers Morgan ("You are surely a sham!") may have created the impression that I knew I was a fraud all along and was finally confessing it. The media tended to portray me that way. In reality, the shifts in my perspective came very gradually over many years, influenced by three main sources: 1) the gradual clarification of my own sexuality, 2) the slow accumulation of negative clinical evidence, and 3) the influence of gay-affirming colleagues with perspectives very different from my own. These three sources provided irrefutable evidence that had been lacking earlier in my career.

As the evidence changed, my perspective changed, and my words and work also changed. Thus, 25 years ago I was telling clients that homosexuality was caused by trauma and could be cured through therapy. But seven years ago I publicly stated that homosexuality is not a disorder and therapists should not expect to "cure" it. Then six years ago I told new clients that I wouldn't do conversion therapy with them and they should not expect orientation change to result from working with me. And today I'm helping one of my few remaining clients accept his gayness and relinquish his long-held desire to go straight.

IN CLOSING

You should not construe anything I've said here as a defense of conversion therapy. I wholeheartedly condemn all manifestations of that idea. I also do not intend to justify my mistakes. I take responsibility for them even as I defend that they were mistakes and not willful wrongdoing. Finally, I don't expect any human being to be ahead of their own course in life, to apply knowledge they haven't yet acquired, or to respond with maturity they haven't yet developed. I ask the same consideration for myself.