Another Story®

How it started, the short version.

The First Story that inspired my studies…

Growing Up Southern Baptist 

I grew up in an exceptionally loving Southern Baptist family.  My Dad was a minister and a professor of religion at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and my Mom the university’s credit manager.  Church was the center of my life. I participated in Sunday School, Baptist Training Union, Vacation Bible School, and Royal Ambassadors for Christ, as well as revivals and retreats. I was happy and secure in my family and my belief in God.

Everything felt special, particularly when Dad baptized me, when I was often called to lead prayers, and when I was given the “Outstanding Christian Boy” award during my senior year of high school, in 1962.I always thought I would continue to lead this life and become a missionary.

Realizing I Was Different

My life was an ideal world in every way except one – early on, I had a nagging realization that I was different.  I didn’t know exactly what it was, nor did I have a name for it.  I was fascinated by guys but had no idea what to do with those attractions.  Eventually, I began to suspect I might be “homosexual” and the possibility scared me.  The word stood for something dirty, disgusting, and sinful, the ultimate derogatory putdown, the unspeakable sin, condemned by both church and society. As a consequence, whenever I felt an attraction, I blocked it and denied it.       

As I entered my teenage years, I became more conflicted and frustrated.  I was too ashamed to ask for help.  In both high school and college, I put on what I believed was an acceptable heterosexual front.  I dated women, and although I cared for them and had many fun times, I felt no sexual or romantic connections. And without these connections, I was frustrated and lonely.  And, of course, I couldn’t act on my interests in guys or tell anyone about them.

To compensate for being gay, I tried to be the “best little boy” in the world.  I had to prove myself by being popular, earning good grades, pleasing everyone, and getting recognition.  I was fortunate to win a few class and fraternity elections and earn a few honors.  But living a lie was taking a psychological toll. 

Experiencing Baylor Life 

I’d always known I’d attend Baylor and was excited when my freshman year began in 1962. Almost sixty years later, I still feel fortunate to have had a high quality education and remain grateful for the outstanding and progressive professors who were positive influences in my life.  They challenged my thinking and gave me new perspectives. However, even though the Baylor community had been a safe haven for me when I was growing up, as a student there I no longer felt safe; I knew I had to stay in the closet and ignore homophobic remarks, just as I had in high school.   

The simple reality was that Baylor was not a safe place for gays.  There, for the first time in my life, I was called faggot. Not only that, it was the president of my fraternity who spoke the word, in front of other members of the fraternity. I froze when he said it, too embarrassed to respond, as some of the members giggled and others sat silently.

Just as bad, or maybe worse, was the day the Dean of Women came to my speech class, unannounced. Her sole purpose in coming was to tell the class that homosexuality was against Baylor’s policy and that, if discovered, it would be punished. As she spoke, her eyes kept darting back to me. I was utterly mortified and wanted to disappear.  She also said that Baylor maintained a list of known and suspected homosexuals, who were watched and subject to expulsion. When she left the room, as abruptly as she had entered, the silence was deafening.   

 Other events were similarly disturbing. Some months after the dean’s pronouncement, I was chatting with a male friend one night in my car, on campus. I looked up to see two Baylor police standing on each side of my car with flashlights pointed inside. After asking what we were doing, they ordered us to leave.  More and more, I realized Baylor was becoming an uncomfortable place for me.

I learned to cover my tracks.  When visiting Dallas gay bars, fearing exposure, I did not park in their lots; I knew that the police were in the habit of writing down license plates, which could lead to being named in a newspaper expose.  In Waco, the same fear prevailed, but with a twist.  Baylor officials periodically came unannounced to the city’s only gay bar, searching for students.  Fortunately, the doorman always managed to delay them while sending a signal to students to scramble to a hiding place set up precisely for that purpose.  

  Life started looking up when I met other gays in Washington, D.C., where I lived during a semester in 1963 working for Congress. They encouraged me to be honest and open. And then, the following summer I met more gays while working in the Texas Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair.  It was terrific to find others like me who were open and happy. 

