Peterson Toscano's A Musing

The program leaders at Love in Action (LIA) and in all the other ex-gay programs I attended (along with the counselors I saw and authors of the ex-gay books I read) believed in a development model leading to homosexual desire and activity. Although each ex-gay therapist or minister used different and methods often contrary to each other, they universally agreed that boys became gay because of an "overbearing mother and an emotionally or physically absent dad." In addition, they taught that sexual abuse contributed to same-sex attractions. In LIA and elsewhere, the leadership made us create a mythology about ourselves based on the developmental template they placed before us. By mixing psycho-babble, scripture, and language from the AA 12-Step program, they constantly reinforced their authority over us. When any of us questioned the template they provided by stating our lives did not fit it, they insisted that we needed to look more deeply. They warned us, that as "addic...

For the past few days I´ve been thinking about a funny moment in my childhood that I am trying to capture in words. In my poem I reference Necco wafers. This particular candy we ate a lot when we were little. According to Necco´s webiste, Necco Assorted Wafers come in eight pastel colors and flavors--Chocolate, lemon, lime, orange, clove, wintergreen, cinnamon, licorice I never actually knew what the falvors were until today. You can learn more here . Now that you know a little about Necco Wafers, I can share my poem. Jesus in the Backseat The noxious incense from her cigarette, Mixed with the sweet smoky puffs from his pipe, Envelops us inside the Airtight car. We return from pilgramage, From the Hawaiian Fountain , Where we celebrated mass Consumption around the flamming Pu Pu Platter. We three kids Sit in the backseat, Cautiously placing Necco Wafers On each other´s tongue, As one intones-- The body of Christ. The body of Christ. We feel the chalky disc dissolve. With our tongues ...

Although I was born in Stamford, CT, our family moved to the Sullivan County Catskills when I was in first grade. I attended Narrowsburg Central Rural School, which educated about 300 students at a time from grades K-12. I graduated in 1983 with one of the LARGEST classes in Narrowsburg history with a whopping 36 people. I can't tell you how special it felt (and at times constraining) to have virtually all of the same classmates throughout primary, middle and high school. Last night I performed Homo No Mo to a very interesting audience of mostly straight people with the average age about 60. Not my typical demographic. Although they did not laugh as loud or often as most of my audiences, I could tell they listened deeply. Some of you who perform may understand how you can sense how an audience responds even when they remain quiet. I knew I did not have to rush, and indeed when I got to the scene where Chad has his breakdown over the loss of his brother, I heard sobbing in the the...

One of the number one key word searches that bring people to both my English and Spanish blogs has to do with questions from women who want/need to know what to do when they find out their husbands are gay. That or simply the question, How do I know if my husband is gay? Is my husband a homosexual? I have a blog entry, My Gay Husband—A Spouse Speaks Out , (and a similar one in Spanish ) which is my most visited entry. Women have added their own stories and questions in the comments section. Yesterday I received another comment that I want to share. Wives with similar experiences, feel free to offer whatever support you can over at the original thread . I feel at a loss as to what to say, but I have seen you comfort and support each other in marvelous ways. Thank goodness I found this site. I have been married 38 years and I have asked my husband if he is gay or bi but he always said no. Two days ago I found out that he is and it explains so much. Of course I feel betrayed, that our ...

Feeling weepy after reading Dan Savage's column about his mom who died the other day, and then I saw a beautiful and heart wrenching movie called Yesterday . Yesterday (Leleti Khumalo) lives in Rooihoek, a remote village in South Africa's Zululand. Her everyday life is not easy—there's little money, no modern conveniences, and her husband is away in Johannesburg working as a miner—but she possesses a sunny nature, and takes great joy in her seven-year-old daughter, Beauty (Lihle Mvelase). The precarious balance of Yesterday's life is suddenly threatened when she is diagnosed with AIDS and must journey afar to understand and confront her illness. Yesterday's primary driving force is Beauty, who is a year away from starting school. Yesterday never had the chance to go to school and she sets her sights on a single goal: to be with Beauty on her first day of class, along wit...

