Books
Two new books from longtime LGBTQ advocates not to miss
Besen on fight against conversion therapy; Basile revisits founding of HRC

This fall brings two new important books from leading LGBTQ advocates, Wayne Besen, the leading figure in the fight against so-called ‘ex-gay’ therapy; and Vic Basile, a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
“Lies with a Straight Face: Exposing the Cranks and Cons Inside the ‘Ex-Gay’ Industry,” by Besen revisits the fight against conversion therapy.
“I wrote this book to ensure that future generations know the truth about how conversion practices damage mental health, break apart families, and never work,” Besen said in a statement. All royalties from book sales will go to Truth Wins Out, to help its efforts to fight the “ex-gay” industry. Book release date is National Coming Out Day, Oct. 11. Visit waynebesen.com for more information and for a link to pre-order.
Below is an excerpt from the book:
Weird Weekend: Journey into Manhood
Twenty-four-year-old Matt Ashcroft traveled from a small town in Ontario, Canada to the woods of New Hope, Pennsylvania to attend Journey into Manhood’s (JiM) weekend retreat. It was a 48-hour “ex-gay” camp experience, that was supposed to put him on the path to heterosexuality.
Not long after he provided his John Hancock for a non-sexual experience, Matt heard the words he’ll never forget. “Don’t mind me if I have a boner,” a 50-year old man who Matt says “smelled like cat pee” intoned. The older gentleman was assigned to be Matt’s cuddle partner. The idea was to serve as a surrogate father, offering love and affection through touch that dad supposedly withheld.
When the weekend commenced, lights were dimmed in a large room, creating an atmosphere of mystery and foreboding. The campers were disoriented, with their personal items having been taken from them immediately upon arrival.
“We didn’t even have watches,” Matt explained. “We didn’t have cell phones. We had to rely on the sun to tell time. We had no sense of time. We just followed direction from the leaders that were there.”
Most of those who signed up came from stern religious communities where they had very limited access to out gay men. Far away from home, they suddenly found themselves in the forest, surrounded by similar guys with raging hormones. The pent up, closeted sexual energy, whether acted upon or not, was palpable, and lay beneath the surface.
Matt nervously peered at his malodorous cuddle partner. They were instructed to attempt the “motorcycle position”. The much older stranger would sit behind Matt and hold him, as if they were riding a Harley down the highway.
Awkwardly, the guys crouched into position. Matt squirmed and tried not to breathe, though his partner’s stale cat urine aroma gently wafted into his traumatized nostril. He could feel the mature stranger’s member inflating like a birthday balloon, poking and prodding into his backside.
What kind of “straight camp” was this? Matt thought.
Abba Dabba Doo
Arthur Abba Goldberg was out of prison and out of luck. The disbarred attorney and former Wall Street conman groped to discover the next chapter in his sordid life. He was forbidden from practicing law and banished from the financial industry, so it was unclear how he would make a living. Suddenly, like a revelation from God, it was all too obvious.
His son had come out as gay, so Goldberg would opportunistically capitalize on his family’s situation to cash in. He recruited Elaine Berk, who also had a gay son, to pose together as “experts” who could cure homosexuality. In 1999, they started Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), in Jersey City, as the vehicle for their scam.
To add a whiff of legitimacy, Goldberg authored, Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change, which mostly cribbed NARTH’s fringe ideas and debunked theories. Additionally, Goldberg became the Executive Secretary of NARTH and President of Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality (PATH), a coalition of “ex-gay” groups promoting “non-gay alternatives to homosexual lifestyles.”
In terms of viability, there was pent up demand in the Orthodox Jewish Community for JONAH’s product. The already existing “pray away the gay” programs were geared towards Christians, offering Jesus as the answer. With an increase in the number of LGBTQ Orthodox Jews coming out every day, flummoxed family members and rabbis searched for answers on how to deal with this “abomination.” Goldberg and Berk would happily fill the vacuum, unethically profiting from other peoples’ confusion and pain.
