Ex-ex-gay

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The term ex-ex-gay is used to describe people who at one time participated in the ex-gay movement in an attempt to change their sexual orientation to heterosexual, but who then later went on to publicly acknowledge their sexual orientation as falling under the LGBT umbrella. Ex-ex-gay people may publicly declare to have ended the attempt to change their sexual orientation to heterosexuality, and to have embraced their sexual orientation as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer.

Organizations in the ex-gay movement such as Exodus International offer programming that they refer to as "reparative therapy", with the claim that an LGBT person's involvement in the programming can change their sexual orientation to heterosexual. This type of programming is opposed by many major medical organizations, including The National Association of Social Workers, The American Psychological Association, The American Psychiatric Association, The American Counseling Association, and The American Academy of Pediatrics. ^[1] The American Psychiatric Association describes reparative therapy as ineffective at changing sexual orientation, and as harmful to the LGBT person's well-being^[2]^[3]. Those who renounce the ex-gay movement often go one step further in describing these methods, referring to them as brainwashing.

Three publicly ex-ex-gay people are Günter Baum, Peterson Toscano and Christine Bakke. In April 2007 Toscano and Bakke founded Beyond Ex-Gay, an on-line resource for ex-ex gays. In June of 2007 together with Soulforce and the LGBT Resource Center at University of California, Irvine organized the first ever Ex-Gay Survivor Conference.

In 1979, Exodus International's co-founder Michael Bussee and his partner Gary Cooper quit the group and held a life commitment ceremony together.^[4] In the span of eighteen years, eight of the Exodus International ministries have dissolved because the director realized they were still gay. On June 27, 2007 Bussee, along with fellow former Exodus leaders Jeremy Marks and Darlene Bogle, issued a public apology for their roles in Exodus.