Over the weekend I got to thinking about some people I know who are partially out as LGBT. They have a few on-line friends who know they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and maybe one or two non-net friends who know. Many of the most significant people in their lives do not know. Perhaps that is the best way for them right now, but I have found that living too long like that can drain us of life. As I prayed about that I wrote the following poem. We speak riddles to ourselves, proclaiming, in whispers, "I am OK" But strapped to our backs We bear a wardrobe, the opposite of that portal to Narnia, a closet that dumps us into a smaller world, a cramped, musty place of shadows. "I don't want to upset my mother." "My brother will never understand." "No need to flaunt it." "It's only a tiny part of me." A part muffled in a velvet-lined padded valise, Jammed in the back of a wardrobe, besides dusty boxes of dreams and desires...

Someone has to make the mockumentary, Not Another Ex-Gay Movie! The film festival circuit is about to be glutted with a rush of ex-gay docs and films. Although I have yet to see it, I hear wonderful things about Jessica Yu's film Protagonist , which features four very different men who each follow a similar journey. One of the subjects is Mark Pierpoint, a former ex-gay and ex-gay minister. The newest ex-gay doc to hit the screens is Bill Hussung and Mishara Canino's Chasing the Devil: Inside the Ex-Gay Movement which premieres March 29th at the Birmingham SHOUT Gay & Lesbian Film Festival . CHASING THE DEVIL: INSIDE THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT is a feature documentary film presenting an unflinching look at the personal journeys of four people who claim to have changed their sexual orientation from gay to straight. Their stories mark the first time documentary filmmakers have been allowed inside the “ex-gay” movement and provide an empathetic and, at times, devastating portrait o...

In the Love in Action ex-gay residentatl program, Friday night was movie night. Yeah, we got to see one movie a week in the form of a video (they didn't have a DVD—it was over 10 years ago). In the following YouTube video I reveal the secrets behind watching films in the Big House. Find out what's in, what's out, and why Biblical films were banned! Ex-Gay Watch posted this VERY FUNNY music video that finally explains how it is that "the gays" are destroying marriage. And I posted this before, but here is the entertaining trailer for the film, Chasing the Devil: Inside the Ex-Gay Movement . The man talking about zebras with the cat trying to steal the shot is my father.

The weekend I still have long to go, but I doubt I will take more photos as I will be quite busy tomorrow. On Friday I was in NYC and then today I was in the Catskills (about 100 miles NW of NYC) where I visited my dad and worked on my cottage. I have been trailed by a TV producer and film crew for an upcoming feature digging up my life in a difficult but also helpful way. Got lots of work done on the cottage while I also cleaned up some emotional clutter from the past. Amazing the amount of work I got done once the film crew showed up :-P The photos below are some artsy NYC shots, Christmas decorations by my dad on his house (it has a Candyland sort of theme to it IMHO), photos of my dad's cat (which was very lovey dovey) and a photo of my cottage. No time for more text. Must get to bed.

It would be a perfect autumn day if it weren't so darn hot and if the trees had actually begun to change color. Usually Columbus Day Weekend (a dreadful commemoration of genocide and greed) is the "peak" weekend for seeing the trees. With the high temperatures and lack of rain, the trees remain green, or simply turn brown and quickly drop to the ground. I just put up some more performances over at my performance schedule . Others are in the works, but I don't have enough details to post them yet. I purposely have cut back on my presentations this autumn, in large part because I have begun to work on some new projects and need more time at home to dig into them. One of these is my Transfigurations play, which looks at the lives and stories of transgender, genderqueer and gender-different in the Bible and the world today. I shared some of this material at Greenbelt and received an enthusiastic response. Ultimately I hope to turn the piece into a musical. I am schedu...

