Part 2: Diary of a Gay Baptist Girl
Would ex-gay ministry change me?
In Part 1, I shared feelings of being different from a young age and the eventual anguish of realizing I’m gay. I went through stages of denial, despair, anger, and ambivalence. As my anger shifted to ambivalence, it seemed futile to live up to this God who would allow such a thing to happen to me. Instead of fighting my attractions to women, I pondered pursuing a relationship. At this point, I was a senior at a conservative Baptist college.
Hope (1995)
Despite a desire to affirm a gay identity, I decided to give ex-gay ministry a chance. I still wasn’t convinced that God would bless a relationship with another woman. At the end of 1994, I became involved in one of the nation’s more established ex-gay ministries—Portland Fellowship. My Baptist college counselor referred me there, and a classmate and I made the drive from Salem to Portland to attend each week.
I would spend two years going through the ex-gay curriculum at Portland Fellowship, which addressed alleged childhood wounds, attempts to connect with one’s own gender based on conservative views of masculinity and femininity, and lots and lots of prayer. For awhile, the ex-gay world provided the safe and encouraging space that I needed. It provided hope—for a season—that I could live a normal heterosexual life.
“I went to the Fellowship House on Thursday night. It was great . . . I feel so accepted. It’s so nice to be with people who know what I’m going through . . . A part of me still really wants to get into a relationship. I am torn in two between my desire and doing right. I’ll just take one day at a time. I do like being in the group. I feel right at home” (Jan 28, 1995).