There was one sticky problem that could potentially derail the whole scam. The name Arthur Abba Goldberg was unique. An online search would immediately reveal that he was a criminal mastermind who had done hard time for heinous crimes. The answer to his existential dilemma was simpler than one might imagine. He simply dropped the “Abba” from his name, and became one of the seemingly countless men named Arthur Goldberg, rendering himself virtually unsearchable. With a new identity and innovative swindle, Goldberg, along with Berk, put out a shingle. The legendary conman was back in business.
The ‘Ex-Gay’ Heyday
The discoveries could be startling. Dan Scobey would stumble upon relics from his fiancé Randy Thomas’ disturbing past. The man he loved deeply, and affectionally held hands with during our interview, had not too long ago been the chief lobbyist and former Vice President of Exodus International.
“You know what’s fun,” Scobey told me? “When you move in with someone and you start making your own space, and you start putting some of their things away to make room for your things. You come across framed pictures of your partner in a tuxedo, and your like, ‘that guy he’s with looks so familiar. Oh my God, that’s Karl Rove. [George W. Bush’s political guru] That, goes in the bottom of the closet!’” Scobey joked.
Today, Randy Thomas (now Scobey) embodies the titanic failure of the world’s largest “ex-gay” ministry. At its peak in 2012, Exodus International had 251 member agencies. Its lobbyists strategized with the most powerful political leaders in the land. Exodus was part of the secretive Arlington Group, which was comprised of America’s most influential social conservatives. This included former Indiana Governor and eventual Vice President Mike Pence and Donald Trump’s future political strategist Kellyanne Conway. Exodus was also a member of the DC Group, the Religious Right’s B-Team, consisting of hardcore anti-gay zealots, such as Peter LaBarbera and Robert Knight.
In 2006, the “ex-gay” industry reached its apex. Then-President George W. Bush hosted Randy Thomas and Exodus President Alan Chambers at the White House. Their role was to trumpet their “ex-gay” identity in support of Bush’s campaign to pass the odious Federal Marriage Amendment. This unsuccessful effort attempted to change the United States Constitution to ban same-sex marriage nationwide. Thomas now looks back at this epoch in his life with profound shame and regret.
“At the time, I was so proud. I was like, ‘Momma, I’m going to the White House.’ Now I look back on it, I’m like, ‘Why didn’t you yell out? Why did you betray your community like that?’ And it’s a hard thing to think about. But I’m glad that the blinders have been ripped off, and I now, of course, support full marriage equality, and I’m going to marry a dude.”
Vic Basile revisits lifetime of advocacy
Another important book debuting this fall is “Bending Toward Justice,” by Vic Basile, the Human Rights Campaign’s first executive director and co-founder of the Victory Fund.
“Bending Toward Justice” shares the history of HRC and the journey through AIDS, the attempts to get government recognition and funding for research, education, and treatment, and how HRC confronted ignorance and discrimination to shift the hearts and minds of Americans about equal treatment, according to a statement from the publisher.
“Drawing on his experience as the first executive director of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, Vic Basile has written a valuable addition to the story of one of the most consequential movements in post-World War II America,” said former gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). The book was released this week and is available at HRC.org and Amazon. An excerpt follows:
Of Historic Significance
It was a historic moment for the fifteen hundred elegantly dressed people in Washington, D.C.’s Grand Hyatt ballroom, just blocks from the White House.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” announced Elizabeth Birch for the Human Rights Campaign, “it is now my deep honor to present to you the president of the United States.”
The crowd rose to its feet in thunderous applause. Never before had a sitting president addressed an LGBTQ audience until that moment on November 8, 1997, when President Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker at the first Human Rights Campaign National Dinner.
Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche were in the audience with Betty DeGeneres, Dorothy Height, Wade Henderson, Ambassador James Hormel, and elected officials, labor and corporate executives, and countless LGBTQ leaders from across the country. C-SPAN cameras ran live coverage, enabling many thousands around the country to share the historic occasion.
Although impossible to document, it seemed as though there were more reporters and cameras in the room than had ever covered an LGBTQ event before.
