Spirit in Action
Peterson Toscano - Ex-gay Survivor
Peterson's born-again experience at the age of 17 catapulted him into the world of Evangelical Christianity, good except that Peterson was, and is, gay. After 17 years of attempting to become "ex-gay", he finally had to accept his reality and seek healing and wholeness. Through his theatrical and stand-up comedy pieces like "Doin' Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House" and other work, Peterson has become a leading proponent of the Ex-gay Survivor Movement/Beyond Ex-gay.
- Broadcast on:
- 14 Jun 2009
- Audio Format:
- other
I have no hands but yours to tend my sheep No handkerchief but yours to dry the eyes of those who weep I have no arms but yours with which to hold The ones grown weary from the struggle and weak from growing old I have no hands but yours with which to see To let my children know that I am up and up is everything I have no way to feed the hungry souls No clothes to give and make, give the ragged and the morn So be my heart, my hand, my tongue Through you I will be done The fingers have I none to help untime The tangled knocks and twisted chains The strangled fearful minds Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeat. Each week I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action and progressive efforts I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Above all, I'll seek out light, love and helping hands Being shared between our many neighbors on this planet, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life I have no way to open people's eyes, except that you will show them how to trust the inner mind I'm very pleased to have as my spirit in action guest Peterson Tuscano. Raised Catholic, Peterson's born-again experience at the age of 17 catapulted him into the world of evangelical Christianity Good, except that Peterson was and is gay. After 17 years of attempting to become ex-gay, he finally had to accept his reality and seek healing and wholeness Through his theatrical and stand-up comedy pieces like "Doing time in the Homo no Mo halfway house" and other work, Peterson has become a leading proponent of the ex-gay survivor movement Peterson, welcome to spirit in action. Well, thanks Mark. It's great to be here. It's so great that you're here. I get to spend the week with you over at the French General Conference Gathering If I understand correctly, you haven't been Quaker for too many decades. What did you actually start out as and how did you get to where you are? I was born in a liberal Roman Catholic Italian family outside of New York City, lived like that until I was about 17 And then I had a conversion experience, a very powerful personal time with God alone in my room And I didn't quite know what it was because there was nothing in my Catholic background to help me process what is this thing that happened that there's a God and God cares about me and I can be connected in a personal way So I talked to some Christian folks. I knew who went to a Bible church and I told them my experience and they said, ah, you've been born again That's what happened to you. I was like, really? So now what do I do? Well now you join our church and start coming to our church, which I did And it was great in many many ways. I learned tons about the Bible and about prayer and started having a daily prayer and meditation Bible study time But as I look back, I see in some ways they co-opted my very genuine spiritual encounter and put it in their own terms And they meant to do good, but I think at that point I got off track and although I was still pursuing God, I was doing it on other people's terms And I stopped looking for God directly myself and instead relied on their guidance From that point I went to a Christian college and I had college outside of New York City and I really felt called to be a missionary But there was this one problem that kept getting in the way A problem I never asked for, I never took on myself, but the problem was that I was a young man who felt sexually and romantically attracted to other young men Being in the school I was at and the churches that I was attending, this was not a good thing, it was not safe at all Because they made it very clear you could not be gay and a Christian, it's one or the other So that began a process and odyssey of trying to change If it's so bad, if God says it's wrong and clearly societies says it's wrong, well then the logical conclusion is, find a cure For surely God would help me I want to ask you a lot about that, but I also want to understand this experience you had I've had the idea before that there is that experience, what normally gets labeled as a born-again experience That is channeled in certain ways, so you put in exactly the words that I've been thinking What was the experience you had, can you talk about that at all? Sure, I had been reading the Bible and I had been praying and there was a period of seeking I was involved with the CYO, the Catholic Youth Organization And I remember I went away on a retreat and I sat in the chapel, it was early in the morning And I wanted so much to connect with God, but I felt there was a blockage there somehow And I left a little sad thinking, oh, it would have been nice to have a connection with God But there's something not right, so I kept reading the Bible, I kept praying And then all of a sudden, sort of out of the blue, in my room, at home And it was like a veil got pulled back And it was an altered reality in that the room just seemed to be very dense with this sweet, sweet presence So much so that I felt that it was hard to speak out loud Not because I couldn't, but because it seemed so precious That to break that with my words just seemed like a critical step to take So in a whisper, sensing this presence of God, I opened up my heart and I said, God, I want you to be my boss Tell me what to do, tell me how to live, I give my life over to you And again, in this very, just a little whisper, I did it, and I just felt this closeness enveloping me And it lasted for some time, well over an hour, that I was in my room just in that quietness And then it finally began to lift And I've had the same experience, at least four other times in my life, of that very closeness tenderness Once it was in meeting for worship, but almost always it's