#Coming Out Ministries

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eliel Cruz for Teen Vogue:

When I was a teenager in the early aughts, conversion therapists reigned supreme in evangelical Christian spaces, spewing pseudo-scientific techniques as a supposed “remedy” for LGBTQ identities. Growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist church and school system, LGBTQ identities were vilified and demonized at the pulpit and in our classrooms. The answer to our sexualities, according to the church, was to deny ourselves love or a partner, stay celibate, or to work on “changing” our sexuality so that we were no longer queer. There were groups and conferences with self-proclaimed “ex-gay” speakers providing testimonies about how they “overcame” their sexuality and therapists eager to “help” others pursue the same path.

According to a Williams Institute report, 7% of LGB adults ages 18 to 59 in the United States have undergone conversion therapy. About 81% of those individuals were in “therapy” with religious leaders, which heightened suicidal thoughts and ideation in comparison to LGB people who have not gone through conversion “therapy” practices. Across the globe, these numbers fluctuate between 2% all the way up to 34% of LGBTQ+ people having undergone conversion practices. By the mid-2010s, these groups and their influence began to dwindle as national organizations like Exodus International, one of the longest-running and largest ex-gay organizations, shuttered its doors after 37 years, admitting that not only did conversion or reparative therapy not work, it was harmful to the LGBTQ people subjected to it. Former Exodus International President Alan Chambers said: "I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn't change,” admitting his own attractions to men had not gone away, despite being married to a woman and having children.

The closing of Exodus International signaled the end of a decades-long push for ex-gay therapy, or so it would seem. But in recent years, as legislation has passed across the country to ban conversion therapy for youth, a new push for so-called “change therapy” has re-emerged with the same flawed premise and tactics of the ex-gays of old. A group called Changed Movement, formed in response to legislation banning conversion therapy in California, is one such group using new language to promote the same-old conversion therapy. Conversion or reparative therapy, loosely defined, is any attempt to influence and change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Often, these counselors blame trauma or violence, family dynamics, or your upbringing as the root of the deviant sexuality or gender identity. Changed Movement shares stories of individuals blaming these roots as the cause of their sexuality or gender. This assertion is false and only serves to shame the individual, often for reasons beyond their control. Importantly, ex-gay groups like the Changed Movement do not seem to reckon with the fluidity of sexuality and gender and, as proponents of this ideology typically do, seemingly view things as either gay or straight, trans or cisgender.

[...] In a report by the Trevor Project, researchers found at least 1,320 conversion therapy practitioners in almost all 50 states, including states with active conversion therapy bans for minors. Almost half of those counselors are unlicensed, and most are attached to some sort of religious ministry. While couching their language and pretending to be there to help LGBTQ people, the danger of these groups and practitioners cannot be understated.

Recently, an ex-gay group called Coming Out Ministries bought a building across from my alma mater, Andrews University, a Seventh-day Adventist University, intending to “work closely” with the university on LGBTQ issues “from a redemptive perspective.” Groups like Changed Movement and Coming Out Ministries see LGBTQ young people’s identities as “confusion” instead of who they are intrinsically. Their ideology stems from a theological understanding of sexuality that does not take into account science or the world as it exists around them. Anti-LGBTQ theology fuels conversion therapy, and it’s not only flawed but also inherently harmful and violent. As a queer person of faith, I reject theology and religious practices that cause harm, as it is not from God. The history and devastating impacts of ex-gay practices are clear in the irreparable damage it has caused to large swathes of the LGBTQ community raised in religious settings.

Eliel Cruz writes in Teen Vogue the changing history of anti-LGBTQ+/anti-trans medical pseudoscience practice of conversion therapy.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

actually I think the thing about being a youth leader is that 25% of it is teaching about God, 25% is playing fun games, and more than that though 50% of it is making a safe space for kids to be. not to try and make them believe, not so they'll be open or anything. just. a 100% no stakes, safe place for them to just BE. whatever else comes after that. and I don't just mean physically safe, two-adults-in-the-room-at-all-times, et cetera. I mean emotionally safe. I mean not hitting them over the head with scripture, not trying to help them feel better or any particular way. just... a no-judgment, emotionally safe place to exist as kids.

