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the-sweetest-dragon · 5 years

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Character Sheet

Once again, this is a reworked character because she wasn’t fleshed out as much when I first created her. A huge thank you to @incorrectbatfamiliaquotes for helping me again. You’ve been a huge help :)

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Full Name: Mirabella Ann Baker

Nickname: Bell

Ethnicity: American, originally from South Carolina

Birthday: April 16, 1995

Age: 25

Zodiac Sign: Aries

Basic Personality: Bell is the embodiment of southern charm. She is warm and loving, like an angel sent from above. Mirabella is a bit of a partier and likes to drink, which has settled a bit since she’s moved into Kaia’s apartment. She is very open about her sexuality and enjoys the opposite sex a lot, though she has had some not so nice encounters while drunk.

Deeper Personality:

Far too kind: will not turn anyone in need away, whether they truly need it or not.

Really, really, enjoys the opposite sex: we love a girl who’s open about her sexuality but sometimes makes impulsive decisions when trying to secure a new man

-Once cosigned on a house with a guy only for him to turn around and break up with her HOURS after signing the deed.

-Bought another one an entire bar because he said he liked their beer the best.

Mirabella will occasionally black out and make terrible decisions. She’s gotten a hold on it in recent months, but it still scares her every time she can’t remember the previous night.

Best Friends: Kaia Dragoumis and Stephanie Brown

Kaia was someone that was forced upon Mirabella when they were fairly young. Their families were old friends from their college days. When Kaia went mute, Mirabella made sure to learn ASL to be able to communicate with her, surprising Kaia greatly. They have a great relationship.

Stephanie, Tim Drake’s wife, was introduced to Mirabella a few months before their wedding and they immediately hit it off. They enjoy getting together for a movie night and relaxing. Stephanie admires Mirabella’s grit and warm personality, while Bell admires the strength of Stephanie’s moral compass. Tim is jealous of all the time Bell spends with Steph and constantly complains to Kaia about it.

Family: Joanne Baker, Mirabella’s mother, is a self-made billionaire with a hit fashion company. Mirabella has no siblings and no real father figure besides her mother’s constant conquests. Her mother has groomed her to take over the company one day, but Mirabella hates her mother because of the way she runs her company. The company makes their clothing unethically, by using child slavery in foreign countries to make cheap clothing then turning around and making a huge profit off of bad clothing. Mirabella is trying to take the company from her mother but was cut off at nineteen when she spoke up about how harshly Joanne treats her workers.

Job: Mirabella is a creative girl who never went to college. She makes money selling handmade jewelry and clothing online.

Love Life: Mirabella prefers quick but serious relationships. She falls in and out of love easily; very hard to keep pinned down but would love to one day settle down and raise a family. Bell identifies as heterosexual.

Hobbies: Bell’s hobbies include sewing, making jewelry, creating new fabrics to use for clothing and designing clothes.

Favorite Food: Our lovely southern lady is a huge fan of oysters. Insert gross face here.

Favorite Color: Sunlight yellow

Political Viewpoint: Bell doesn’t really have an opinion, tries to keep herself out those types of discussions because they make her uncomfortable.

Basic Description: Mirabella is pretty in a traditional sense. She has an adorable button nose and pretty green eyes. Bell keeps her strawberry blonde hair in a fat braid down her back while she’s working but when she leaves the house she’ll wear it loose. She is a tiny woman, barely five foot two, and is stick skinny. Mirabella has a really high metabolism that makes it extremely difficult to gain weight and would love nothing more than to be able to plump up (she’s very jealous of Stephanie’s boobs). Some part of her clothing is always covered in strings from cloth or paint, so she rarely cares about what she’s wearing. Bell isn’t one for makeup but when she gets dressed up, she goes all out. She speaks with a slight Southern drawl that reminds many of Kristin Chenoweth.

Dress Sense: Mirabella likes to keep things simple, but usually wears long dresses with a sweater or a loose top and pants. She loves heels so she feels taller.

Favorite Song: Why Did It Have to Be Me by ABBA

Favorite Outfit: A pair of loose fitting, linen pants and a flowery yellow shirt that she made herself. Always paired with her favorite pair of wedges.

Short Term Goals: Help Kaia become a lawyer and take her mother’s company from her.

Long Term Goals: Become a successful business woman by reforming her mother’s company. Bell would also love to settle down and raise a big family with someone she loves.

Favorite Musical: Mamma Mia because she loves ABBA and the story is so compelling and beautiful.

Last Relationship: Mirabella’s last relationship was a mess. He was very good looking, but also a heap of trouble. He stole some of her valuables and sold them to pay off his gambling debts. That was two years ago and she hasn’t had a real relationship since.

Fears: Bell is scared of dying alone. Her previous lifestyle got her into some trouble before, and dying was a possibility. She regrets being so unprepared for adult life and her previous choices, so she strives to make every day as good as she possibly can. Mirabella has a fear of heights and becoming her mother, which kind of goes along with the fear of dying alone.

Favorite Snack: She loves peach ring gummies.

Fatal Flaw: Mirabella is a yes person. She physically can’t say no, and it’s something she has to continuously work on.

