LGBT researchers, community leaders and activists will join in Philadelphia next month for a conference to address the damaging effects of so-called “ex-gay” therapy.
“Soulforce Symposium: The Truth about Faith, Science, Love and Reparative Therapy” will run from Nov. 5-7 at the Historic Downtown Courtyard by Marriott, 21 N. Juniper St.
Soulforce, which works to end religious and political oppression of LGBT individuals, is holding the event the same weekend that the National Association for Research and Therapy for Homosexuals is hosting its annual conference, this year headquartered at the Renaissance Philadelphia Hotel. NARTH seeks to popularize the idea that gays can be “cured,” and Soulforce executive director Dr. Cyndi Love said her organization’s program seeks in part to examine the root cause of such bodies of thought.
“We felt that, while dealing with the issue of reparative therapy, we wanted to go even deeper and address specifically what makes another human being believe that it’s OK to insist on imposing this idea on someone else,” Love said. “We wanted to bring people together who are working on the root causes of this, which is the whole definition that the appropriate social structure is one that is guided by white men as opposed to one where everybody has an equal voice and protection. While the conference looks at reparative therapy and its effects, it also has an element addressing the roots within religion of patriarchy, misogyny and sexism that are also at the core of this.”
Love said Soulforce was also motivated to act after observing a renewed push with reparative-therapy communities to target younger transgender individuals.
“There’s a very deep concern that, because reparative therapy is having less traction among lesbian and gay people, there’s a real push within the movement to go after people who identify as transgender,” she said. “Young people coming out today are more and more defining themselves as gender-fluid, gender-queer and gender-variant, so there’s a very real concern that if these people are taking great interest in these communities, that puts young people at an even greater risk than they have been in the past.”
The weekend’s events will kick off with a Life Rally at 8:30 p.m. Nov. 5 at Love Park, which will bring special attention to recent LGBT youth suicides and encourage the community to celebrate their identities, Love said. Out Christian singer/songwriter Ray Boltz will perform during the rally, and guests are invited to an after-party at Stir.
Boltz, who came out to his family about six years ago and publicly in 2008, was married to a woman for more than three decades, as he struggled to suppress his sexuality.
“I spent 30 years of my life trying to be straight and doing everything the fundamentalists told me to do,” Boltz said. “I prayed, I read the Bible, I went to counseling, I did everything. But at the end of those 30 years I came to the realization, I guess I’m a slow learner, that this just didn’t work. You can only pretend for so long, and I came to this point in my life where I just felt so overwhelmed and like there was no way out.”
Boltz, who said he considered suicide several times, noted that the recent national attention on LGBT youth suicide makes the timing of the rally and symposium even more appropriate.
“This is the time for us to stand up and be heard. These kids feel alone and feel isolated, like there’s no one else like them and if anyone knew they wouldn’t be accepted, and we need to tell them that’s not true,” Boltz said. “These young people are hearing the same doctrine and dogma I heard that you can change from gay to straight, and I want them to be able to hear another voice, one that says that God loves you the way you are. They need to know that there are people out there who believe that God’s just fine with you the way he created you and that life is worth living.”
Boltz’s current tour, “Living True,” is taking him around the country alongside Azariah Southworth, a 24-year-old Christian television host who made headlines after coming out two years ago, and who will join Boltz at the Life Rally.
“It’s great to see people not just like me who struggled for 30 years, but young people like Azariah who stood up in their 20s and made the same decision that I did,” he said. “Sometimes kids don’t want to hear what a grandfather like me has to say, so I think it’s great that this event is going to offer people of all ages standing up together.”
LGBT ally and Christian pastor Jay Bakker, son of late televangelists Tammy Faye and Jim Baker, will deliver the plenary address Saturday morning.
Workshops will run throughout Saturday at the hotel, and guests will be permitted to leave in the afternoon if they wish to attend the “Lift My Luggage” protest outside the NARTH conference.
The conference discussions will focus on such topics as the intersection of faith and sexual identity, nonviolent resistance, reparative therapy in international public policy and specific tactics used by reparative-therapy agencies. Panelists include local LGBT figures the Rev. Jeffrey Jordan, Gloria Casarez, J. Mason and Kevin Trimmel Jones, as well as national LGBT advocates.
Several survivors of “ex-gay” therapy will also be in attendance to share their personal stories, which Love said may provide the most impactful moments of the weekend.
“Unless you’ve been through it, you don’t actually know the cost of that experience,” Love said. “I think their voices are going to be extremely important because they’ll show the pain and the loss that they’ve been through, but they can also talk about the healthy, effective ways they’ve learned to deal with that and build up their own resistance.”
Love said the messages put forth by the survivors are especially integral for the younger program participants, especially in light of the contrary messages being proclaimed by NARTH several miles away.
“The most important thing is for us to teach our youth and our young adults that they absolutely do not need to agree to participate in something so destructive. When these people tell you that you’re going to lose your family, your home, your church, your community, your friends and, on top of all that, you’re going to hell, that’s a lot for a young person to deal with. They need to see people who’ve not only survived reparative therapy but who were told they had to do it and made that choice to walk away for themselves. Whenever NARTH is in town, they get a tremendous amount of media exposure, and if youth are going to be hearing this message that clearly says it’s not OK for them to be who they are, we must have a counter-message and a space where they can be with people who can show them that they are OK.”
The weekend will wrap up with a dinner featuring out comedian Peterson Toscano. Tickets to the dinner are $35, which also include admission to the workshops. Guests just attending the workshops will be charged $10, and Soulforce is offering free admission for those who can’t afford the tickets.
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.soulforce.org.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].