What’s in a name?

Would “reparative therapy” pass public scrutiny easier if wrapped in a warm and fuzzy blanket and smothered under some shady PR spin?

Would a concentration camp be a pretty place if it had a view of the Adriatic Sea or would it have been picturesque if nestled somewhere on the Monaco coastline? Unanimous no. Right?

In this world we have euphemisms aplenty. For example: somebody isn’t in an insane asylum, they are institutionalised.

Another example: “reparative therapy” is offered to those with “unwanted same-sex attraction”. Note that the adherents of this ideology do not believe that people are actually gay but suffer from some affliction despite the fact the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of official diseases and disorders in 1973.

I was thus unfazed when I received a very amicable email from an organisation that offers “reparative therapy” under the guise of a fluffy new image.

My letter with the very amicable letter I received hereunder:

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From:   Cobus Fourie

To:       New Living Way Ministry

Dear Mr Bekker

Thank you for your communique.

We note the more positive attitude of the organisation. Thank you for the welcoming nature of the letter.

I have to vehemently disagree with the aspect of the organisation that will deal with treating "unwanted same-sex attraction" though.

Basically every reputable medical (psychological/psychiatric) organisation has denounced so-called "reparative therapy" in the strongest terms. Below excerpts from leaders in the field of psychiatry:

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In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM and declared that it is not a disease of any kind. The American Psychological Association and various other medical associations followed suit not long after.

In 1997/1998 and again in 2000 the American Psychiatric Association denounced “Reparative Therapy” saying inter alia:

“[There] is no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of reparative therapy as a treatment to change ones sexual orientation”

“The potential risks of reparative therapy are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behaviour”

“Therefore, the American Psychiatric Association opposes any psychiatric treatment, such as reparative or conversion therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her sexual homosexual orientation.”

http://www.psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionStatements/200001.aspx

http://www.psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionStatements/200001a.aspx

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The South African Society of Psychiatrists (SASOP) has issued the following position statements:

“SASOP Position Statement on Homosexuality

SASOP acknowledges that in the past, use of diagnostic systems that classified homosexuality as a disorder, may have caused patients distress. SASOP actively distances itself from this previously held position and endorses the equality clauses in the present constitution.

SASOP endorses the stance of the American Psychiatric Association that homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgement, stability, reliability, or general social, vocational capabilities or increased psychopathology. (The APA removed homosexuality as a mental disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1973 after reviewing evidence that revealed it did not fit necessary criteria to be categorized as a mental illness.) SASOP undertakes to do all that is possible to decrease the stigma related to homosexuality wherever and whenever it may occur.

SASOP opposes any psychiatric treatment such as "reparative" or "conversion" therapy designed to change a person's sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual and supports the opinion of the APA that "there is no scientific evidence that reparative or conversion therapy is effective in changing a person's sexual orientation. There is, however, evidence that this type of therapy can be destructive." In fact reparative therapy runs the risk of harming patients by causing depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior...

SASOP recognizes that bias-related incidents such as acts of violence or harassment, arising from anti-gay and lesbian prejudice are widespread in society and continue to be a source of individual suffering and trauma. These incidents result in emotional and physical trauma for individuals, as well as stigmatization of affected groups. SASOP deplores such bias-related incidents and encourages its own member psychiatrists to take appropriate actions in helping to prevent such events, as well as to respond actively in treating the victims of such events.”

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I thus have to implore you to rather focus on the positive aspects of your organisational goals (which I welcome) and to refrain from possible destructive "therapies" however well-intentioned.

Feel free to write us to debate these issues.

Kind regards

--
Cobus Fourie
Board Member

SA GLAAD
The South African Gay & Lesbian

Alliance Against Defamation
www.facebook.com/SAGLAAD

Twitter: @SA_GLAAD

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On 6 February 2012 08:33, New Living Way Ministry <Info@caringforgays.co.za> wrote:

Good Day

I want to thank you for your support to International Healing Foundation (SA) over the past two years. God has guided us to register a non-profit company that has a broader vision than what we had for IHF (SA). New Living Way Ministry will replace IHF (SA) witch will close on 29 February 2012. On the “welcome page” of our new website www.CaringForGays.co.za you will read the following:

Welcome to New Living Way Ministry

New Living Way Ministry is a Non Profit Company and an interdenominational Christian organization that serves and reaches out in love to the gay community and their loved ones. Our vision is to have a care centre from where we will serve those suffering with HIV and AIDS, and where a residential program will cater for people with unwanted same-sex attraction. Temporary accommodation is envisioned for men and woman who are homeless and destitute due to a variety of circumstances, and those involved in prostitution are also close to our hearts to be reached out to. A chapel on the premises will enable us to meet some of the spiritual needs of those we are serving. We believe in serving a person as a whole - spirit, soul and body and will provide the necessary means to do so.

