**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**
Monday, February 6, 2012
Online Survey Launched to Spotlight the Damage of Reparative “Therapy” and Ex-Gay Ministries.
Ex-Gay Survivors, let your voices be heard!
Dr. Jallen Rix of BeyondExGay.com seeks participants in a new survey of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people who endured therapies designed to change their orientation and gender differences.
"In order to gather details about the often harmful effects of reparative therapy, ex-gay theories, and the plight of thousands of people who received these treatments, we want to hear directly from them.” says Rix, a sexologist who earlier in his life submitted to programs and religious counselors that promised to change him from gay to straight. The survey is available through www.BeyondExGay.com, a web support group for "Ex-Gay Survivors."
"While every major medical association has denounced the treatments as ineffectual and potentially harmful, providers of the treatments persist in their practices," says Peterson Toscano, co-founder of BeyondExGay.com who spent 17 years and over $30,000 on three continents attempting to suppress and change his sexual orientation and gender differences. "News that Michelle Bachman's husband runs a client that offers gay-to-straight therapy got reporters talking about 'those wacky treatments,' but the many people who have survived the psychological and religious torture provide firsthand testimony of the harm they experienced and the work needed to reclaim their lives.
Christine Bakke-O’Neill, a lesbian who received 5 years of ex-gay treatment and the co-founder of Beyond Ex-Gay, says, "Along with this survey we are introducing creative new ways for Ex-Gay Survivors to receive peer support and share resources to help recover from all types of conversion therapy."
In the past ten years leaders of the ex-gay movement have repeatedly asserted that ‘thousands’ of people have been cured of their homosexuality yet never provide any statistical evidence to back their assertions. "We know from experience that the vast majority of people who receive these treatments ultimately realize these leaders offer false promises and misleading information. Survivors can now go on record to state that 'change' was not possible or necessary and pursuing it caused damage." say Rix, who notes that the anonymous participants of the survey will have the opportunity to share details about the type of treatments they received, why they desired change, the outcomes they experienced, and methods they discovered to undo any damage.
All those who attempted to alter their orientation or gender differences through the aid of one of these programs, a religious counselor, or on their own are urged to take the survey and tell others about it. Go to: http://svy.mk/bxgsurvey.