been when I've been on my own completely unexpected And there it is, and when I'm in that moment it's like things become so crystal clear Things get into a much sharper focus of what's important and what's not important And how precious certain things are in this world And it's, I don't know, I know the early revivalist would talk about getting quickened by the spirit And it feels like that to me, like sudden like, wait a minute, there's more to this life Than just what you see with your eyes and what you feel with your hands There's a whole reality that's often hidden behind this veil And part of the work of our worship is to get behind that veil or help that veil get pushed back Well, that's a wonderful description of it So, Peterson, after you've had this experience, you've gone to a Christian college, you feel called to the ministry But you realize you've got this attraction, one that we normally call being gay What happened from there? Well, that's when I began my quest to fix it And I took the scripture seriously If any man would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me Then if you're going to be a follower to Christ, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it out If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out And although I wasn't about to physically mane myself, what it said to me was I needed to go to whatever extreme length possible to be a disciple of Christ Even if it cost money, time, career, whatever So, I began this odyssey that lasted 17 years and took me to three different continents Where I spent over $30,000 attempting to not be gay Either to find a way to transform into a heterosexual Or at least to suppress and contain my same-sex desires And I got involved in something called the x-gay movement Where they try to make you gay no more Through a variety of therapies, prayer, programs And I would literally go from person to person looking for the remedy I think, for me, I felt very much like the woman with the issue of blood The woman in the gospels who had this bleeding problem Who, for 12 years, she had this issue of blood She was bleeding, it was vaginal bleeding she had And so she was ceremonially unclean based on the Levitical law So she couldn't touch anyone or touch anything Plus, she had this genuine problem that was causing her great distress and pain and discomfort And she, it says in the scriptures in Luke that she went from doctor to doctor And she spent everything she had and grew worse Until she finally saw Jesus and thought Well, if I just touch the very hem of his garment, maybe that will work And she did it secretly, but yet he knew He knew he felt power go out of him and he didn't know who touched him Because he kept looking around who touched me What's going on, the disciples there, you know, they're like Dude, like everybody is touching you, you're like such in a crowd right now And he's like no, no, no, somebody reached me And he turns to this woman who, for years, felt like the scum of the earth And outcast, and he says go in peace, your faith has healed you He doesn't even take credit for it, he says You had something inside of you powerful enough to make the connection that you needed to make to heal yourself And so for years I felt like that woman saying whatever it takes, I'm looking for the answer What will it take so that I can contain these desires, suppress them, maybe even change them And in my journey it brought me to multiple places, it brought me into a marriage with a woman Which many gay men have tried in order to, if nothing else, to pass as a straight person But often genuinely hoping that God's going to provide what's needed to make this change Often at the great expense of their spouses who have to live in a marriage where they don't feel attractive They don't feel loved and almost always ultimately ends in divorce and heartache So I went on this journey and ultimately I landed in a place in Memphis, Tennessee A place called Love and Action and it's a residential 12-step program That helps many women overcome their addictions to homosexuality and compulsive sexual behavior And I spent two years in that program because again I said whatever it takes, this is what Jesus wants I will do it gladly And went through that whole program, came out just as gay as I started Except came out, depressed, confused and almost faithless Did you say two years? Two years But it's residential, does this, oh, maybe it's not one of those programs where you're completely shot in You're working, you can do other things at the same time? Yeah, well you had to in order to pay the $950 a month, you had to work So they had his work during the daytime and then get counseling and therapy in the evenings and on the weekends But of course we were forbidden to do certain jobs because they were afraid that there were certain jobs That were not good for us as gay people So we were forbidden to work in retail, in any store, particularly in a mall I don't know what that would do to us, but we couldn't And there was a whole part of town that we could not go to known as the Forbidden Zone So I lived in Memphis, Tennessee for two years never having seen the Mississippi River That's not fair It's just not fair Had never seen Beale Street, it was madness And it was only after I graduated from the program and I began to accept who I was That I discovered what a wonderful city Memphis is Is there fear in maybe youth's sense spent to those places Is that where all the homosexuals hang out on Beale Street in the Mississippi River? No, there were a lot of drunk straight people I saw there I don't know, maybe they would, I don't know what they would do to me But I think part of it was in the Forbidden Zone, it was the more liberal part of town Where the Quaker Meeting House is, for instance So I wouldn't have been able to attend the Quaker Meeting House Because it's smack dab in the middle of the Forbidden Zone You were part of a church at this time, there's a local church there Or is this group specifically at home church? It's a parrot church organization, so they farmed us out to other churches for worship Usually they're connected with a particular large mega church in Memphis At that time it was a church called Central Church since then they moved on to a Baptist church And so we would be required to