Reparative Therapy Survivor Tells Story

Many of us have our stories of being bullied or harassed in our teenage years because we were "different".  And many of us have our demons that we had to deal with when coming out of the closet to our friends, family and often ourselves.  But few have the horrendous story like that of Sam Brinton, who at age 13 endured physical and mental abuse at the hands of his parents and therapist while going through reparative therapy for being gay.  Sam tells his story to Bay Windows

Sam was a pre-teen, living with his parents in a conservative religious mission in Florida, when a copy of Playboy magazine was somehow smuggled into the eager hands of the community's young boys.  Overflowing with pride, Sam mistook his sexuality for sanctity and told his father that he was "so righteous, so holy," that he wasn't affected whatsoever by the pictures of scantily-clad women.  He did, he admitted to his dad, sometimes feel that way about his best friend Dale.

"The next thing I knew," Same says, "I woke up in the E.R."

12-year-old Sam had been "punched out cold" by his father, and would end up in the emergency room for similar reasons seven times in quick succession.

During his first one-on-one appointment, the session leader - who Sam specifies was a "religious therapist" and not a doctor - told Sam, "I want you to know that your're gay, and all gay people have AIDS."  The therapist then showed Sam pictures of men dying from AIDS, using them as visual indicators of how Sam, himself, would die.  Together, the therapist and Sam's parents instilled in the boy the belief that he was the only living gay person in the world, that the government had killed all the other gay children, and that they'd kill him too if he acted gay.  He carried this belief as truth until his second year of college.

Sam says he's living proof that reparative therapy is "killing people."  A support group to which he belongs began with ten members; eight have since taken their own lives.  Sam is ever on the lookout for opportunities to help others in the same situation, with the message that not only does it get better - it can be made better.  

I applaud Sam for his tenacity to endure and braveness to speak out.  Although our lifestyle is not a choice our decision to stand up and say that bullying, abuse and bigotry is wrong and can no longer be tolerated, is.

via JMG