Former anti-gay activist and conversion therapy proponent Randy Thomas, who once served as vice-president of the now defunct “ex-gay” therapy group Exodus International, has come out as gay.
In a post on his personal blog, Thomas writes that he was inspired to come out as gay after the death of a man he once dated committed suicide in 2013.
I have read many stories of people who have “come out again” or accepted they are gay after some time in the ex-gay world. Many of their stories are compelling and well-written. But, sometimes I wish they would get to the point right off the bat. Just say it and then tell the story. So that is what I am going to do: I am gay.
[…]
I am gay. I am ok with who I am.
Thomas writes that he was “’out’ to myself” at age 10, out to friends by age 16, and “out to everyone as a gay man at 19” before eventually becoming a Christian and a “poster boy” for the ex-gay movement.
Get the Daily Brief
The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you:
“I was vocal and open about my beliefs that I no longer identified as gay while in Exodus circles for 23 years,” he writes.
Before it closed in 2013, Exodus International was known as the world’s most prominent “ex-gay” ministry devoted to performing controversial gay-to-straight “reparative therapy.”
In 2011, John Smid, the former Executive Director of Exodus’ oldest ministry “Love in Action,” publicly admitted that he is gay, and disavowed the message he preached for years that promised gays they could change. He married his same-sex partner in November.