go to that church Even if it was not your faith tradition at all But the thing is to be in the ex-gay movement you pretty much always had to become an evangelical Protestant Because it is a white evangelical Protestant mal-movement for the most part And that's the vast majority of the people who go there are white evangelical males Do you have to, I guess since you said it's a 12 step type program You have to say, "I'm a gay, I have to recover" How does they do that? I'm an alcoholic and I don't What do they actually do? Well, a variety of things, one is the most intensive 12 step you could ever imagine And we wanted us to write about every sexual experience of our life Even if it was masturbation, fantasy, whatever Write it out in detail every single thing we ever did in our lives And then deconstruct it and say how it was evil And how we were really trying to meet an unmet need by having that And it could never have been, well, I just was in love with this person And that was an expression of our love, or it couldn't even be, I just was feeling a little horny that day It was all about this is bad, this is evil, this is sinful And you're an addict, and that's why you wanted it And it demonized any sort of sexual desire you had But in addition to the 12 step, there were other things they wanted us to do For one, they wanted us to try to figure out what was the root cause of our same-sex attractions Because they believe no one is gay, that you just became gay at some point Though I don't ever remember when that happened, for me, it just always was And often though, they turn it on the parents And they say, ah, there was something in your upbringing that made you gay And their classic way of saying it is, your mom was overbearing And your dad was passive and absent emotionally or physically And even when you explain, well, that's really not the case for my family They say, well, think deep, there must have been a moment And then you think and you say, well, you know, there was that two weeks when my dad went away on that business trip That's it, that's the moment Mom became in charge, she became the head of the household, dad was away It was your critical moment of development, you became gay And I think of it often as, you know, like horoscopes when you read the description of your horoscope And it says, oh, let me see, what does it say about Aquarius? Aquarius, you're strong will At times you can be insecure and you have a creative streak But also you need the attention of others And you're like, wow, oh my gosh, that's me And they're like, oh wait, that's Pisces, oh no, no, that's not me They give you this description that's so general that it could fit almost any family And you wonder, well, then how come the whole world isn't gay? The other thing that they did was they tried to tinker with our gender Because it wasn't just the problem that we had same-sex attractions But it was a problem that we didn't present in a gender-normative way That men weren't manly enough, and women weren't feminine enough So they taught us how to play football, how to change our oil, they had us dressed in a certain way Which is sort of kind of like business casual, you know, so kind of this professional business casual look Short hair, no facial hair, we couldn't wear a cologne No facial hair, wait a minute, I thought that would be a manly thing to do Well, you would think so But according to them being in the program, having facial hair was a way of hiding behind a mask And they wanted to take off all the masks Strangely enough, most of the staff members had gotees Like, um, hello, looks like a mask to me They were often very much looking at what they call F.I. behavior or false image behavior Anything you did that they felt was put on to cover over your pain or your true identity So, for instance, at one point, one of the leaders of the program challenged me Because they challenged each other I want to challenge you, you seem to present in a way that's too European And that's very gay, gay men like European things And that's something I want you to look at Of course, you couldn't respond because you had to wait over 24 hours before you could make a response You had to just sit on it and think So I did, I was like, okay, I'm going to take it seriously This is what he thinks, let me see, and I thought, okay, all of my grandparents come from Italy I grew up in New York, which is technically a suburb of Europe I had been to Europe at that point eight different times and had lived in it twice in England So, I had certain affectation and dress and vocabulary that I picked up from there So it seemed to be appropriate for me But in his mind, just like gay men liking classical music and gay men liking, I don't know baking This was all a sign that this is false and you need to take on a true identity Another interesting thing was we were allowed to watch one video a week, a movie And we would take turns being able to choose the movie It was like our big outlet, you know, this was the big thing And we got into so much trouble with the whole movie thing Because at first, the only movies that people picked were classic movies These sort of, you know, all these classic movies that I guess beat the sound of music? Well, yeah, the sound of music was one of them Movies that people, while the staff said, were very gay choices So then we couldn't choose classic movies anymore So then we went to biblical films, thinking, okay, that's good Until we got into the problem when we watched the story of Joseph Where he was seduced by Potiphar's wife And he was a rather hunky Joseph, sitting in a hot tub with Potiphar's wife in this particular version And, you know, we didn't have a shirt on and it kind of had a little loincloth And, well, that shut down the whole biblical thing and they said No more biblical dramas, they are too scantily clothed So finally, they gave us an approved list of movies, we can see And there were two classes of movies, one, rated G, family, Disney kind of things Or action and adventure, shoot 'em up, Rambo type films Because although there was cursing and carrying on, it was heterosexual sex that was happening And it was violence, which I guess was considered assertive and aggressive and masculine And that, for some reason, did not undermine the spiritual life that