Tools for the Ex-Gay Recovery Process

The special feature question of the month for May over at Beyond Ex-Gay is:

How has a book, movie or web site helped you in your ex-gay recovery process?

I can identify two things that helped me in my ex-gay recovery process. The first is a web site called GayChristian.Net that helped me to discover the spectrum of beliefs about faith and sexuality. The second is the blogosphere. Both helped me to experience my own journey.

One year after completing the six-month Living Waters program, I was no less same-sex attracted than I was before the program. In fact, I was even lonelier because we were encouraged not to keep in contact with other people in the program . . . .

As I continued to live out my faith despite the attractions that I had, I was a part of (leading) prayer groups from throughout the city where we would often pray against the “spirit of homosexuality” and against gay people. It was then that God began to prompt my heart, “Why are you praying against a people that you don’t even know? Why are you praying against them when you are one of them?”

I realized that I shouldn’t pray for someone I can’t love and I can’t love someone I don’t know. Therefore, with God’s leading, I began to pursue people’s stories so that I could begin to understand them better. When I discovered GayChristian.Net (GCN), I found an online community of people with similar stories. They were all same-sex attracted (or identified with gender differently) and they all loved God (or had a background of religion or faith). I also discovered that they didn’t all believe the same things about faith and sexuality. Some held a perspective called Side A that suggested that a person could be both gay and Christian in the context of monogamy, commitment, and covenant. Some held a perspective called Side B that suggested that a person may acknowledge the reality of being gay (having the attractions) while also being Christian but that we ought to be celibate and shouldn’t act upon our same-sex attractions because it is still a sin. Consequently, Side X would be the perspective that one cannot be both gay and Christian because it is a sin in any form or expression and that we should and can be transformed to be straight (ex-gay).

In addition to GCN, I also discovered the wonders of the blogosphere. It was an intricate web of personal stories chronicled on a blog – a web journal that linked to other blogs. It was a great way to read about the journeys of so many people who were just like me. I even started my own blog to tell my story and to explore authenticity. I gained a sense of community through the blogosphere because commentary, feedback, and encouragement (or criticism) was freely given. It really is a great way to get to know people. Through our common stories and mutual links, I developed actual (albeit virtual) friendships.

Discovering the diversity of what people believed about homosexuality in the context of genuine faith helped me to realize that there is a difference between various truths and the interpretation of truth. My ex-gay recovery process took some time. I had been conditioned to believe that being straight was part of the holiness equation. It was okay to question that. At the end of the day, I realized that my faith was in tact. Perhaps, my sexuality could remain in tact as well.

Birthday Wishes For Buddy

Today is my good buddy's birthday!!! This is a pic of us two months ago where he completed the Los Angeles Marathon in just under four and a half hours. I'm still very proud of him! He and I have been friends for two years now and I appreciate him so much. We've also been room mates for over a year.

He continues to be a person in my life that I value greatly. I'm gonna have flowers sent to his work today - he teaches at a school for individuals with special needs. For so many reasons, he's still one of my heroes! I've talked about why before in previous posts. Read them here. He knows it.

Happy Birthday Buddy!

Becky's SoCal Weekend

So apparently, I talk in my sleep. And I laugh too. That's what my friend Becky, visiting me (finally) from Michigan, told me the other night. I must have been having a fun dream!

Becky and I have become super awesome friends over the past year and a half (thanks to our mutual friend Matt) and this weekend was the very first time that we got to meet each other!

She's always wanted to come out to Long Beach to visit me and one day I told her to just ask God to open a door for her to be able to come. She did. One week later, she told me that her job just happened to be sending her to Southern California for a few days! Woo hoo! God is so good!

So ever since I picked her up at the airport Saturday morning, we have been laughing and cracking ourselves up. It's been so much fun . . . .

On Saturday afternoon, I took her to one of my favorite restaurants here in Long Beach and had Lebanese food. There was this super hot waiter there with the cutest eyes and the most adorable smile and *cough*ahem* nice jeans! We were laughing so much because we both agreed that we kept getting mixed signals from the guy. It seriously looked like he was flirting with BOTH of us! In the beginning, he'd make serious eye contact with me (with oh so dreamy eyes and the cutest smile). Then he'd look over to Becky briefly. Next time around, he'll smile at her and move on. Then he'll come back and put his hand on my back and ask how things are but he'll be looking at Becky. So he was totally engaging both of us!