The historic significance of the president’s appearance that night was clear to everyone. No one could deny how far the movement had come since Stonewall. But everyone knew how much further we still had to go and how truly dangerous it could be for us just to live our lives. If those listening to the president that night had been lucky enough to avoid being gay-bashed, a quick scan of the local gay papers too often told of others who hadn’t been so fortunate. Just eleven months later, there would be no escaping the horrific description of Matthew Shepard tied to a fence and left to die in a Wyoming field.
Every person in that ballroom lived with this reality, but the older attendees knew firsthand how truly terrifying it could be to be gay during the McCarthy era’s “lavender scare.” They remembered the 1950 congressional hearings on the “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts” that categorized them as national security threats and described them as perverts and child molesters. They remembered when President Dwight Eisenhower issued an executive order that banned “homosexuals” from the military and civilian federal employment. They recalled the horrifying witch hunts that publicly exposed and humiliated many thousands of federal employees. Not only did many lose their careers, but many lost their families as well. Too many died by suicide.
Those older attendees likely saw the horrifying 1967 CBS documentary anchored by revered journalist Mike Wallace called “CBS Reports: The Homosexuals.”
“Most Americans are repelled by the mere notion of homosexuality,” Wallace reported. “The CBS news survey shows that two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort, or fear. One out of ten says hatred. A vast majority believe that homosexuality is an illness; only ten percent say it is a crime. And yet, and here’s the paradox. The majority of Americans favor legal punishment, even for homosexual acts performed in private between consenting adults….
“The homosexual bitterly aware of his rejection responds by going underground. The average homosexual, if there be such is promiscuous—his sex life, his love life consists of a series of chance encounters at the clubs and bars he inhabits.”
The animus and discrimination against gay people were not confined to the federal government. Many state and local governments did the same. Florida was especially aggressive, using its notoriously cruel Johns Committee to expose and drive gay teachers, professors, and students from their jobs and academic pursuits at the state’s public universities.
During that time and well beyond it, police routinely raided gay bars, arresting patrons and releasing their names to the media. During one of these raids at the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village in June 1969, the patrons, some who were transgender, fought back in an uprising that would last for three days and mark the beginning of the modern-day LGBTQ rights movement.
That history, filled with richness and brutality, inspired the establishment of what is now the largest and most influential organization supporting LGBTQ rights in the country. I was the first executive director of that organization, taking it in six years from ambitious and almost viable to becoming the twenty-fourth largest of some five thousand political action committees in the United States. I led the organization’s massive lobbying effort to pass legislation mandating federal policy for fighting AIDS, we gave to more than a hundred friendly campaigns and committees, and we initiated several high-pressure actions in response to anti-gay legislation. For better or worse, politics in this country responds to money, and politicians learned they needed to respond to our community and our legislative agenda.
HRC’s growth and influence has multiplied with each succeeding leader. Today the Human Rights Campaign has some three and a half million members and supporters, some one hundred seventy-five people on staff, a building worth more than $50 million, and a budget of almost $70 million. Seven leaders have propelled the organization to its present stature.
HRC lobbies the federal, state, and municipal governments on LGBTQ legislative and regulatory matters, advocates before the courts, participates in judicial and executive branch nominations process, leads and actively works on national civil rights coalitions, educates the public, participates in elections, and works at the grassroots level on civil rights and political matters of national, state, and municipal importance.
But virtually no one remembers the handful of courageous individuals who started a small organization in 1980 to help bend that moral arc toward justice for their community. A few are still here. Many—too many—died of AIDS. All of them should be remembered, and no one more than Steve Endean, the young man who started what is now called the Human Rights Campaign with little money and a whole lot of grit.
Books
I’m a lesbian and LGBTQ books would have changed my life
Misguided parents pushing Montgomery County court case

As a child born in Maryland in the 80’s, I had very few LGBTQ+ role models other than Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres. In high school, I went through the motions of going out on Friday nights with boyfriends and dancing with them at prom, but I felt nothing. I desperately wanted to fit in, and it took me until my senior year of high school to finally admit to myself that I was different – and that it hurt too much to hide it anymore.