they were trying to have us develop I'm trying to sort this out I see, if the people watching, if they're listening could see your face, there's kind of a cloud around it right now Like, what in the world? Yeah, well, and I'm also wondering how this was going for you You're a raised Catholic, you have this incredible experience You decide to get serious about it Did you identify yourself as gay? Did you think of yourself as gay at 17 when you had your conversion experience? I would not call myself gay, but I totally knew I had same-sex attractions And I was terrified to say that I was gay, because you have to remember I was a teenager right at the start of the AIDS crisis And there was a lot of negative stuff up until that point about being gay So to publicly acknowledge you were gay was a scary thing, particularly in the small community I grew up in outside of New York City And to admit to myself that I was gay was really hard too, because I had a lot of internalized homophobia And that was the last thing in the world I wanted to be And somewhere along this point, is it before you went to love and action that you got married? No, it was before I went to love and action, because I felt that I was getting a cure I was going to a church in New York City called Times Square Church A very famous minister named David Wilkerson who wrote a book called "The Cross and the Switchblade" Because he worked with gangs in the 50s in New York City And he was a fiery preacher, and he made it clear that homosexuals would not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven And he was a fiery, fiery preacher, and I was there five nights a week Anytime that door opened, and every Sunday morning I was there And I lived in New York City, but you would think that I lived in some pureraded town in the 1600s And somewhere else, because it was like a totally different reality I had But I had worked so hard that I was no longer acting out on my same-sex desires Other than the fantasies that were still in my head But I was no longer involved in having sex with people And I felt like, ah, I finally overcome these desires And I met a young lady at church who was my best friend at the time And she knew of the struggles that I had had And we were just 25 and went to the leaders of our church And they said, well, God is a God of miracles Of course, God's going to help you and bless you in your marriage And you need to do your work, but sure, other people have done it before And God's blessed them, and He's going to bless you Well, I knew that other people had done it before, but almost all of those that I had met Actually, their marriage has ended in divorce But, you know, I thought, well, we're going to do it right this time And we set out to do this, and they were naive and irresponsible to tell us that We were responsible for the choices we made, but as our leaders They had no business giving us that advice Because it was wrong advice, and we both were deeply wounded because of it So by the time I got to love an action, I had been married, we'd gone off to Zambia to be missionaries I finally made it to the mission field, because now I was perceived as a straight married man So the doors to the mission field finally opened to me And there I was, with all of my same desires And it just didn't work, and our marriage fell apart And I knew I needed more help, but this was crazy So that's when I enrolled in the love and action program Because I thought homosexuality is destroying my life It ruined my marriage, my job, my church relationships, it's ruining my fate When really what was ruining it was my inability to accept all the parts of myself I mean I thought for years I was a Christian struggling with homosexuality But I really think I was a homosexual struggling with Christianity Particularly a Christianity that said that any sort of love that is not heterosexual love is taboo And must be stamped out And Lord knows I tried, and it almost destroyed me Did the rest of Christianity, as you experienced in those groups, did it fit for you? Was it good, compelling, wonderful vessel to connection with the divine? In many ways it was, I adore the Bible I really love reading the Bible in many of the gospel stories, the prophets, the Psalms And it gave me a chance to study the Bible deeply, I went to Bible school And I have, still to this day, whole chapters of the Bible memorized You know, I just love the Bible, and I love prayer And I actually went to a fabulous church outside of New York City During those years when I was married, it was a house church that met very much like friends And that we didn't have a minister, we didn't have a program, we sat in a circle And we just believe that the body is supposed to, the body of Christ is supposed to minister to itself And one had a song, one had a hymn, one had a message, and there wasn't a whole lot of silence But there was a lot of good ministry, and it was in that space that I learned how to discern when I had a message from God or not And I learned a great deal about ministry from there, and a great deal of things about God I think one of the sadnesses I have is that I would love to worship, and do Bible study, and pray, and serve with my evangelical brothers and sisters But too often, because of my same-sex attractions, and because I'm gay, and I won't repent of that, that kills it for them And we can't have fellowship, and I've even had some say, I can't even sit down and have a meal with you Because the scripture says, you can't even eat a meal with such a one who's sexually immoral And they're making all sorts of assumptions of what my life is and how I live my life I mean, I'm not seeing anyone, so I'm celibate at the moment, by default, but to them I'm sexually immoral because I refuse to repent I think I need to make a little apology to you You have this experience of trying to turn you into an ex-gay with a place called Love in Action And this program's called Spirit in Action, and I hope I'm not going to give you flashbacks Postromatic stress, postromatic stress, I'm feeling it, no, I'm doing okay In fact, there's all sorts of crazy, counter-groups that use love and action And you think that some of these groups would be a little more creative in some of the names they come up with But now I can handle Spirit in Action So