The ex-gay ministry was mentioned last week in class and I stumbled upon this testimony today. I'm researching the woman (an "ex-lesbian" who works for both Exodus International and Focus on the Family) who wrote it for a project and I thought the last part of her story was interesting:
"During my years of restoration, I also began to learn about this thing called womanhood. Goodness! Who knew there was so much to learn: plucking eyebrows, hair bleaches, hair waxings, facial mud masks, eye lash curlers, manicures, pedicures, push-up bras, tummy tuckers, rear-end boosters, last year’s colors, and next year’s fashions?"
In learning to be a woman (since of course being a woman and a lesbian at the same time is completely impossible), these were the most important things. It made me think of how the most threatening part of homosexuality for the boys in "Dude, You're a Fag" was the rejection of masculinity, not gay sex. Gay guys could still be popular and not be called a fag if they were the captain of the football team. Constructing a gender role for this woman was an important part of Exodus's construction of her sexual orientation. After this quote she goes on to say how she started learning about boys next. Only once she had the accepted concept of gender could she move on to the next step of sexuality. You can read the rest of her story here. Other stories on the website are called "Safe as a Woman," "Secure in my Feminine Identity," and "Finding Joy as a Woman."
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