When I think back on those years, I feel the heartache and pain all over again. I used to lay awake at night begging God not to make me gay. When a boy on my Cross Country team accused me and my friends of being lesbians, I scoffed and said, “You wish.” I hid my true self in cheap wine coolers while my hate for myself festered.
I found healing in books, my creative writing class, and my school’s literary magazine. Writing allowed me to hold up a mirror to myself and see that I could be many things: a loving daughter and sister, a supportive friend, a dedicated member of the Cross Country team, and also a girl who wanted a girlfriend. In my love poems, I evolved from ambiguous pronouns to distinctly feminine ones. When I felt ready to tell my best friend, I showed her one of my poems. To my surprise, the world did not end. She smiled and said, “It’s a good poem. Are you ready to go to the mall?”
I’m one of the lucky ones. When I finally did come out to my parents, they told me they would always love me and want me to be happy. That’s not the case for more than 40% of LGBTQ+ youth, who are kicked out of their homes after they find the courage to tell their family who they truly are. We are facing a mental health epidemic among LGBTQ+ youth, with 41% seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, the vast majority living in homes that aren’t accepting.
Some of the dissenting parents in Mahmoud vs. Taylor argue that inclusive books aren’t appropriate for elementary school kids. To clarify, these books are simply available in schools – they aren’t required reading for anyone. There is nothing sexual or provocative about stories like “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” or “Jacob’s Room to Choose” that send a very simple, non-political message: We all are different, and we all deserve to be treated with respect. Opting out of books that show diversity, out of fear that it might “make kids gay” fails to recognize a fundamental truth: art, pop culture, even vegan food cannot make someone gay. I was born this way. There were times I wished that I wasn’t, and that was because I didn’t have books like these telling me it was OK to be who I am.
I wonder how many parents opting out of these books will end up having a LGBTQ+ child. It is both horrible and true that these parents have two choices: love and accept your LGBTQ+ child, or risk losing them. Now that I’m a parent myself, I feel more than ever that our one aim in parenthood is to love our kids for exactly who they are, not who we want them to be.
For several years, a grocery store in Silver Spring, Md., displayed a poem I wrote for my mother in my school’s literary magazine. I wrote about how she taught me that red and blue popples can play together, and that Barbie doesn’t need Ken to be happy. I imagine that maybe, a girl passing through the store read that poem and saw a glimpse of herself inside. That spark of recognition – of I’m not the only one – is all I wanted as a child. I was able to find my happiness and my community, and I want every LGBTQ+ child to be able to do the same.
Joanna Hoffman was born and raised in Silver Spring, Md. She is the author of the poetry collection ‘Running for Trap Doors’ (Sibling Rivalry Press) and is the communications director for LPAC, the nation’s only organization dedicated to advancing the political representation of LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary candidates.
Books
A boy-meets-boy, family-mess story with heat
New book offers a stunning, satisfying love story

‘When the Harvest Comes’
By Denne Michele Norris
c.2025, Random House
$28/304 pages
Happy is the bride the sun shines on.
Of all the clichés that exist about weddings, that’s the one that seems to make you smile the most. Just invoking good weather and bright sunshine feels like a cosmic blessing on the newlyweds and their future. It’s a happy omen for bride and groom or, as in the new book “When the Harvest Comes” by Denne Michele Norris, for groom and groom.

Davis Freeman never thought he could love or be loved like this.
He was wildly, wholeheartedly, mind-and-soul smitten with Everett Caldwell, and life was everything that Davis ever wanted. He was a successful symphony musician in New York. They had an apartment they enjoyed and friends they cherished. Now it was their wedding day, a day Davis had planned with the man he adored, the details almost down to the stitches in their attire. He’d even purchased a gorgeous wedding gown that he’d never risk wearing.
He knew that Everett’s family loved him a lot, but Davis didn’t dare tickle the fates with a white dress on their big day. Everett’s dad, just like Davis’s own father, had considerable reservations about his son marrying another man – although Everett’s father seemed to have come to terms with his son’s bisexuality. Davis’s father, whom Davis called the Reverend, never would. Years ago, father and son had a falling-out that destroyed any chance of peace between Davis and his dad; in fact, the door slammed shut to any reconciliation.