what happened after your experience with Love in Action? Where did you go from there, Peterson? Well, I was still in Memphis, and I attempted to live as an ex-gay And I already had 17 years of trying under my belt, and all of these new tools to work with that I had learned in the program And I became utterly exhausted by the whole thing And I remember particularly waking up one day and I was lying in my bed thinking about the day ahead And all of the places I had to avoid And all of the complicated ways I needed to get my chores done without in any possible way Getting into a situation where I might be somehow tempted to lust after a man Because I believed if you lust in your heart as if you already committed that sin with that person And lying in my bed, I thought to myself, what are you doing? This is madness, and it was as if I woke up out of a coma Like I had been in this coma for years, and I couldn't think for myself And for the first time in almost two decades, it was like my brain locked back into place And my common sense came in, it was like you're destroying yourself And that's when I made a critical decision, a terrifying decision, where I said to God, I need to be real Even if it means that I have to go to hell, it's more important than I'd be honest about who I am Because you desire truth in the inmost part, and I am fooling no one but myself about this I have not changed, I cannot change, I will not change I can live a responsible life, no question, but to say that I can't be gay is foolishness And that began a journey to accept myself for who I was and then to unpack everything I believed And try to figure out how do I proceed from here And did you proceed from there? Did you? No, I'm still lying in that bed, actually Well, actually what I'm asking is, you left that room, when you got out of that bed, you went out there Are you still part of the church? Do they accept you? Because now you're going to be honest You certainly wouldn't want to lie about who you are if you're going to be who you are Did they cast you out, were you just set adrift? Well, the first problem I had was, I didn't know what it meant to be gay Because I had never really been gay, I only had same sex attractions And the only thing I knew about gay were from all the horrible testimonies That people were telling me of what the gay lifestyle was That the gay lifestyle was a lifestyle filled with unbelievably uncontrollable anonymous sex That every gay man had over a thousand sexual partners in their lifetime That there was all this drug and alcohol abuse That people lived irresponsible, godless lies That's what I was taught, it meant to be gay, and I thought I don't think I even have the energy to live that kind of a lie, you know? Oh my gosh, I couldn't positively keep up, plus it must be terribly expensive And I didn't know what to do, so the first thing I did was try to find where are the gay people And I really didn't know, do I go to a gay bar, I'm not a bar person at all It's so counter-culture to me to go to a bar So that day I joined the YMCA, because I somehow remember from some old song YMCA that it was a gay thing, it wasn't, and I got a great workout, I started swimming, it was great But there was nothing gay going on about the Y So there was this problem, where are the gay people, and what does it mean to be gay? And then, miraculously, I found, in Memphis, a whole group of gay Christians I thought, what? Gay Christians? Wait, I thought you could not be gay and Christian And at first it was very suspect, I was like, are they real Christians, or are they like the phony Christians? And I got to know them, and begin relationship, and saw the fruit, because Jesus said you will know them by their fruit And they were fruity in more ways than one, but they also had the fruits of the spirit And then I met this gay minister, and he gave me a job He said, Matthew Shepard's mother, Judy Shepard, is coming to town Matthew Shepard was a young man who was brutally killed, a gay man at horrible hate crime And his mom has gone around and just talked about the experience and talking about how we need to embrace all people and stop this hatred So he said, "Judy Shepard's coming to town, a historic visit to Memphis The mayor will be the first event that a mayor of Memphis has ever gone to a gay event And we would like you to consider writing a poem about what the gay communities is like in Memphis Because he knew I liked to write, and I had shown him some of my poetry, and I said, wait a minute, wait a minute A, I only came out as gay about ten minutes ago, which was really more like four months before that But still, I felt like ten minutes, and two, I'm a Yankee from New York, what do I know about Memphis? And he said, okay, go out and start interviewing people, and he gave me some names, and I interviewed over 100 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people And I discovered that I had been lied to all those years I found people who were living wonderful, solid, healthy, beautiful lives Lesbian moms, and gay athletes, and bisexual senior citizens, and all sorts of amazing people And doing those interviews helped undo so much of the damage, and helped me replace the assumptions I had So, I still struggle though with my faith, because I read the Bible for years as a weapon against me And it was very hard to read the scriptures, and it was even hard to walk into a church, even in a affirming church, where there was a minister Telling us when to sit, when to stand, what to read, it felt so oppressive It felt like they were saying, our spirituality is better than yours And I understand some people had much more education than I did, but having been oppressed for so long, it really felt even more oppressive So, I had moved up north to Connecticut, closer to where I grew up, I started working at a private school, and then 9/11 hit And I just felt such longing to connect with God, with a faith community And even though I had been burnt before many times by faith communities, I said I need to And that's when I talked to a Quaker co-worker, and decided to go to a meeting for worship It's in Hartford, Connecticut, and it was one of those meetings where nobody spoke the entire meeting And it was the most glorious hour I had spent in my life in years In that sacred