Being also an educational and counselling organization, we endeavour to empower men, women, and children to heal from past and present wounds, releasing them to live a powerful life, and to fulfil their destiny. We also aim at educating the religious and secular communities about same-sex attraction and early intervention. We work to promote healthy individuals and relationships, healing communities, families, and churches.

We value the right of individuals to live life as they desire, and love and accept them just as they are. We will accompany everyone on their journey to wholeness and affirm their right of self-determination, self-acceptance, and self-discovery, while respecting their faith and values and how it might impact their choices.

Not being ignorant of the fact that some terms like "homosexual," "homosexual community," "homosexual lifestyle" or "he is a homosexual," etc. might be offensive to some readers, I want to highlight that it is not our intention to offend anybody, should such terms be found on this website. Because our articles are obtained from many different sources, it's not always possible to avoid these terms. However, please know that it is not used with malicious intent.

As followers of Christ, it is appropriate for us at New Living way Ministry to repent and ask the gay community for forgiveness for the way individual Christians and Christian organizations have often treated you. We publicly apologize to those of you within the Gay community for the hate you have felt and experienced from the Christian community. That has been our sin against you, and we ask for your forgiveness. We want you to know that you matter to us and you matter to God. God loves you, He cares about you, and He has a plan for your life.

Please note that all our contact details remain the same except for the email address which will be Info@CaringForGays.co.za and the website which will be www.CaringForGays.co.za.

We are looking forward to continue serving you and our community.

Kind Regards

André Bekker

New Living Way Ministry

Mobile: +27 (0)71 326 8034

Office: +27 (0)11 394 3031

Fax:+27 (0)86 624 9748

Email: Info@CaringForGays.co.za

CARING FOR GAYS THEIR FAMILIES AND LOVED ONES

Web:www.CaringForGays.co.za

Jason Mraz - I Won't Give Up (Official Lyric Video)

Does it really get better?

I will concede that the It Gets Better campaign has garnered a lot of sympathy for the plight of LGBT teens and mainstreamed awareness of the social ill that is the suicide of LGBT youth. Judging it by those parameters, it is a fantastic campaign. It went global, it was all the rage and political leaders, and other VIPs recorded their own It Gets Better YouTube couture.

Reminiscent of the NOH8 campaign it was about visibility and popular appeal. It somehow made an extremely emotive issue a rallying point. It was easy to paint any detractors of equality as simply callous (which they are in any case, one need not parade human suffering to get that point across).

Sure, being LGB and T gets more tolerable as one ages, but tolerance is far from "better". Acceptance is also a word thrown around. Acceptance is nice, won't deny, but it's not enough.

Methinks in our attempt at mainstreaming we might have settled for second best. Tolerance and acceptance aren’t issues we have to work on (from a progressive perspective), these are things that should be the bare minimum.

Sure, it gets better, but is “better” enough? Moreover, by whose standards would we measure this hypothetical “better”? Tolerable is also better than intolerable but I bet you won’t settle for that.

Are suicides in our community so rife and such a social ill that we need to present any form of positivity and encouragement no matter how lacklustre it might be to those radical activists?

I thought a lot about this topic, wrote, and erased, a close friend even suggested that I do the right thing and self-censor, and not publish the most morbid parts. I was awfully melancholy I must admit, but like the weather that changes too. Maybe this change gives us some fragment of hope.

We somehow know from experience that we are not our inflictions and that they are evanescing. I have dealt with the concept of suicide to an extreme extent. I have seen the undiluted desperation that chafes chronically. I suspect the intervention is about as desperate as the inflicted.

So, yes, we tell people that it gets better, because in a sense that is true. One’s circumstances change over time. One’s mood changes over time and so the impetus for execution is temporary but the execution has long-term consequences.

