It's been a decade since Lady Gaga informed the world that LGBTQ people were, in fact, "born this way" and every teenage girl decided she needed a Gay Best Friend. Marriage equality became the law of the land, every single brand in the world celebrates Pride Month now, and Queer Eye won an Emmy.

So why is there still a fight to be had against conversion therapy and ex-Gay ministries?

"What you learn in this business is there's no finish line. As long as there's prejudice and bigotry, there is going to be a supply-and-demand issue," said Wayne Besen, author and activist with Truth Wins Out, an organization founded to fight what it calls "anti-gay religious extremism."

"If you're supplying enough hate, it will create a demand for these groups, and somebody will fill it," he added.

A lifelong journey
Besen has been involved in the movement since he came out at age 18. At first, his parents were devastated, and while walking through the mall one day, a booth caught their attention.

"There was an ex-Gay table called 'Gay and Unhappy' and it was really weird," he said. "The first half of it was... this soft and religious pretty music, and the second part was subliminal and it had some guy talking, going, 'You love women, you love the way they talk, you love the way they smell,' and it was really that ridiculous."

The experience was so strange that Besen later spoofed it when appearing on The Daily Show in 2006. But it also opened his eyes to the dangers of extreme religious pressures put on LGBTQ people to attempt to suppress their identities in order to fit into their communities.

"That got me involved initially. I knew it was a scam; I knew it was a fraud, and if my family would fall for it — and we weren't religious — imagine the pull to it for families who did grow up religious. How devastating it was — after you worked so hard to speak your truth and be who you are — to have some con artist come and upset that process, and to have your own family and friends give you this kind of rejection. I realized that was the core of our movement. That message was an existential threat."

A few years later Besen joined a campaign that worked to combat the New Hampshire "Truth and Love" organization, which was featured on the cover of Newsweek as well as on segments of the Oprah Winfrey Show and 60 Minutes. It was making the argument that, with special programs and enough prayer, LGBTQ people could be "cured" and live happily and heterosexually.

Over the next decade and a half, Besen helped to shut down leaders of some of the most prominent groups, usually by photographing them in Gay bars or finding records of their participation in same-sex orgies and prostitution. "I photographed the king of the ex-Gay ministries, John Paul, who was on the cover of Newsweek, and was on Oprah and 60 Minutes. he was the chairman of Exodus and ran Focus on the Family's 'Love Won Out' [an ex-Gay ministry]. He wrote two books, with his ex-Lesbian wife. I photographed him in a Gay bar, and pretty well, there went his career."

After that, Besen published his first book, Anything But Straight, and went on a national tour to support it. At the time, it seemed like the conversion therapy movement was starting to die down and he was looking forward to taking a break. Then George W. Bush began to push for a federal ban on Gay marriage.

"In 2006, George W. Bush invited [ex-Gay leaders] to the White House to push for a federal marriage amendment outlawing same-sex marriage in the Constitution, and in reaction to that I said, 'That's enough of this.' And I went to DC and launched the organization, and the rest is history."

For the next 15 years he worked with his organization, Truth Wins Out, to expose the lies of the religious right. "They don't believe that stuff for a second. They think it's just as absurd as I do, but they're putting out that message to pass laws that hurt us," he explained. "They want to say that LGBTQ people do not deserve equal rights, and the reason they don't is because it is a sinful, sick lifestyle choice that can change. 'They don't need to get married; they just need to be changed and marry someone of the opposite sex.' It's all about punitive laws."

Rebooting the ex-Gay movement
Despite the years of work Besen and others have put in with organizations dedicated to helping expose the lies of the religious right, conversion therapy is still a reality in many parts of the country. "Now there's a resurgence. In 2019 it really took off. After Exodus closed in 2013, there was kind of a lull — they were so embarrassed by their incredible failures... Now they're launching new movements like 'Changed Movement' and 'Freedom Arches.' It's a rebranding, a rebooting, if you like. But we're gonna do what we did with that first batch of ex-Gays and put them out of business."

Not only are new organizations popping up across America, but they are also beginning to move abroad. "Overseas we see these American activists, having failed at home, trying to peddle their snake oil abroad. We're trying to stop that as well," said Besen.

Currently, Truth Wins Out is working on creating programs in other languages, starting with Spanish and hoping to move soon into Korean, Russian, Chinese, and Polish. The hope is that they will be able to help people dealing with different religious and cultural pressures to feel accepted for who they are.

Shame, trauma, and money
Churches and conservative groups push these hurtful messages, instilling fear in young people who suspect they may be a part of the LGBTQ community. The result is self-hatred, years of trauma, and sometimes even death.