silence, I experienced God And there were no words needed And I thought to myself that first meeting, what do I have to say to God anyway that God doesn't already know And what better thing to bring to God than my attention, just to pay attention Very slowly, I started learning of Quaker ways, I was very tentative though, I'd go to a meeting Soon it was over, when they did the little Howdy Doo Coffee Time, I took off Because I was terrified that it was going to get hurt again, and I was shell-shocked But I went to New England yearly meeting, because I said I like this stuff, so let me find out more Let me go to some sessions and figure it out, and then I began working with the young friends, the high school kids And seeing the deep love and the deep spirituality they share among themselves, it melted my heart To the point where I said I need to join this group, and I applied for membership at my meeting And in the letter, though, I specifically said I am gay, I am a homosexual man, I am attracted to other men If you have a problem with this, you need to tell me immediately And a lot of people wonder why do gay people talk about it so much, I hear straight people say that Why do I meet a gay person, why do they have to tell me? Well, part of it is, we want you to know up front So that before we invest our hearts and our time and our relationship, we know where you stand And if you have a problem with it up front, great, then we will just move away from that point So that is exactly what I did with my meeting And they have been so incredibly supportive of me And in the work that I have begun to develop since then, that I just feel so grateful to friends And for the many ways their lives and testimonies have impacted me and helped transform my faith Have cleared off the table, the leftovers say Watch the dishes and put them away I have told you a story and talked you in tight At the end of your knockabout day As the moon sets its sales to carry you to sleep Over the midnight sea I will sing you a song no one sang to me May it keep you good company You can be anybody you want to be You can love whomever you will You can travel any country You can travel any country where your heart needs And know I will love you still You can live by yourself You can live by yourself You can gather friends around You can choose one special one And the only measure And the only measure of your words and your deeds Will be the love you leave behind when you're done There are girls who grow up strong and bold There are boys quiet and tired Some race on head Some follow behind Some go in their own way and time Some women love women Some men love men Some raise children Some never do You can dream all the day Never reaching the ends Of everything possible for you Don't be rattled by names By talks, by games But seek out Spirits true If you give your friends The best part of yourself They will give the same back to you You can be anybody you want to be You can love whomever you will Sing it with us You can travel any country where your heart needs And know I will love you still You can live by yourself You can gather friends around You can choose one special one And the only measure Of your words and your deeds Will be the love you leave behind when you're done The love you leave behind when you're done That was Fred Small with his wonderful song "Everything Possible" I'm your host, Mark Helpsmeet And you're listening to a northern spirit radio Production called "Spirit in Action" We're here with Peterson Tuscano, a survivor of 17 years Of attempting to become an ex-gay In order to attempt to live up to the mores He learned as a devout Christian I visited with Peterson at the 2007 Friends General Conference gathering Of 1500 Quakers held at River Falls, Wisconsin Let's go back to my visit with Peterson I want to tell you a little story that I hope you'll appreciate Especially since I understand that what you're doing here This week at the Friends General Conference gathering Is leading a workshop for young people here About sexuality And I think in most groups that would be Roboten You know, you can't possibly have a gay person talking Well, it's actually not about sexuality No, no, my workshop is about looking in looking out And it's about people exploring who they are Their selves, their spiritual lives, their political lives Their identity And then looking out at the wider world At systems and oppression And seeing how does what happens on the inside of us Impact what's on the outside and the other way around And what's our place in the world I misspoke there But my story will apply just the same Because I think there are a lot of churches Where people are out there afraid Even if you can have a homosexual be part of your congregation You've got to keep them away from the kids And so a couple decades ago in Milwaukee meeting Which I was part of The question came up, we're talking about first day school And there's a woman present who had four young boys Who are part of the first day school And so the question is Do we have to be concerned about this? In her response to it, you know They're not getting out of taking Their turn teaching first day school Just because they're gay, no way That's great Yeah, and that was a couple decades ago already So, I want to ask you You've gone through this, I think it's healing I think it's been healing that you've been going through But there's a lot of other people who are stuck back there And the love in the action, the ex-gay movement I think you've been reaching out to try and help them And I think you in part do it because One of your things is to perform Is to get up and speak So what have you been doing about that? Well, almost five years ago I had an epiphany I realized that There are people who go out in the world And they have a message And for a season, they occupy a space A national, sometimes international space Where they share their truth, they share their story They make an impact, they appear on television programs Radio programs and newsprint And they are at presence Not always for good But hopefully, you know, to impact And change the discussion and make it more reasonable And make some real change And in this epiphany, it just hit me You can be one of those people if you want Your story is very powerful And you tell it