Before you make that final decision, stop and think, and if you cannot think contact someone, anyone. Speak or interact with someone, they will most probably not tell you cheesy lines but it will divert your attention.

Bertrand Russell must have been in a flippant mood, who knows, but he said one important thing that speaks to this topic too: “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.”

Think about that.

No Straights Allowed

Please keep out of gay bars and clubs appeared in The Independent to my immense dismay (admittedly quite a while ago, but it did the rounds on Facebook recently). The author very short-sightedly makes the case for segregation of nightlife on the basis of sexual orientation. Apparently the scene in England is such that gay people are restricted to so-called gay villages (a concept I could never really understand). I previously wrote about the ghettoization of the gay community and how deplorable I find it, but I digress.

The author maintains that there are so few gay establishments out there that they should be somehow protected from the tyranny of the majority. In a constitutional democracy the minority is protected from the tyranny of the majority but in this instance the concept of segregation for the sake of preservation is taken way too far. It becomes awfully reminiscent of apartheid. We are not equal in our segregation. The social segregation of the sexes by itself should be done away with, and there is no place for segregation on any basis when it comes to something as inconsequential as phuza-ing.

I remember distinctly the night after 2008 Joburg Pride. There was a trendy lesbian-only nightclub in Rosebank that made a concession especially for Joburg Pride. It would allow gay men in, that night only. So I went there with my (lesbian) friend, my brother and his girlfriend. As we got to the door an officious lady looked at me and my lesbian friend and said “you two can go in,” and with a slight tone of derision said to my brother “you two cannot go in, we are a lesbian establishment.”

I immediately interjected. I was horribly offended and equally embarrassed. The pink community complains of being discriminated against on a daily basis, of being side-lined. How can we perpetrate and perpetuate the same thing we fight against? I looked at the officious lady and said “look, it’s my brother and his girlfriend and they will not bother anyone here.” The words fell on deaf ears, I wasted my breath.

On another night my brother, one of his friends and I went to a well-known gay club in Centurion. The doorman immediately spotted the straights and gave them a self-righteous pep talk. I once again felt betrayed by the pink community establishments for their “admissions” policy. I often look at those Right of Admission Reserved signs while shaking my head. Those signs perpetuate inequity by virtue of their existence.

I bet your bottom dollar when a prime Sandton hotspot implements a new policy of straights only there would be a very loud and very shrill outcry from the queers. Emails to pink rights activists would pour in. It is unfair discrimination and unconstitutional, most complainants would argue. Some might foam at the mouth failing to see the hypocrisy.

Every single time a straight person is turned away from a “gay” establishment, every time a straight person is treated with contempt by the club mafia the pink community loses sympathy. We will scream “equal rights not special rights” till we are blue in the face but the plea would be worthless because we made it worthless with our little gay ghetto.

Sorry ladies equality cuts both ways.

Gloria Borman

Gloria Borman

You're always on the run now
Running away from the ANC
They're gonna get you somehow
I think you've got to slow down
Before you start to blow it
I think you're heading for a breakdown
So be careful not to show it

You really don't remember
Was it something that they said?
Or the voices in your head,

Abstaining Gloria?

Gloria
Don't you think you're falling?
If Mantashe wants you
Why isn't anybody helping?
You don't have to answer
Leave them hanging on the line
Oh, Abstaining Gloria

Gloria
I know they have your number
I know they have the alias
That you've been living under
But you really don't remember
Was it something that they said?
Or the voices in your head,

Abstaining Gloria?

Gloria
How's it gonna go down?
Will you be dismissed now?
Or will they deploy you to the Netherlands?
Will you change vote for the money?
Take your scruples to the dumping site?
Feel your innocence slipping away
Don't believe it's coming back soon

And you really don't remember
Was it something that they said?
Or the voices in your head,

Abstaining Gloria?

Gloria
Don't you think you're tjatjarag?
If Gwede Mantashe wants you
Why isn't his minions calling?
You don't have to answer
Leave them hanging on the line
Oh, Abstaining Gloria

Gloria
I know they have your number
I know they have the alias
That you've been living under
But you really don't remember
Was it something that they said?
Or the voices in your head,

Abstaining Gloria...

