April 12, 2011

From the PFOX newsletter “California Legislating Morality:” – “I am ________ and I speak to you on behalf of PFOX, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, an organization of families and friends of the ex-gay community. I’m a California native and a proud graduate of UC Berkeley. I also spent 19 years of my life living as a man. My first words were “I’m a boy.” If anyone could say they were born this way, it was me. I thought I had no choice but to get surgery or continue dating women as a man trapped in a girl’s body. I became suicidal not because of lack of understanding from others but because I personally didn’t want to live this way and no one offered me any other choice.” The full text of the PFOX email news release follows:

April 12, 2011
California Legislating Morality

Senate Bill 48, the California bill to mandate positive portrayals of homosexuals and transgenders in school books and curriculum from Kindergarten through high school is sponsored by Senator Mark Leno. PFOX sent a representative last week to oppose the bill and ask Sen. Leno if he would protect ex-gays in the bill. But Senator Mark Leno refused to answer.

Former transgender’s testimony before the California legislature on behalf of PFOX, asking for protection of ex-gays :

Dear Honorable Senators:

I am ________ and I speak to you on behalf of PFOX, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, an organization of families and friends of the ex-gay community. I’m a California native and a proud graduate of UC Berkeley. I also spent 19 years of my life living as a man. My first words were “I’m a boy.” If anyone could say they were born this way, it was me. I thought I had no choice but to get surgery or continue dating women as a man trapped in a girl’s body. I became suicidal not because of lack of understanding from others but because I personally didn’t want to live this way and no one offered me any other choice.

That led to hopelessness and depression, because of the belief that I could never change. But 13 years later, I now totally embrace and accept myself for who I really am, a heterosexual woman. I’m even marrying the love of my life, a man named ____ this September.

I don’t want students to go through the same hopelessness I did. Ex-gay organizations offer valuable support to those with unwanted homosexual feelings. I wouldn’t be the happy and fulfilled person I am today without such support.

With the assistance of the National Education Association’s Ex-Gay Educational Caucus, PFOX distributes brochures to public school students to inform them that if they’re struggling with unwanted homosexual feelings, they can seek change from those feelings. In fact there are thousands like me who have chosen that very path.

Since SB48 adds protections for LGBT persons in textbooks and restricts any classroom instruction that could reflect adversely or be considered to pose a discriminatory bias in those materials, this bill will censor speech regarding the ex-gay community, which experiences intense discrimination by the very group of individuals which they had formerly identified with as an LGBT person.

For example, the California computer company Apple removed an ex-gay App from its i-services just last week because the LGBT community deemed this information to be offensive to LGBT persons.

I therefore ask that ex-gays like myself be added as an itemized group to Section 51204.5 and 60040 of this bill to ensure that ex-gay instructional materials and famous ex-gay individuals not be censored because others may deem them to reflect adversely against LGBT individuals.
We must ensure respect and diversity for all, and that includes ex-gays like myself. I therefore submit this email from Kevin Jennings, founder of GLSEN, and the current Safe & Drug Free Schools Director at the U.S. Department of Education. In his meeting with PFOX, Secretary Jennings assured PFOX that the federal government will protect harassment of ex-gays in educational settings. We ask nothing different from the California Legislature.

Therefore, before this legislation is approved we want clarity on this question: Will ex-gay discussions be considered to reflect adversely upon LGBT persons in California’s schools?

Thank you.