I'm From Driftwood is a 501(c)(3) non-profit forum for true lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer stories. Earlier this year, founder and Executive Director Nathan Manske and two companions successfully completed a four-month, 50-state Story Tour collecting LGBTQ stories from towns and cities across the country. They're pulling some of the most relevant, important and sometimes just enjoyable stories from their archives and sharing them with HuffPost Gay Voices.
When Daniel was 15 years old, he went home to find his parents sitting on the couch and his mother crying. They asked him the question many gay teens fear: "Are you gay?"
"What? No. What are you talking about? I'm not gay." They were like, "We found some stuff on the computer." They found out where I'd been talking, like gay.com and other sites trying to reach out to other youth. I finally got up enough courage, and I was like, "OK, yeah, Mom and Dad, I'm gay."
After initially telling Daniel that they were OK with it, his parents gave him an ultimatum.
"There are two options here. One, you can either leave right now. Just get your stuff and go. Or two, we're going to enroll you into a Christian school and you're going to go see this psychiatrist." I chose Option Two.
Option Two included seeing an ex-gay therapist three times a week for over three years. His therapy included being shown lots of straight porn and encouragement to masturbate to girls.
I would just tell him what he wanted to hear, like, "Yeah, she has a pretty face, she has pretty...," you know, whatever, whatever I thought he might like to hear.
Daniel's last day of porn therapy finally came. After Daniel told the doctor he had masturbated to girls, his parents were brought in for the good news from the doc.
He brought my parents in and was like, "I think your son is going to be OK now. I think that it's worked and your son is straight now. There's not going to be any trouble. If you have any questions, here's my business card." It was basically, "OK, my job is done, thanks for the check."
At the end of the entire experience, Daniel is left wondering how on Earth this type of so-called therapy still exists.
I just can't believe that someone would actually try to do that to someone, especially with the Medical Association now saying it's harmful for people to do this stuff. If your brain is wired one way, you can't change it to be another.
WATCH:
Submit your own story at ImFromDriftwood.com.
Follow Nathan Manske on Twitter: www.twitter.com/imfromdriftwood
Wayne Besen: The Top 10 Ex-Gay Stories of 2011
They were going to kick a 15-year-old out of the house to survive on his own.
That's Christian Family Values for ya.
What part of that is being "okay with it?" As for being "Christian," these parents know nothing about unconditional love. THEY'RE the ones who need some serious therapy. With a REAL therapist.
Children are God's greatest gifts of love to people. If you're lucky enough to have a child come into your life, it's like God is saying, "I trust you to take care of and nurture this precious creature." I have been blessed with such gifts seven times in my life --- three biological children, two foster children, two adopted children. They're all adults now and most days, I forget which are which.
And I'm a gay dad. When I hear those beasts from Westboro Baptist Church shout things like "God hates f a g s", I shrug it off because I know that God sure doesn't hate THIS f a g, I've got seven reasons that tell me I'm very loved and blessed.
My own parents and I never discussed my sexual orientation, and I've wondered why. Part of it may be that I grew up in a time and place where generations in families just didn't talk about sex much. I married a couple of times, and I remember my mother saying, both times, "Are you SURE you want to do this." She had to have known, but whaddya gonna do? A kid's an adult, he has the right to make his own decisions. for better or worse. All a parent can do is just give them unconditional love, hard as it may be to do that sometimes..
It's definitely extremely weird talking about anything gay related with them, but...at least I'm not getting disowned like I thought I was? ha But, if nothing else, it does give me hope for the future... because, lets face it, if my ultra-conservative, ulta-Southern Baptist parents can at least tolerate it...who knows what can happen.
Did his parents ever accept him as gay?
its a movie too
But I'm a Cheerleader