#BlackTuesday

*Sincere appreciation to Ms Borman for her courage and conviction

http://www.thenewage.co.za/35929-1007-53-ANC_MP_why_I_did_not_vote

(with apologies to Laura Branigan, all rights remain those of the owners)

The clothes maketh the woman

I have cross-dressed only once. It was for a social awareness project that one of my graphic designer friends had chosen. It was a horrifying experience. I was a horrifying experience. Stockings, high heels, hideous skirts and tarty tops aside, I could barely breathe. I fell off my platforms down a flight of stairs and felt like Tori in Playboy Mommy.

With the added benefit of a sprained ankle (and the terribly restrictive clothes) I hobbled almost like Courtney Love to the location of the photo shoot. I didn’t have to be in front of the camera to feel like I was on display. Everything I wore felt like a display item. I had to be terribly careful of how I sat, walked, the way I conducted myself. I had to make sure makeup didn’t smudge. I was for the first time acutely aware that unless you dress in a curtain just draping over everything, that you really have to be mindful to avoid wardrobe malfunctions and exposing yourself unladylike (for whatever that means).

Last shot was taken of me, concussed drag queen, lying in a bath with my legs dangling out, sort of like I was thrown in, like a deadweight large and uncomfortable mess. One of the assistants shouted something along the lines of “maak toe meisie!”

Despite the obvious disturbing nuances of gender-based violence and identity-based hate crimes, which was the theme of the social awareness project by the way, I realised there was another evil at play: the Patriarchy enforcing itself on the female with something as simple as clothes.

We take clothes for granted. We obsess about this matching that and fashion and other practicalities, but we never or hardly ever examine clothes as a social construct. We take for granted the rules clothes impose on us, maintaining the status quo and keeping the masses submissive.

I could feel, tangibly, how the male gaze and the accompanying sexist mind-set was imposed upon me. I realise on a daily basis how the power asymmetry is enforced by fashion, de rigueur, norms, traditions, heterosexism and an array of prejudices. I can see women subverting themselves by projecting gender norms and patriarchal structures upon other women, while feeling superior doing so. It never ceases to amaze.

Take a look at what you are wearing. Now stop thinking of it as a fashion statement. Think of it as an employment uniform of sorts, like a doctor’s scrubs, like a prison jumpsuit, like a curtain. These “garments” each have its own social significance and connotations. It is not by chance that doctors are required to dress formally, it is all about perception.

I feel rather restricted in formal wear required for work and cannot wait to get out of it each day. Why do we do that? If I were a woman I would have scoffed at the patriarchal hegemony and its requirements and impositions. Alas I am not. I am writing as an outsider. Women out there, you really know what it is like, why don’t we discuss this more? Will we be relinquished if we at least know and are aware but nevertheless remain oppressed? Something to think about…

[picture: copyright © Simoni Crause 2002]

Artists Against Hate Speech concert

An amazing evening of music, hosted by Mr Gay South Africa ™ 2011 finalist AleXander Steyn, titled Artists Against Hate Speech was held at Thaba Ya Batswana on Wednesday 9 November 2011. The serenity of the scenic venue opposite the Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve in Johannesburg South matched the event’s inherent message of love and peace.

Master of Ceremonies for the evening was Samantha Cowen from 94.7 Highveld Stereo. The line-up featured poignant performances by NX, The Brunettes, aleXander Steyn, Andre Smuts, Belinda van Zwijndrecht, Tessa Denton, Ferdi & Dihan, Ansua and E3N.

The event was organised by AleXander as a fundraiser for the South African Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (SA GLAAD) to promote an environment of respect for human rights and equality.

“My wish is to put together a variety concert for this cause, to make people aware of what our rainbow nation needs – peace, love and respect for all races, genders and sexualities,” said AleXander just before the event.

“Many artists throughout the years, from Live Aid onwards have used their unique status to promote causes such as famine-prevention, human rights advancement; to advocate for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi or to work for a more just society,” said Cobus Fourie of SA GLAAD.

“The current state of public discourse in South Africa especially regarding freedom of speech has been pushed in an unfortunate direction and the public has to be made aware that rights need to be constantly and jealously guarded. Jefferson famously said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” Fourie continued.

[picture: copyright aleXander Steyn 2011]