well And if you want, you can step up And become that person And it was such an open handed, holy spirit type thing Because it wasn't like you must do this If you want it, it's here And I said yes, I will do it And immediately, it was as if Downloaded into my soul was all this knowledge and wisdom And common sense of how to make it happen Very specific steps and understanding And the first thing was to produce a one person comedy play Called "Doing Time" in the "Homo No Mo" halfway house How I survived the "X-Gay" movement And then I knew I needed to make it comedy I needed to market it as some crazy zany thing Because people like comedy Although they long for something more But they won't come to something that's too serious And my story is ultimately a very serious story So I wrote the play Workshopped it among certain friends of mine So that they could help me with it And premiered it in Memphis, Tennessee Which is where the "Love and Action" program is Went back to my gay minister friend And did it in his church And it was a huge hit So here I was working as a high school teacher by day But within a year I was flying off to Seattle for the weekend From Connecticut to Seattle Doing my show five shows in two days And flying back And going back to my classroom for Monday morning It was insane But people were hungry Because I chose to be nonviolent I chose to do my play in such a way That I don't attack anyone Even my former oppressors And I used comedy And I used storytelling And I choose to be very vulnerable So at first it was just me doing my show Talking about my experience Coining the phrase "X-Gaze Survivor" And then I began to meet other survivors People began to come out of the woodwork People with the most horrendous stories I could imagine Of the horrible things that were done to them By people in Jesus' name More and more they kept saying "Well, where can we go for help? Do you know of any groups? Is there a conference?" And there was nothing There were a few blogs online Where people talked about it But it was mostly activist Criticizing the X-Gaze movement So finally in '05 I met a lesbian X-Gaze survivor Who had very similar experiences And we began to talk about this What do we do? And we decided to start a group called BeyondX-Gaze.com And in April of this year, '07 We launched the website And partnered with a group called Soul Force To put on a conference The X-Gaze survivor conference But we chose to be particularly Well cheeky about it Because we decided to have our conference In the same city and the same week As the Exodus X-Gaze conference Which they've been having for over 32 years And they draw about a thousand people Many of them are parents trying to sort out Their queer and questioning kids And in less than three months We drew over 200 people From as far away as Australia And England and Toronto And Florida, Texas They all, we all came to Irvine, California And it was the epicenter of X-Gaze-ness In the world Because you had these two conferences going on And applying principles that I learned as a Quaker And as a teacher I helped shape this conference with my friends there And some of the things we did To the point where we even were able to get Three former X-Gaze leaders To come forward and issue a public apology For their role in all of this And helping them also to script their apology Because it was really hard for them To really take ownership for what they had done But working with survivors It helped them to really center in We also issued an invitation From X-Gaze survivors to any current X-Gaze leader If they wanted to sit down, have dinner And hear about our experiences Particularly because they have no aftercare programs No follow-up And three current X-Gaze leaders took us up On the invitation That's integrity It's integrity in that part How did that exchange go? It went very well Now no senior leadership came Or board members But these are people who run local ministries in their area And they came to listen And they heard things I don't think they expected to hear For one, they didn't hear anger They didn't hear bitterness They did hear heartache They did hear grief And at first they just were listening And they were like, "Wait, can we take notes?" And they took out their notepads And they wrote copious notes Because they said, "We need to go back to the leadership And tell them what you're saying About the loss of faith That many of us had experienced The depression The confusion The guilt The shame All this stuff You know, our take is that These experiences cause much more harm than good Good has come of it I learned some good lessons I learned more about The Bible Different things But ultimately It almost destroyed me And almost everyone has Go through this experience One time or another in their life They have felt suicidal Or even have attempted suicide And I know I Definitely felt that For a two week period of my life Where I thought I have no other option The only option I have is to take myself out And they heard that So much so that some of them came to my show that night And came to our conference the next day So a dialogue is developing And we're encouraging survivors to come forward And tell their stories We believe that For people who really care about people And not politics They're going to hear those stories and say "Well, what is the best pastoral care to do For people with same-sex attractions? Is it really in their best interest And our best interest To try to make them morph and change Into something that's completely unnatural And healthy for them? Or do we instead try to figure out How to support people So that they can live lives of integrity And of holiness And of commitment While still being authentic? Were you really able to come to this place Where you can dialogue that Without going through the Phase of having extreme anger? I mean As you said 17 years of your life Spent in a form of self abuse Maybe it's too strong to say Egged on By church members Were you able to get past that? One thing that really helped me Was to take personal responsibility In that I allowed them to do this to me And that really helped free me If I had just seen myself as a pure victim They did this to me How awful Then I think I would still have the bitterness And there are In the world Some true victims