May 18, 2007  | COMMENTS     

FOR 17 YEARS, PETERSON TOSCANO tried desperately to tame his same-sex attraction. He invested $30,000 in reparative therapy programs, mostly Christian-based, including a two-year stint at the Love in Action residential 12-step ex-gay program in Memphis, Tenn., where he underwent hours of counseling as well as trying to simply “pray the gay away.”

“In the end I was still very gay, but also depressed, isolated and nearly faithless,” he said.

Now a Christian Quaker, Toscano created a one-person comedy about his ex-gay experiences and has presented “Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House” and his other works throughout North America, Europe, West Africa and the Caribbean.

IN SPRING 2005, CHRISTINE Bakke contacted Toscano after attending one of his performances. The two struck a dialogue about their experiences, eventually deciding they wanted to do more to help others like them who “survived” their ex-gay experiences to finally embrace being gay.

The result of their talking is Beyondexgay.com, a website that went online April 2 and shares stories of others who tried to become ex-gay but finally accepted themselves for who they are.

The small, grassroots organization also holds its first conference June 29-July 1 in Irvine, Calif. — the same weekend and location that Exodus International, perhaps the largest ex-gay group, hosts its “Freedom Conference.”

Soulforce, a faith-based group working to end gay-bashing in churches, is funding the Beyondexgay.com conference.

“Our conference is a loving response to their message that to be acceptable to God, one has to change an inherent trait,” Bakke said. She spent more than four years trying to change her sexual orientation, including moving to Denver in 1998 and participating in an ex-gay program affiliated with Exodus.

“[Our conference] is our way to tell ex-gays, ‘You don’t have to do this to yourselves,’” she said.

Toscano, currently in Sweden for the International Day Against Homophobia, said in an e-mail interview he hopes most for healing to develop between the two conferences with radically different agendas.

“Even though most of these ex-gay leaders believe they help people and do so out of a heart of love,” he said, “if they sat down with us and actually heard about the emotional, psychological and spiritual damage we suffered as a result of our time in ex-gay programs and trying to straighten ourselves out, they would hear a story they often deny themselves.”

Exodus International did not return calls seeking comment. In a brochure on its website, the organization says its conference offers hope to “men, women and students who personally struggle with same-sex attractions” and also to parents, family members and friends “impacted by homosexuality.”

BAKKE SAID THAT Beyondexgay.com is the first of its kind — most other ex-gay organizations are watchdog groups.

“Up to this point, the only ex-gay survivor group that existed was a small, almost defunct, Yahoo e-mail list. Ex-Gay Watch has done important work being a watchdog for the ex-gay movement, and I’m thankful they exist,” she said. “But it’s not a place where an ex-gay survivor can go to connect with other survivors, find support and healing, and work through the harm they’ve experienced.”

And it is those who have gone through ex-gay therapies who truly understand others who have done the same.

“From my experience both in and out of the ex-gay movement, I find that no matter how well they try, no one can understand it like another survivor,” Toscano said.

“As survivors get together and answer these questions, we can really make a difference in our own lives and quite possibly impact the ex-gay movement,” he added.