We were both cracking up because we also agreed that we were BOTH incredibly obvious in our oogling! Yeah, he was probably playing off both of us because he wanted a big tip (which he got). LOL.

Oh yeah, he was also wearing a gold band on his left ring finger. Argh!!!!

BUT......

While Becky was in the restroom, he totally initiated conversation with me about his love for dogs! Long Beach has lots of dog lovers and so we often saw people walking their dogs along the sidewalk where we were sitting.

It was sooooooo cute the way he was talking to me when it was JUST THE TWO OF US!!!!!!

(ROFL - Becky just read that last line and she said "gag me!")

Anyway, Becky returned and I thanked the guy (Jonathan, sigh). Then he looked (straight?) into my eyes with that oh so super cute smile and said "Hey be sure to come back okay?" *grin* He was talking to me because he knew that Becky was visiting me from out of state.

Becky and I walked away like a couple of school girls!

Sigh + Fawn

Then we went for a walk around Belmont Shore, the beach and the pier as we were just chatting and laughing.


We went back home to my place to relax. Then we went to Hot Java (coffee place) with Shawn to meet up with Dave until a few other SoCal GCN'ers arrived for our dinner at Ambrosia's. Good times. Lotsa kissing! (See photos in film loop at the top right corner of this blog! HUGE thanks and hugs/kisses to Dave for most of the quality photos.)

Afterwards, we crashed at my place (the unofficial SoCal GCN Hostel).

Sunday morning, we went to church service at Open Door Ministries (in Long Beach). This was Becky's first experience at an affirming congregation. After the service, someone randomly told her, "You must be straight because there is NOTHING gay about you!" Becky laughed so hard!

[Side note: Becky is one of our hugest "allies"! She has an incredible heart and passion for the GLBT community. She even competed at the last Gay Games in Chicago as a triathlete for team HRC! She's one of my heroes! Read about it here. ]


After service, I took her to Lake Perris to meet my family because it was my brother's birthday bbq/picnic. Yeah, bringing a girl to meet them confused my family. LOL, i had just come out to them too! So I told them all that Becky and I met on Match.com. Of course, I told them I was kidding! But it really was kinda weird. How do you explain to your family that you are really good friends with someone but that you are just now meeting for the first time?

Anyway, it doesn't matter really.


We drove back home to Long Beach to relax a bit before heading out to Santa Monica's pier and Third Street Promenade. On the way there, we picked up Shawn in downtown Los Angeles.

We had a great time hanging out, watching sidewalk entertainers and people watching. Right before dinner, we saw a large crowd salsa dancing in the street. So Shawn asked this random girl to dance with him. It was hilarious! The video is dark but you can see him in action here:



It was super fun hanging out together at the Promenade and Pier. Of course, we had to grab an ice cream cone before closing the evening. =)

So of course, Becky doesn't want to go back to Michigan. I told her just to stay here and have someone pack her stuff and send them here. It'll be so awesome when Becky finally moves out here. She will too. It's just a matter of time. Until then, i'll have to wait until October when she comes out again for the Long Beach marathon. I'm also toying with the idea of visiting Michigan sometime in the Summer.....hmmm.

The Glamorous Christine

I first met Christine Bakke at the 2nd GCN Conference in Florida in January 2006. We were a group of four who went out for dinner and I remember falling in love with her smile.

Now THAT's a woman.

She's got an incredible story - a testimony of a woman who's faith has been through fire as she desperately pursued changing her sexual orientation. She saw the things she held dear in her life deconstruct yet she rose from the ashes - whole.

I suppose the irony of her experiences in ex-gay (Side X) ministries, as with so many of our own stories, is that in going to these places to "heal" us of our "brokenness", they actually broke us further. But as Christine says, "There's nothing to cure."

I agree with her in that our wholeness has more to do with authentically living out our faith as complete and God-loved yet imperfect human beings and less to do with simply being (or rather, acting) heterosexual. Wholeness is not about being gay or straight. It's about being reconciled to God through Christ. I think our task is to explore what that looks like in every aspect of our lives - emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally and sexually. As whole individuals, it doesn't mean we are straight. It means we love in more healthy ways. That's the point.

Christine was interviewed for Glamour magazine. It was an arduous process as she wrestled with having to accept anonymity for a long season (until the article was ready) for the sake of eventually being more known. You can read the article here.

She was also interviewed yesterday by Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America. You can watch her here. You can read about it here.

