Jallen Rix
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PlanetOut: Could you tell us a little about your life up to the
time when you initially "left" homosexuality?
Jallen Rix: Well, I never really left it. I grew up in a
conservative Southern Baptist environment and was always really close to
the church. That was my whole culture. I knew there were other cultures out there, but I
never experienced them. When I began to identify that these feelings I'd
had towards men for all these years were not the norm, I just naturally
assumed I'd grow out of it. Of course, that's what I wanted to do -- to
fit in, to have the wife and kids like everybody else. By the time I went to
college -- a Christian college -- the feelings weren't going away. In
fact, they were getting stronger. I confided in someone at the school, and he
pointed me to a couple of resources, including therapy and the ex-gay
program. I ended up going not because I was trying to run away from
anything, but just because those were the only resources I had. It was
before the dawn of the Internet. So I really didn't know any other
choices for someone who wanted to be a Christian.
PlanetOut: How aware were you of the non-Christian gay community?
JR: I knew that gay people were out there, but I didn't spend any
time understanding what they were about. I just wanted to get rid of the
problem. And it was a problem to me. I wasn't fitting in. I wanted to be
accepted, and that's a driving force for most [ex-gay] people. They say
they want to please God, but what they're really saying is that they
want to fit into this culture and exceed people's expectations.
PlanetOut: Was the ex-gay group you joined affiliated with your
school?
JR: No, it was outside the college. It was in L.A. I went to a
weekly drop-in group, kind of like AA with a religious twist. I was so
amazed: Here are people who understand my story and relate to me. They're singing the
songs I sing, they're doing the things I do. I was no longer alone. I
felt so accepted and warm initially. We were divided into groups of four or five
people with one person who had longer-term involvement in the
program. We would support each other, pray for each other, and tell
stories. It was group therapy. It was at the time that "healing the
inner child" was the new rage in psychology. I dealt with a lot of past
baggage -- forgiving parents for their weaknesses. So lots of good
things went on, lots of emotional healing. But when I would think, "Am I straight
now?" the answer would be, "No, I still like men." Or I'd be walking
around school the next day and would see someone I had a crush on, and I'd be
devastated because it didn't seem to be working.
PlanetOut: In the group did you ever work directly on those
same-sex attractions? It sounds like there was a lot of general pop
psychology. But did you ever, say, look at pictures of naked women -- or even talk about it?
JR: These groups will talk about it to some degree. But any
psychology they use is outdated. Their biggest theory is that you didn't
have proper bonding with your same-sex parent, so you inadvertently bonded with the
opposite sex. Now you identify with the opposite sex, and therefore
are attracted to the same sex. Or you want so desperately to be fulfilled by the same-sex parent that you sexualize them. But
even their
remedies to that seemed not to work. For example, if you had an "absent"
father, they would pair you up with an older man in the church -- straight or gay -- and have the two of you bond. I didn't do
that, but I
saw devastating consequences from it. The younger person might develop a huge crush on the older man. If he was straight, it
would just
wig him out. If they were both gay, they would try not to do anything. Or
they would move in together and for all intents and purposes be a gay
couple, but deny they had sex. There's always this hidden leap --
somehow, if we heal you enough, or you bond enough with men, [the change
will happen]. They even have a kind of Pavlovian behavior
modification. At conferences, they will literally have baseball games
for the guys to get in touch with their masculinity. It's just silly,
but they're desperate. They're willing to do anything to fulfill their obsession.
PlanetOut: Do you feel as though it's possible that any of these
people who claim to be ex-gay have actually changed their sexual
orientation -- other than just behaviorally?
JR: When it gets that detailed, I really don't care. It's a free
country, so they can do -- or try to do -- whatever they want. I know,
though, if
someone is obsessed enough about a goal, they will do anything to make
it possible. We're human beings. So we can pretty much change,
modify, and be flexible in any kind of circumstances. So whether they
are happy and fulfilled to their hearts' core, I don't know. I think a
lot of
the people who make these changes might be truly bisexual, so maybe they
can feel fulfilled with a woman to some degree. But that's really not
the issue. The issue is they are pushing their agenda on people who are
asking for help. And this is from an organization that says they are
supposed to be practicing the highest form of unconditional love, which
is the love of Jesus Christ. It is a mind-fuck.
PlanetOut: How did you feel emotionally when you were attending
these meetings?
JR: I was behind it. At the time, I was obsessed with fitting in.
I had glommed together my desire to please God, my parents, and the
church
with my expectations of myself and my desire to fit in. I grouped all
that together and thought, "This is what God wants me to do." So I was
willing to bust my britches to make it work. Yet as I stayed longer and
was honest with myself, I saw a lot of double standards. For example,
people in leadership positions who were paid to say, "Yes, I'm
straight," but behind the scenes they would say, "I've got to fantasize
about men
to please my wife sexually." I'm not saying that's what's going on now;
I'm saying that was my experience. They also picked and chose bits out
of psychological studies that suggested gays could change. But then
you'd find out that those are the very same studies that the
psychological
community used to determine that it's just fine to be gay. When an
organization or individuals are this obsessed, their reality, their
actions --
everything about them -- warps to meet that goal. That's why they had to
censor things. They said, "Don't read that book because it will tear
down your healing." In my head, I was asking, "If we have the truth, and
God is with us, then we should have nothing to fear. Why are we afraid
to read this book, or see this movie, or talk to this person?"
PlanetOut: How long did you attend these meetings?
JR: For about a year and a half. When I began to see some of
these inconsistencies, I just kind of backed off.
PlanetOut: Did you have a moment of crisis or epiphany?
JR: Yes. The moment it dawned on me, it became crystal clear --
"Oh, you know what? God doesn't have a problem with sexuality. He's
pretty
flexible. I'm the one who has a problem with this." And it was a
great moment because it was the first time I saw I could actually love
myself unconditionally like God does. It also made me feel like an utter
failure: I had tried and tried, and it didn't work for me. Even though I
had
that epiphany moment, it's a long process to learn to love yourself. And
I basically said, "You know, God, I've had enough of this stuff. I'm
putting you on a shelf for the summer, and I'm going to find out what it
means to live the 'gay lifestyle.'" And that's where my spiritual walk
became three-dimensional. So it was quite a wonderful experience for me.
PlanetOut: Did you start dating men right away?
JR: Yeah, I was going to find out.
PlanetOut: Do you still consider yourself Christian?
JR: I'm really hesitant to use that term. Because what it means
today in our culture has nothing to do with who Jesus Christ was for the
most part. I am not a 20th-century American Christian. I probably find the
most spiritual support from the Radical Fairies movement. But I am still
very connected to my relationship with God and feel that the teachings of
Jesus are right on track.
PlanetOut: How did your family react to your involvement with the
ex-gay movement, and then your exit from it?
JR: I did not tell them that at all. I did not come out to them
until several years after that whole experience -- until I had a whole
support group
around me that let me feel safe enough to talk to them. They're very
conservative Southern Baptists. Oddly enough, when I did come out to
them, they went through the whole process of begging me to go to ex-gay
groups. They jut refused to take my word for it. It's about the
addiction. They have put their interpretation of God so high on a
pedestal that even when I am in front of them telling them my
experiences, they will believe what they think the Bible says rather than what their
own children say. That to me is obsession and addiction. That's not what
Christianity is about.
PlanetOut: How long has it been since you stopped going to ex-gay
meetings?
JR: About 15 years.
PlanetOut: You are now married to a man?
JR: Yes. We've been together for 6 and a half years. We own a house in the
Castro.
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