[deepdeanvsweston]

Ever such a slight vent but honestly have such a weird disconnect between the Murder Most Unladylike series (my special/focused interest) and The Ministry Of Unladylike Activity series (a book series I enjoy but isn't a special interest)

They're both set in the same universe, but it feels different. My excitement goes up 📈 when I read about characters from the original series, but then sort of flatlines the moment it's back to MayEricNuala plot which leads to weird rollercoaster emotions on a whole because I'm going from SPECIAL INTEREST MODE to just reading a book and then back through the cycle again ugh. And then it gets too much and I begin to actively not like the book,,,

Don't get me wrong I do like the book!!! But yeah reading TMUA to MMU is def a different experience for me

[tommarvoloriddlesdiary]

I started following you because I read and loved 'like a parasite' as well as your Ministry of Magic AU snippets

i’m 😭😭😭😭😭 you are so so nice 🫂🫂🫂🫂 it’s outrageous that you say this because i’m extremely obsessed with all your work and cannot fathom this reality - but thank you 🥹🥹🥹

[greenerteacups]

Ok. First of all, I am obsessed with Lionheart. You are amazing and I could sing your praises for hours. However, I have a question regarding Wolfstar. Your fic was actually the first time I came across that ship. (I know now it's really popular). However, I would love to hear more about your thoughts on Remus and Sirius. Whether it's canon or your interpretation of them. I always found Tonks and Remus to be a strange couple in the HP books. Was that your impression as well? How do you think a romantic relationship between the two characters changes them, if it does at all? Thanks!

Totally! Thanks for the ask!

I think Remus and Tonks getting together suffers from the same thing that a lot of canon relationships do, i.e., that JKR doesn't really know how to write romantic chemistry. There are very few times in the books where it feels like there's genuine sexual or romantic tension happening on the page. So that's layer 1.

Layer two is that Remus and Tonks aren't themselves on the page for most of Books 5-7, so their "love story," as such, is 90% exposition. The only scenes we get of them as a couple are Tonks scolding Remus for not dating her and Remus guiltily shooting her down. It also seems out of character for Remus, who is defined in many ways by his attachment to the past and who has been living out of Sirius's pockets for two years, to show little or no apparent grief at the death of his best friend of twenty years, not to mention one of the last people alive who loved James Potter. Harry grieves Sirius more than Lupin seems to, and Harry knew Sirius for about five minutes compared to Lupin. That's not to say that grief always looks the same — it's different, and I'm sure Lupin compartmentalized it for the war effort — but it should, in theory, stop you from jumping into a high-intensity relationship with your dead best friend's niece. (If you look at the timeline on Tonks and Lupin's relationship vis-a-vis Sirius's death, it is absolutely wild.)

The Wolfstar in Lionheart is subtle, but as overt as I thought was realistic for two men who hadn't seen each other in years and are also, by necessity, only seen by the reader in the presence of their thirteen-year-old godson. I wanted to capture the energy of "closeted on-again off-again lovers in the 70s and 80s before having a VERY messy breakup" (which, believe it or not, is a broader demographic than you'd think), both because I think it's a fun way to write them (the vibes! the possessiveness! the old-married-couple meets shy-first-relationship of it all!) and because it explains why Lupin is totally alone before Prisoner of Azkaban — in particular, why he never made an effort to contact Harry. It's hard enough to be a closeted man in Britain in the 1980s; throw in a case of lycanthropy and an insane amount of personal trauma, and what you've got on your hands is the kind of guy who'd go totally radio silent on everyone he knows for 13 straight years.