She's got a blog at "Rising Up Whole" here. She's also the co-founder of Beyond Ex-Gay. I mentioned before about the Ex-Gay Survivor's Conference at the end of June. I've already registered. You should consider going - even if you haven't been a part of a designated "ex-gay" ministry. If you've ever been a part of a church or religious climate that condemned people simply because of being gay and understand the heart-wrenching experience that is, then the conference is for you! And you'll get to meet Christine! (hehe, and me!)

Second Place Trophy at Division Speech Contest

I won the 2nd Place Trophy at the Division Speech Contest this past Saturday morning! Woo hoo!

I also had the support of some awesome SoCal GCN friends, not to mention members of my local Toastmasters club! Gosh, it meant so much to me to have them all there, especially since they all came from cities all around Southern California. They are such a blessing!

A fellow club member, Dana, competed in a different category and she won first place! So she gets to advance to the District Conference! As for me, I serve as the alternate in my category representing the district so in case *something happens to the 1st place winner* (grin), I've gotta be ready to go!

Afterwards, we went out for a celebratory lunch in Redondo Beach at a really great restaurant.

I had alot of fun competing in the contest! It was great being able to share my message of community and citizenship with an audience full of public speakers. My goal was not to focus on winning the contest, but rather to effectively communicate the very same message that I have been giving to people in my community. If some of these awesome speakers can take something of what I shared with them and incorporate it into their own speeches, then the message can continue on way past me. I think I was able to do this so I consider myself successful! Plus, i'm very pleased with how I delivered the speech. =)

Be sure to check out the pics in the photo loops at the top of the right column!

Day of Remembrance

I just wanted to join the Virginia Tech campus along with Blacksburg, Virginia and the rest of the country in taking a moment to remember the victims of the tragic event this past Monday, April 16, 2007.

I've been watching and thinking and praying and processing all week. On Wednesday morning, I cried. I had planned on writing a post earlier but couldn't. For now, I'll take a moment to honor the heroes and to consider the survivors - family, friends, neighbors, classmates.

Go to Virginia Tech's Website here to check out their memorials, photos and news. You can also view various media, video and podcasts here.

Connect and Affect

I won my first speech contest in Toastmasters last Saturday morning! Woo hoo!!!!

(Scroll down to the bottom of this post to hear the audio of my speech and/or read the text.)

It was an Area contest which means that representatives from our club, Speak Out! Toastmasters, were competing against people from other clubs in the area. I was competing in the International speech competition and my friend Dana (in the photo) was competing in the Tall Tales competition.

As you can see in the photo, both of us won in each of our categories!

The International speech is supposed to be motivational/inspirational . . . .

A person who advances up the levels of this competition eventually competes at Toastmasters' International Convention at the end of summer where people from other countries will come to compete for the World Champion of Public Speaking title. LOL - wow, just typing that seemed super ambitious. How about for now, I focus on the next level of the contest which is competing at the Division level. There I'll compete against the winners of the 5 other area contests in our division. That's a bit intimidating for me because I know that the quality of competition will be so much better.

I was pretty happy with the response that I got from the audience. During the speech, I noticed people teary eyed, others smiling, and yet others giving me 'way-to-go' nods. I was really surprised at the way the speech was affecting people. I guess for an inspirational speech that's the kind of response I want, right? So i'm happy about that. Plus I got my first kewl little trophy for Toastmasters! I'm stoked about that!

Afterwards, me and my friends that came to support me all went out to Claim Jumper for a celebratory lunch. Fun times! It meant so much to me that they came and saw me but also that they celebrated with me afterwards.

I noticed later that day that it triggered weird feelings in me from my elementary years about the times that I was always sad when my parents missed out on awards nights or events or concerts or competitions that I was involved with. I was always wanting to make them proud but whenever I did well enough to be recognized, my family never got to see it and so I always felt like they never knew my real potential. I guess in many ways, I've felt that way most of my life. Hmm...maybe that's one reason why I'm an overachiever.....I'm still trying to make other people proud as if to validate myself. (Whoa, wasn't expecting that thought!)

So where was I? Oh, so I was very happy that these friends of mine came out to demonstrate their support. It really meant so much to me! (Thanks guys!)

