The term "ex-gay" causes many gay folks bodies to tense and their ready hearing to narrowready to duke it out in an all-out culture war.
It's understandable: The at-large ex-gay community implies that being a self-affirming gay person is undesirable, unnatural and unhealthy. Why would you want to talk aboutlet alone interactwith a population with such beliefs?
This was the question I ran into again and again as I started a series on ex-gays, ex-ex-gays and those who defy categorization but have struggled with reconciling same-sex attractions with their faith.
"Examining the Ex-Gay Community," the series I'm working on, is intended to document, from an objective standpoint, the lives of ex-gays and others touched by the ex-gay community through video interviews, photographs and a written piece.
Such a concept came while at a workshop led by PFLAG staffers at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's equality conference, Creating Change. The two PFLAG employees had gone undercover to a day-long ex-gay program, and their story made me cry. There seemed to be such a strong wall between ex-gay's and gays, and I knew that the only way to break down this wall was by starting conversations.
Through the project, I've broken many assumptionsmostly my own. The main one is that this ex-gay therapy is something that only middle-age single adults with internalized homophobia deal with.
After a series of interviews with folks both young and old who are currently in or have been involved with ex-gay programs, I can disprove this assumption. Ex-gays and ex-ex-gays are young and old, venomously religious and agnostic, college educated and street smart. They live on the East and West coasts, and in Chicago.
The end goal is to look beyond the political issue and see real people: gay, straight, ex-gay, ex-ex-gay, etc., as they form a concrete identity on an atypical path. Before any healing between communities can take place, a dialog must be started. Such a transformative dialogue rarely occurs.
Such a topic is potentially dangerous territory for an out gay man; I've had a few less-than-positive responses, but I find it to be a vital endeavour. I've also sought to befriend and, as a journalist, report upon, communities that make me uncomfortable or angry.
Without stepping into uncomfortable territorystepping out of my bubbleI don't feel that I'm making progress to better understand my world and those who inhabit it. In my opinion, projects like this are vital to allow the LGBT community to do what it so often asks for from others: show compassion, humility and maturity in the face of varying opinions, perspectives and places in their journey of life.
Shedding a gay light on this project, and the likewise conversations it will spark ( both positive and negative ) , are the only way great understanding can happen between LGBT folks and the ex-gay community.
I decided that the best avenue to start such exchanges is straight from the mouth of those directly tied to the community: in the form of video interviews with ex-gays and ex-ex-gays. The final product will manifest itself as an art installation shown at my college, an academic presentation and, ultimately, a website devoted to the project.
With all judgements aside ( on both sides ) , I encourage folks to look at this project, the stories it tells, and start a loving and significant channel that doesn't pick sides ( we already know that the gay community is against ex-gay therapy, anyway ) , but, rather, pushes for what everyone wants, no matter who you are or what your beliefs are: unconditional love. Through it all, no matter how different we think our beliefs are or how angry something makes us, this is truly what everyone is searching for.
"Examining the Ex-Gay Community" officially launches Friday, May 4, with an art installation and a presentation at Columbia College Chicago, and will be ongoing from there.
If you'd like to learn more about the project,or donate to it, visit www.exgay.blairblur.com . You can also contact Blair at blair@blairblur.com .