I graduated with mixed feelings about my beloved Baylor.  Its non-inclusionary message flew in the face of my concept of Christian love.  It was no coincidence that I had lost interest in organized religion by then.

And shortly after graduation, I had another experience that further disillusioned me toward Baylor. I came out to the boy who had been my best friend at Baylor, and a popular cheerleader.He rejected me.Not only that, when I told him, he turned his back on me without saying a word and walked away.I never heard from him again.

Read More

Read: The Bible and Homosexuality: Life Beyond Tradition

The inspiration for Another Story(R) - Levi Bohanan

One of the first lessons that they teach you in pray-the-gay-away is that you’ll never be happy. Happiness is an illusion, the result of a sinful lifestyle that is temporary and transitory. A truly Godly way of life does not lead to happiness, but rather contented-ness. That is, being satisfied with the world around you regardless of your unhappiness.

I began attending reparative therapy when I was a child. Raised in a Texas family where the Holy Trinity consisted of Jesus, God, and Ronald Reagan, coming out as queer at thirteen didn’t exactly thrill my family. I immediately began to attend one-on-one sessions with a Christian counselor whose intention was to put me back on the straight and narrow (forgive the pun). I was too young to fully comprehend everything that was happening, but at the end of every session, we would pray together that God would remove the thorn in my side and teach me how to be a righteous, Godly, and straight, man.

About a year into counseling, I transitioned to a different form of therapy. An immersive, intensive, weekly program held at the local First Baptist Church (and my quasi-home church growing up), the program did not bill itself as “reparative therapy”. In fact, in response to recent controversy they’ve publicly rejected the moniker. The group bills itself as a program which allows men and women who have struggled with the sinful homosexual lifestyle to work toward spiritual wholeness with God.

There is this inexplicable, self-destructive allure to the whole process that isn’t immediately obvious to folks who haven’t grown up LGBTQI+ in a religious community. On my first day, as I shook hands with the director and entered his office for my onboarding, I realized I had never before met a gay person (ex or otherwise). As I attended my first session the next Thursday, for the first time in my life I found myself surrounded by other people who looked, talked, and acted like me. And while racked with shame, secrets, and wounds that were generations deep, these broken men and women were my first community.

When I speak about those years to friends or family, and relive these moments, I realize that I’ll never be able to fully articulate the darkness and the evil of that place. Imagine being told how you walk, how you talk, what you eat, how you dress, your relationship with your father- all of you is the manifestation of Satan’s hold on your life. Imagine hearing that when you’re eighteen, sixteen, or fourteen.

I guess that the group would call me a failure story- actually, I suspect they don’t call me at all. After years of attendance, I ultimately was forced to leave my home, and the program.

Ultimately, I was fortunate. As a white boy from a middle class-background, I had privilege that much of the LGBTQI+ community does not have. My teachers at school reopened the door of opportunity for me- they found me places to stay, and pushed me to not just finish high school, but apply for financial aid and attend college as well. It was because of the kindness of these teachers that I was able to persevere.

But the years following my departure certainly were not easy. I continued to make self-destructive choices while coping, misstep after misstep, at times unerringly making decisions that I knew would hurt me and those around me over and over again. Learning on your own, and without a safety net, is a fate that many of us who have been through reparative therapy must endure, and I’m not proud to admit that I had a lot of learning to do.

I don’t want the first reaction to be pointing the finger of blame at parents. I can’t speak for all folks, but mine did the best they could, with the information they had, and I still genuinely believe that they made the best decision they were equipped to make.

Even for their best of intentions though, I believe that they were taken advantage of by my church. They believed, and may still believe to this day, that if they give enough money to the church and prayed hard enough, that I may come back and repent of my gay, sinful ways. That the church, an institution that I cherished and loved so deeply when I was young, has perpetrated such a vile offense on my family is truly heartbreaking.

So here we are, a decade after I was thrown out of my home. Married to a wonderful man, living in Brooklyn, having worked for a Democratic presidential administration- I’m sure my parents shudder to think of the life that I live now. And while I’m certainly not perfect, I am not just content. I am happy.

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