Dana recorded our speeches and created an mp3 file of my speech for me. Even though I may be happy with the response I got from others about my speech, the perfectionist in me isn't so happy with hearing myself. After hearing the audio of it, I realize that I paused a lot during the speech. Some times, it was because of dramatic effect but other times it was because I was trying to remember the prepared speech. I know that I have much more work to do before the Division contest in two weeks. There are lots of places in the speech that can use some polishing up. I debated about whether or not I wanted to post the audio of the speech here for you to hear. I guess I'm doing it but just keep in mind that i'll be practicing much more. Plus, i've only been in Toastmasters for less than a year. =)

Either press the play button below or right click the link and 'Save As' to download the mp3 file:



Right Click Here to Download the Speech

Below is the text of the speech too in case you'd like to follow along. I don't think i'll be revising it too much for the next phase of the competition. I chose a topic for this contest that I could speak from my heart about. The message of "Connect and Affect" is one that I have been trying to live out myself while at the same time encouraging others to do the same. Hope you find it helpful and inspirational!

"Connect and Affect" by Eric Leocadio
Speech Delivered at Toastmasters' Area E-2 Contest in Long Beach, CA
April 7, 2007

Good morning - Toastmasters, distinguished guests, friends and family.

It was the Summer of 2006. I was in San Francisco for the first time and I had this bright idea of finding the Golden Gate Bridge all by myself. I drove around without a map. I just figured that I’d follow the signs to the “GG Bridge”. It seemed simple enough. I saw the bridge in the distance and headed toward it. I thought to myself, “I should be a tour guide! This was so easy!” I saw a pier with a really great view so I had my photo taken with the bridge prominently featured behind me as I posed like Superman after just conquering an incredible task.

I was so excited to show the picture to my friends and tell them about what a cinch it was to find. Then a friend told me, “Hey Superman, I hate to be the one to tell you this but – the Golden Gate Bridge – it’s orange not blue.”

You're kidding me! I was SO sure! I was telling everyone that this was the Golden Gate Bridge when it was actually the Oakland Bay Bridge! I was shocked and embarrassed.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m expected to be this red-caped super hero leader who knows exactly where we ought to go, but much of the time I feel like a Clark Kent stumbling through life just trying to figure out how to matter.

The prospect of changing the world can be overwhelming. So who am I to attempt such a feat? The vision is too lofty and the world is too big. I’m no Superman! I can’t do it alone. I need you! We need each other! We may not be able to change the entire world but perhaps we can simply strive to affect our own personal world – the place we live and the people we come in contact with. Together, we need to become the very heroes for which we cry out. We can be a community of heroes - simply trying to help in what ever way that we can.

Can you imagine what it could be like to see a formerly fragmented community working together towards a common cause greater than them? Imagine a community of such diversity that began to understand one another.

We can reinvent our world. How? With a campaign to connect and affect. We can be the catalyst for our community by bringing people together and developing meaningful relationships in meaningful ways.

Connect and affect.

We can start by investing in the relationships we have now. If we honestly nurture meaningful relationships among our own personal social circle by finding ways to regularly connect with them, then we will begin to establish history with each other and trust for one another. As we earn trust, we earn the privilege of speaking into each other’s lives. Thus, we are presented the opportunity to mutually affect one another.

While investing in the relationships we have today, we can also invest in our community. We live in cities that have needs. Why shouldn’t we serve those needs? We are citizens. It is our home. Let’s consciously and intentionally connect with our neighbors and local organizations, work to identify their needs, and find ways to mobilize support for them. We can take advantage of the opportunity to affect our community.

Once a month, I enjoy gathering a group of friends to participate in a 30-minute beach clean up with about a hundred other volunteers. There are men and women, fathers and mothers, children and dogs, school groups and youth groups – all coming together with a shared desire for a cleaner beach. It’s a fun way to see my neighbors!

We may not achieve the level of historical impact as heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. or Susan B. Anthony. Some of us may not even be able to find the Golden Gate Bridge without getting lost! But as we connect and affect with each other and with our community, we are making a difference!

Imagine what you could do in your city! Gather some friends together and adopt a street or beach to maintain. Help a widow by mowing her lawn or painting her home. Partner with a storefront business and sweep up their sidewalk. Be a mentor or tutor for a single-parent child. Feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, love the lonely or care for the sick.

Maybe we can’t change the entire world. But we CAN change our own personal world - our family, our circle of friends, our communities, and our city. A hero is just a regular person who acts upon the belief that he or she can contribute to this world.

Take off the glasses, Clark. YOU are Superman.