Why do these groups target LGBTQ rights? According to Besen, it comes down to money and shame. "The main reason there's money in this and the religious right is behind it is because they want to hurt our community," he explained. "Some of them make a handsome profit. It's a good living."

For those that do not profit financially from the church, there is still something to be said for being able to maintain social status. Community is essential for the well-being of all living things, and in conservative pockets, where the LGBTQ community is invisible or seemingly nonexistent, some Queer folks may go to desperate measures in order to feel like they are still accepted. "If you grow up in that atmosphere and that's what you know and you want to please people and be accepted, you're still gonna feel a very strong draw to at least try to change."

Conversion therapy close to home
Here in Seattle, where Pride flags wave along the streets of Capitol Hill, pronouns are often asked and respected, and a little Gay newspaper can be found in nearly every coffee shop, we don't have to worry about such issues as the religious right, right?

Not according to Besen. "In every community, no matter how liberal, there's a conservative right-wing church. In your neighborhood, Seattle, that's where Exodus International got started. That's where the former executive director lived. Exodus' home base was in Seattle for many, many years, actually most of the organization's existence. John Paul came from a Portland fellowship. The modern ex-Gay ministries was started right outside of San Francisco. So the liberal communities are where these began and flourished in the beginning.

"Even in the most liberal cities, there are still conservative churches, either in the cities themselves or in the outlying suburbs that surround it. I'm sure you can go right outside Seattle and see some of these crazy right-wing militia types...

"This affects all parts of the country. There are portions of the country that are still steeped very heavily in the church, and it's a problem."

On a federal level the threat still looms as well. "Things change radically quickly politically. Had Trump been successful with his coup attempt, who do you think all those people [are] who were joining him? They're all Christian fundamentalists. Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene: all of these atrocious people are right-wing Christians who believe in this garbage. Our last Vice President, Mike Pence, was a huge supporter of this stuff.

"Imagine if they had seized power. We were very close."

We have seen the effects the silent conservative majority can have. People aren't always vocal about their hate, but those who stormed the Capitol in January, those who voted for Trump in November, are the same people spreading the idea to their friends, family, and children that being LGBTQ is a choice and a sin — and something that can be corrected or at least deeply hidden.

Fighting the fallout of shame
Tools like the internet, Truth Wins Out, and other LGBTQ+ resources have become more accessible to young people living in conservative areas and households, but often they aren't enough. The resurgence of the ex-Gay movement relies on the internet to expedite their information.

"Truth and Love," the organization that first pulled Besen into the fight, has rebranded with a new website and testimonial videos, including one from an "ex-Transgender" person.

"These former ex-Gay leaders, they're culpable, they've killed people, essentially, [they have] blood on their hands," said Besen. "But it's also true they were victims themselves before they became victimizers; they were from very conservative areas, and there were no positive messages. They were told they were going to hell and they're sick and they're sinful and they can change. They themselves were victims before they abused others."

Often, this shame hurts more than just LGBTQ people. "Unfortunately, it's a tragedy for everyone involved, especially the families that are torn apart. You have the parents that are told their children are Gay because of their parenting, which is not true. You have the spouses who are collateral damage, essentially used as props in this ideological drama, and their lives are ruined. They could have been happy with someone who was attracted to them and actually loved them, but they were used by the churches so these people could fit into society. And then there's the kids: if there's divorce, they're left with a broken home, so the implications are far-reaching."

So, what can we do to stop this resurgence of the religious right? According to Besen, the answer is loud public tolerance. "That 70% of Americans support same sex marriage is kryptonite to them. It's a shame-based model, and the more acceptance we get, the harder it will be for them."

He is also working hard to make sure we don't forget just how real and dangerous the ex-Gay movement is, and how damaging conversion therapy has been. Besen has been spending the summer archiving his records with the Philadelphia LGBTQ Center so that these stories and experiences are not forgotten.

"I want to create a very robust record of what happened during this time period when these groups were very powerful, and the Republican machine tried to use their stories to change lives. They were a house of cards built on a lie. I want to create an indisputable record of what happened, so that the truth can be found, [so that anybody] can look back and see what actually happened. And what they'll see is that this was an experiment that failed and failed spectacularly."

The more Americans begin to agree with love over hate, celebrate pride, and normalize LGBTQ identities, the harder it will be for these churches to hurt people.

Wayne Besen, the author of Anything But Straight and Bashing Back, can be found on Instagram at @truthwinsout_org. He is the founder of Truth Wins Out and was a former spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign. He has been nominated for the Lambda Literary Award for Spirituality and the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Studies.

Truth Wins Out has just released its newest publication, To The Dark Side and Back, detailing the history of the ex-Gay movement.