Particularly children who have been abused They're true victims there But for me I was a voluntary victim I allowed people to do that So what helped me was If I allowed this damage to come to me Then I had the power to undo it So that freed me up I also was able And a lot of it was through friends And hearing other discussions About other issues in the world I was able to see that The people who run these programs Are victims of the programs themselves They're trapped in that world That says that unless you're straight You can't serve at the table You can't serve in the kingdom of God Many of these men and women would love To be ministers of churches And be missionaries But they're not allowed Even as ex-gay Because it's not straight enough And I know some of them are the Some of the loneliest people on the earth Because they can't talk to anyone About their true struggles For feel they're going to be Ratted out to their authorities And art has helped me Doing my play, doing the comedy It's interesting because a year ago I met Kurt Vonnegut Who recently died And I spent the evening with him And got to know him And talked to him about his work And my work And he's obviously a great, great writer And he said something so powerful That sticks with me today He says Everyone must practice art Because art enlarges the soul How true And thank God I had Art and theater and comedy To help me And it has been very therapeutic to me And that's why at our site Beyondex-gay.com We give people the opportunity To post their art and their poetry And all Because we need those sort of experiences To help us recover and overcome And to bleed out The bitterness and the anger And the hurt that we feel Can you give us an example of your art? Sure, there's a monologue that I do It's a two-minute monologue In which in two minutes through eight characters I tell my life story And I love doing it for young people Where I'm going to talk to them And they don't know what I'm going to talk about Because it doesn't mention anything about me being gay It just talks about the struggle I had With accepting myself So this is the identity monologue I don't know why, but for much of my life I've struggled with issues of identity It's not just accepting myself But even understanding who I am as a person Oh, man, many people They struggle with issues of identity Particularly the younger people No, and this is bad, no, it is terrible No, it is a catastroph And I remember When I was growing up I'd always be looking at other people To see how they live their lives And I often wondered What were they thinking about me And what were they saying behind my back And as a result, I wasn't always very honest about who I was So then I tried to change all sorts of things about myself You know, externally The way I did my hair, the way I walked Oh my gosh, this one time I even joined the soccer team But it didn't make any difference No one ever treated me better And I never felt good about myself And I never felt good about myself And I never felt good about myself And I never felt good about myself And I don't know why these issues of identity Were so complicated for me by saying But they were But after years, each file's in tribulation And I finally came to the place where I understood who I was And I accepted myself So now I can say thank you very much Although the process of self-discovery Is a very, very difficult process It is a very important process all the same And now when I look at myself in the mirror And I see other people out and about I often say to myself That the most beautiful people in the world And the most powerful Are those people who are unashamed Just to be themselves Amen That's great The piece, doing time in the HOMO-NOMO halfway house That's the first piece you did But you've been involved in other plays, actions, and presentations What else you've been doing? After HOMO-NOMO halfway house I wrote Queer 101 Now I know my gay B.C.'s Which is sort of a basics about What does it mean to be Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender When I talk about the gay B.C.'s How we went from being the gay community To the LGBTIQQMDLSAXYZ community Because we like to include everyone Then the play I wrote after that I did a couple of plays with a few other people But the next solo piece I did was The re-education of George W. Bush No president left behind Which I'm currently performing And my next piece that I'm working on Is called Transfigurations Which looks at the lives and the stories Of transgender and gender queer And gender different people in the Bible And I hope it will be a musical I assume you have all this posted somewhere So that we can find out what your schedule Is you got this play when you're doing this or not? Sure, I travel throughout the U.S. And Europe and Canada So I show up in a lot of people's back doors And get to meet a lot of friends that way It's been great And more and more I perform And present among friends Because now I have a traveling minute Specifically for the work that I do But I have a website where you can find out About all the work I'm doing And read my three different blogs I've won in English, one in Spanish, and one in Swedish And my website has all that It's at petersontoscano.com P-E-T-E-R-S-O-N T-O-S-C-A-N-O .com And of course people are going to be able to Find it on my northernspiritradio.org website We'll have the link there Thank you for coming in And thank you for doing this work It's really wonderful how it's blossomed And how you've blossomed with the work Thank you so much, Peterson And thank you for what you're doing You've been listening to a spirit-in-action interview With Petersontoscano, X-K survivor And theatrical performing artist Including his one-person play Doing time in the Homo-Nomo halfway house The theme music for spirit-in-action Is "I have no hands but yours" By Carol Johnson Thank you for listening I welcome your comments And stories of those leading lives Of spiritual fruit You can email me at helpsmeet@usa.net May you find deep roots To support you And grow steadily toward the light This is spirit-in-action I have no higher cause For you can please To love and serve your neighbor Enjoying selflessness To love and serve your neighbor Enjoying selflessness To love and serve your neighbor [MUSIC PLAYING]