A pipe-smoking "ex-lesbian" who has been "changed by God" is now "wearing make-up" and looking for a husband, according to a feature article in today's Sunday Star Times. Jacqui Wyles says she declared herself a lesbian in 1970s Wellington after being raped, becoming a bus driver, smoking a pipe and wearing feminist sloganed t shirts. "Basically we wanted men exterminated from the planet" she says. She is described in the article as now being "one of a low-profile group of [mostly Christian] former homosexuals and lesbians who believe they have changed their sexuality." The article quotes other "ex-gays" including Andrew Verissimo who says most of the gay relationships he observed were "superficial and fleeting". "I looked around the people I was involved with and I didn't see a lot of happiness there" he says. The article also features ex-transsexual Aaron Ure who, by the age of 14 was an “active homosexual” and was “dressing as a woman” by the age of 16. He is now married. The SST article quotes a discounted American study of devoutly religious ex-homosexuals of whom 95% of women and 78% of men say they changed their sexuality. Most New Zealand and Western psychotherapists shun reorientation therapy, with the NZ Association of Psychotherapy warning that such therapy can be harmful. Nowhere in the article is it considered whether the subjects may not have been genuinely homosexual in the first place.
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Sunday, 9th November 2003 - 12:00pm