[faithfromanewperspective]

Religious hurt, ministry burnout and all in between set to 5sos5 // Prologue: You don’t go to parties

I realise this is a rather strange thing to do, what I’m doing. I realise most listeners to songs don’t apply them to the things that I do. But I went through a lot, and this album is like none I’ve heard before: it celebrates and laments and everything in between the power of simple human connection and I won’t lie: it changed my life. It gave me back the pieces and tools to take my life back from a rogue machine of parts that was sucking me dry yet I couldn’t find head or tail of nor differentiate it from the hand that was feeding me, keeping me alive. In some ways, I owe it nothing: the $19.99 I fully paid on my debit card to iTunes that probably gave the four dear humans who created this album maybe a dollar each. In some ways I owe it everything. And so this letter is for you, the strange conglomeration of fandom and random humans I’ve connected to and who don’t know my face or my real name but I enjoy baring my whole heart to. It’s the mark of an artist I suppose. It’s the early symptoms of the fever dreams that allow practical neighbours with my childhood to come up with the visceral imagery that makes up these masterpieces: four voices, and a handful of instruments. I don’t have something nearly as brand-new and original, but this is my voice. And this is how YDGTP gave back my life.

Picture this: it’s 5am. Somewhere, certainly not where I am, but it might as well be when I’m far too tired for 10, 11pm when I’m barely over 20. I’m feeling stuck, overwhelmed, unable to go home, clock off, head to bed. I’d say I’m on my couch but that’s an optimistic statement to assume I have the ability to make it to something soft to lay down my head. I don’t even own a couch.

I’m supposedly somewhere that’s home to me, but if I had any sense in my head I’d kick me out. Out to where? I have no idea.

I wouldn’t even admit it to myself then, but I knew somewhere that I was happiest when I got up before the sun. 5am, after seven to eight hours of sleep. Maybe more, when I’m so tired and drained. In the early hours of the morning (and I feel like I’m betraying this song by saying it) before the world has risen with its expectations, if I can get my life together then, I’m prepared for when I have to interact and feel their energy. I’m also prepared to get my needs met, which they obviously aren’t, or I wouldn’t still be here now.

How am I feeling? Don’t get me started on that. I’m starving, empty, longing for something I haven’t felt satiated in for quite a while. Longing for a bygone time that wasn’t any good, because if I could go back now I could do better with the information I have now. And yet, the world is moving past, the people from that era drifting further and further away. Whatever it is I’m holding my breath for, is starting to feel like I’m waiting at an intersection where the gaps between the cars are getting smaller and smaller and each time I see one I could maybe go in I don’t. I wish I had gone in the previous one, because it was much safer compared to this. That’s basically what my life’s like. I’ve got the last five years running out my mouth. Won’t you relive it with me? Won’t you fix them with me?

Because I still think about the times we were heavy. It sucked, but at least there was connection, something that I’ve run completely dry on now. Racehorse tripping on the dirt that you’ve got on me. I never felt included, loved, but sometimes being insulted is just as good as it means I’m part of the gang. They don’t do that anymore: is it because I’m too fragile now, or because they’ve moved on from me? Vulture circling above of what’s left of me. Because I’m a carcass in the hot sun, at least that’s how I feel. Slowly, not slowly at all actually, rotting.

We go stupid every night, and it was meant to be fun. But.

What a tragedy. Because I’m still here in the darkness, back where we started. It set everyone else up to move on, why can’t I? Everyone else goes home and goes to bed and doesn’t suffer the consequences of the night disabling them forever, going back to the start again and again and re-living it and changing what they’d do because I know better now than I did then, time ticking by me and getting more and more behind. I can’t help the fact that I’m behaving the way that I am.

You make me a heartless monster.

So set this to a fun beat and go dance. Everyone I ever knew is standing in my house. (Are they real, or are they ghosts of people I feel like I failed, when I was never given the resources to be everything they needed?) Maybe I’ll be alright, maybe I’ll be able to put together whatever makes me feel better, maybe, maybe, I said as I invited them, filling up my heart again and again with relational one-night stands and superficial connection just to feel the high for a little while, it’s kept me going for decades. Kept me moving so I can forget that I had it the way I liked it once and I never appreciated it, I didn’t know that I had to. I didn’t know how much it meant until I lost it. I thought I was just fielding distractions, fatal attractions, but maybe the only attraction that was fatal was the one to the world of ableism and the solutions that they said worked for them when I know I need more connection than this superficial world, even one that says they worship something else, lives for something more, can offer. I wonder who I’m looking for.

