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Ex-gay

The Afterlife of Gabriel Arana's Ex-Gay Life

E.J. GraffApr 25, 2012

Like thousands of you, I was absolutely gobsmacked by my editor Gabriel Arana's piece, "My So-Called Ex-Gay Life." If it hadn't run into here first, I would have linked to it. Of course, there was the heartbreaking and finally uplifting personal story that took us through the social history of antigay "therapy." But what astonished me was the courage he had to actually report out the story, calling and talking to the key players who made "reparative therapy" intellectually respectable enough that caring parents like the Arana's would search it out and sign up their son, truly believing that they were doing the right thing. 

Exporting the Anti-Gay Movement

How sexual minorities in Africa became collateral damage in the U.S. culture wars

Rev. Dr. Kapya KaomaApr 24, 2012
(Brian Stauffer)

In October 2010, a banner headline ran on the front page of the Ugandan newspaper Rolling Stone: “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos Leak.” Subheadings warned of these people’s dark designs: “We Shall Recruit 1,000,000 Kids by 2012,” and “Parents Now Face Heartbreaks as Homos Raid Schools.” One of the two men pictured on the front page was David Kato, an outspoken leader of Uganda’s small human-rights movement. Inside the newspaper, his name and home address, along with those of other LGBT Ugandans, were printed. The article called for the “homos” to be hanged. 

My So-Called Ex-Gay Life

A deep look at the fringe movement that just lost its only shred of scientific support.

Gabriel AranaApr 11, 2012
(Brian Stauffer)

Early in my freshman year of high school, I came home to find my mom sitting on her bed, crying. She had snooped through my e-mail and discovered a message in which I confessed to having a crush on a male classmate.

“Are you gay?” she asked. I blurted out that I was. 

“I knew it, ever since you were a little boy.”