But Davis tried not to think about that. Not on his wedding day. Not, unbeknownst to him, as the Reverend was rushing toward the wedding venue, uninvited but not unrepentant. Not when there was an accident and the Reverend was killed, miles away and during the nuptials.
Davis didn’t know that, of course, as he was marrying the love of his life. Neither did Everett, who had familial problems of his own, including homophobic family members who tried (but failed) to pretend otherwise.
Happy is the groom the sun shines on. But when the storm comes, it can be impossible to remain sunny.
What can be said about “When the Harvest Comes?” It’s a romance with a bit of ghost-pepper-like heat that’s not there for the mere sake of titillation. It’s filled with drama, intrigue, hate, characters you want to just slap, and some in bad need of a hug.
In short, this book is quite stunning.
Author Denne Michele Norris offers a love story that’s everything you want in this genre, including partners you genuinely want to get to know, in situations that are real. This is done by putting readers inside the characters’ minds, letting Davis and Everett themselves explain why they acted as they did, mistakes and all. Don’t be surprised if you have to read the last few pages twice to best enjoy how things end. You won’t be sorry.
If you want a complicated, boy-meets-boy, family-mess kind of book with occasional heat, “When the Harvest Comes” is your book. Truly, this novel shines.
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Books
Chronicling disastrous effects of ‘conversion therapy’
New book uncovers horror, unexpected humor of discredited practice

‘Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy’
By Lucas F. W. Wilson
c.2025, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
$21.95/190 pages
You’re a few months in, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.
You made your New Year’s resolutions with forethought, purpose, and determination but after all this time, you still struggle, ugh. You’ve backslid. You’ve cheated because change is hard. It’s sometimes impossible. And in the new book, “Shame-Sex Attraction” by Lucas F. W. Wilson, it can be exceptionally traumatic.

Progress does not come without problems.
While it’s true that the LGBTQ community has been adversely affected by the current administration, there are still things to be happy about when it comes to civil rights and acceptance. Still, says Wilson, one “particularly slow-moving aspect… has been the fight against what is widely known as conversion therapy.”
Such practices, he says, “have numerous damaging, death-dealing, and no doubt disastrous consequences.” The stories he’s collected in this volume reflect that, but they also mirror confidence and strength in the face of detrimental treatment.
Writer Gregory Elsasser-Chavez was told to breathe in something repellent every time he thought about other men. He says, in the end, he decided not to “pray away the gay.” Instead, he quips, he’d “sniff it away.”
D. Apple became her “own conversation therapist” by exhausting herself with service to others as therapy. Peter Nunn’s father took him on a surprise trip, but the surprise was a conversion facility; Nunn’s father said if it didn’t work, he’d “get rid of” his 15-year-old son. Chaim Levin was forced to humiliate himself as part of his therapy.
Lexie Bean struggled to make a therapist understand that they didn’t want to be a man because they were “both.” Jordan Sullivan writes of the years it takes “to re-integrate and become whole” after conversion therapy. Chris Csabs writes that he “tried everything to find the root of my problem” but “nothing so far had worked.”
Says Syre Klenke of a group conversion session, “My heart shattered over and over as people tried to console and encourage each other…. I wonder if each of them is okay and still with us today.”
Here’s a bit of advice for reading “Shame-Sex Attraction”: dip into the first chapter, maybe the second, then go back and read the foreword and introduction, and resume.
The reason: author Lucas F. W. Wilson’s intro is deep and steep, full of footnotes and statistics, and if you’re not prepared or you didn’t come for the education, it might scare you away. No, the subtitle of this book is likely why you’d pick the book up so because that’s what you really wanted, indulge before backtracking.
You won’t be sorry; the first stories are bracing and they’ll steel you for the rest, for the emotion and the tears, the horror and the unexpected humor.
Be aware that there are triggers all over this book, especially if you’ve been subjected to anything like conversion therapy yourself. Remember, though, that the survivors are just that: survivors, and their strength is what makes this book worthwhile. Even so, though “Shame-Sex Attraction” is an essential read, that doesn’t make it any easier.
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