But you got out. You don’t go to parties anymore.

It’s easier to get manic than depressed sometimes, maybe because I’m already depressed and I learned from young to act like I’m not feeling it. To think of others, think of ways I can help, prioritise hope and isn’t this what I’m doing here? Working towards solutions, why oh why did it go so badly? So I focus on the ideas, I let them stack up in my brain like a tap that’s running at full blast into a tiny plastic cup and when it drowns me just for a little while I get high and life is exciting and come up with good ideas of the world I imagine could be where I’m not alone, up in the clouds I’m not the only one dreaming of this dream. All my friends are up on mars. We’ve been travelling. It’s such a simple explanation and so exciting and it’s exactly how I should be feeling when I’m pouring myself out into something I care so much about, something centred on helping people, as if in a divinely inspired book we have all the solutions for all the world when we read it through a lens of science and adaptive management that constantly re-evaluates the fruits of what we’re doing and doesn’t let silly traditions that sap our energy get in our way. Shoot for mars. Why, oh why, does no one else stand with me here? Why am I still longing for that kind of teamwork, belonging, purpose?

So I lost my limit. It’s hard to find it when I’m so perpetually starved for the thing I need, that I try to make sure everyone around me gets. I’m dumb and I’m passionate. I care. And what’s the sacrifice of one person in the scheme of things? It’s not an accident. I was the one who took my foot up off the brake. Another lonely night.

It’s easier to put a smile on my face and go through the motions to this happy beat, yearning, pouring out the passion and love I wish I received on others.

Fill it with the best country drum solo I ever heard.

And remember where I am. Longing for connection. Where are you? Where is the one who I’m looking for?

But I know. You don’t go to parties anymore.

And that’s why I need to leave.

[thatstudyblrontea]

'The riot is inside us. The war is inside us. [...] It will never settle down. It can't.' Aftab desperately wanted to contradict her, to tell her she was dead wrong, because he was happy, happier than he had ever been before. He was living proof that Nimmo Gorakhpuri was wrong, was he not? But he said nothing, because it would have involved revealing himself as not being a 'normal people', which he was not yet prepared to do.

Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

[wherela]

It appears I'm on my way to become a youth leader. I completely wouldn't have expected this, but God works in mysterious ways I guess

[heyitswolfman]

Me going to the movies for the first time in months and watching the previews: why is Henry Cavill in another WWII era movie?

*sees that Guy Ritchie is directing it*: ah well there it is

[himbovillain-anon]

My brain cells: You’ve been dead for ages you should be focusing on making a proper comeback post

Me: joke about how the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare is going to awake some DEMONIC shit in my mutuals 👀

[navramanan]

I'm so angry i'm so so unbelievalby angry.

[hollyberriess]

still thinking about how Robin Stevens killed a literal 7 year old child in ministry of unladylike activity... I'm so scared for The Body in The Blitz

[t4tstarvingdog]

nothing like a father. well.

[augustdementhe]

Maaaaaaaaaaan...arena venues are something fuckin else.

I'm glad I went, but I came so close to just falling down the hill whenever I got up to dance.

Also, whoever's doing Uncle Alice Cooper's camerawork needs to practice more, because god DAMN....it was bad.

[sellingpoison]

ok i did what my therapist suggested today and went out to an lgbt safe event and ended up having a great time! all those posts on here about having convos with lgbt people irl are right like this is an important experience for us to have as there are so many different perspectives on life. and also since it's in person there is no misconstrued tone or guilting applied to it. it was so comforting and significant for me to have this experience with other queer people. i live in an area where i don't ever get to talk about gay things and i often have to hide myself out of discomfort, but it was the first time i genuinely felt good about myself in public. maybe healing is the right word to describe that feeling

[witches-and-windchimes]

You'd think a religious group famous for their thoroughness with their minutes would actually take the time to read them every so often