I've begun reading Tom Hodgkinson's How To Be Free , a super book about how to live life fully. The description on the back of the book states, If you've ever wondered why you bother to go to work, or why so much consumer culture is crap, then this book is for you. Looking to history, literature and philosophy for inspiration, Tom Hodgkinson provides a joyful blueprint for a simpler and freer way of life. Filled with practical tips as well as inspiring reflections, here you can learn how to throw off the shackles of anxiety, bureaucracy, debt, governments, housework, supermarkets, waste and much else besides. Some of the chapters include: Break the Bonds of Boredom The Tyranny of Bills and the Freedom of Simplicity Cast Off Your Watch Smash the Fetters of Fear Escape Debt Submit No More to the Machine, Use Your Hands Live Mortgage-Free, Be a Happy Wanderer Stop Working, Start Living I think you get the idea. You can also check out the author's website, The Idler . The ...

I go off-line for one day, and the e-mails and rss feeds and google alerts just pile up! Here is a little round-up of what is going on out there. First I want to mention Jim Burroway's post about the "Lesbian Gangs" . This story provides perfect fodder for urban legends and gets spread like a virus by all sorts of folks who talk about truth and family values. Now I admit we actually have a huge lesbian gang problem in my home state of Connecticut. Some of my closest lesbian friends are gang members, well, actually it is more of a parents' support meeting and playgroup for their kids, but still these gals are pretty severe. They make their kids go to bed by 8 pm! Ethan Jacobs at Bay Windows just published a detailed piece about the Ex-Gay Survivor Movement with lots of coverage about the Ex-Gay Survivor Conference (ans especially the Chalk Talk), the public apology by former Exodus leaders, the dinner with current Exodus leaders and the on-going Survivor Initiative o...

Ah, I had a lovely weekend in the Catskill Mountains (New York State) visiting my dad . Steve Boese joined me for the excursion which included meandering meals, lots of lively conversation and little road trips on country roads. Steve even looked in at the cottage that I own which sits right by my Dad's house. (photo is of me in front of it when I was age seven) The cottage now needs some work after the former tenants let it go, but I have such a clear vision for the place--simple, rustic, comfortable and designed for hospitality. I envision a table filled with food and surrounded by interesting, creative, thoughtful people enjoying each other's company (folks like YOU). On the two acres of land I also have plans to plant an orchard and loads of wild flowers and let some of the field go back to a natural state to provide a habitat for the local animals that find themselves getting edged off the land by developers. All in all a relaxing weekend which was still wonderfully produ...

Barbara Leavitt is a straight woman who married her husband over two decades ago in a Mormon Temple (Latter Day Saints--LDS). They spoke the other day outside of Evergreen International, an ex-gay program in Salt Lake City. Lester turned to Evergreen for help for his same-sex attractions. The Salt Lake Tribune published a piece about Barbara and Lester. When she married her husband Lester in a 1981 LDS temple wedding, Barbara Leavitt had big plans. "I was going to be the best wife ever," she said this week with a small, rueful laugh. But Barbara always knew there was a part of Lester she'd never reach, some secret, private place filled with thoughts and feelings he'd never share. In 2006, after 25 years of marriage, it all came out - or rather, Lester did. For most of his life, Lester struggled with his attraction to other men, avidly seeking help and reading literature from organizations that claimed to help gay people become heterosexual or to help weaken attrac...

I arrived in Madrid, Spain last night to visit my brother and his wife (mi cuñada) for a few days. Today is my brother´s birthday (su cumpliaños), and we celebrated with a big lunch in their new flat in the North of the city. All day long I have spoken Spanish and really should be blogging over at Dos Equis , the blog en Español that Adriana Cabrera and I co-write. Speaking Spanish is much more forgiving than speaking Swedish. Ugh, Swedish! Svensk! In Spanish if you mispronounce a word, people typically know what you are trying to say, but in Swedish, you end up saying an altogether different word (and somehow one that is always embarassing). On this trip I have proven that change is possible . I started out with US dollars, changed those for British pound sterling , then moved on briefly to the Danish krone , then to the Swedish krona , then back to the pound and now onto the Euro . I am not sure what has gotten a bigger workout, my language skills or my math skills. I say let´s brin...