Habits: She gnaws on her lip when she’s thinking. Kaia has to carry multiple chapsticks in her bag for Bell’s poor chapped lips.

Life Motto: When someone says you can’t do something, do it twice and take pictures.

Favorite Movie: The Notebook

Prized Possession: Her first completed article of clothing, which is a mini skirt that no longer fits. She made the fabric herself and designed it; she wore it until the seams busted.

Religion: Bell is Baptist and goes to church every Sunday.

Role Model: Audrey Hepburn is her role model for many reasons. She’s classy and well educated, as well as an incredible actress.

Favorite Book: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

#mirabella baker #original character #shes a tiny baby #and i love her #old character new story

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michelletheemann-blog · 5 years

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The Irony

There is no space more aptly named than the sanctuary in a black church. It is a meeting space, a room of creation and inspiration, a refuge from a country that often refuses to acknowledge your humanity.

At my church, our pastor can sing very, very well, and he can conjure the holy spirit at the drop of a hat in that truly Southern Baptist way. As a kid, I loved to look at the photo of Jesus—loose black curls, milk chocolate skin, and a short wooly beard—hanging crooked in the stairwell. My best friend from youth choir’s granny always sat in the same seat crowned with a new hat. With fondness, I used to look around at the giants, black kings and queens, clothed in their finest royal Sunday garb and always with a smile and hug to give to Tony and Colette’s baby girl. After service, I would lollygag between the pews, poorly helping my dad, the head usher, pick up any forgotten bulletins and whine about going to McDonald’s when I knew good and well I ain’t have no McDonald’s money. On special Sunday’s the smell of fried chicken and greens would waft up from the basement into the sanctuary, flirting with my nose, and when my friends and I would rush down the stairs to be the first in line we were chastised by Mrs. Somebody for running only to have an Auntie save us with a definitive, “let the babies eat, girl.”

This is a village that raises many a child, myself included, and reminds us children that it is our duty to honor those that have come before and work hard to make things better in the future. I grew up in love with everything church and it has always been my home and foundation, my sanctuary. So, one day in college when I finally stopped pushing down those dark, omnipresent feelings and said “I’m gay” out loud I knew I was going to have a few problems.

Twenty or so years ago my parents carefully chose a church, a village, to balance the experiences that my younger sister and I would have in the suburban life they hesitantly birthed us into. Yes, they wanted us to know God for ourselves and for us to have a strong sense of religion but they also wanted to make sure their kids would have a taste of the blackness they were raised on. They knew that our upper-middle-class, white education wouldn’t teach us about Henrietta Lacks or Madam CJ Walker and the name Fannie Lou Hamer wasn’t going to make it into our lessons about black history. Instead, my understanding of blackness and black excellence came from the Vacation Bible School talks, Sunday School Black History Month celebrations, and the pulpit. I was to have examples of all sorts of black people in my church and role models for me to look up to, a village to raise me. Though in the suburbs schools may have been better and the crime rates low, my parents made sure I knew that these white people were never supposed to be my everything because them white folks is crazy and my church, my people, are my real foundation in this world.

But herein lies the problem. “The fact that this particular child had been born when and where he was born had dictated certain expectations” (“Introduction”, xvi). For most of my life, these invisible expectations felt like simple—unachievable—goals and the drive to meet them was fueled by an incessant desire for perfection and affirmation. Follow your parents’ footsteps. Be successful. Achieve even more than your parents and your grandparents, they have worked so hard. Help your people prosper. You’re going to make us all so proud. As a girl, I remember that one lady who always dressed a little different, the woman with the short-cut who was whispered about at book clubs and post-church brunches. She was raised here too and she very quickly hauled ass out of the church, occasionally slipping into the back row on holidays. Yes, there was an expectation for her, an expectation for people like that, which I did not know how to articulate, but I knew that she was doing something wrong. “The child does not really know what these expectations are—does not know how real they are—until he begins to fail, challenge, or defeat them” (“Introduction”, xvi). I had a sense of these expectations and still one day I came home and broke my mother’s heart. Apparently, I had been keeping up my farce a little too well, both for hers and my own sake. “Since when??? How can you want this for yourself???” she pleaded. I am sorry, Mom, but when you imported boys from church for me to take to homecoming dances (the black boys at white schools “don’t go for black girls”, but that is another essay) I was looking over their shoulders at Grace, the only openly black lesbian at my school who, paradoxically, wanted nothing to do with me.

Anyway, there is indeed a difference for when black people are gay than for white people. It is not that black people are more homophobic nor do I believe that the black struggle can be compared to the white, queer struggle. The difference is that when a young black person is gay there is something more at stake: the possibility of losing the only community that accepts you. As a black geek articulated, “Blackness can be a rigid, didactic identity, with people stepping out of line facing ridicule and admonishment or, worse, condemnation. Those who reject the perceived identity of Blackness can be seen as rejecting the whole of black worth itself” (Johnson, 15).

Personally, I gained my entire sense of self, associated all my blackness with an organization that had very specific rules for what it meant to be black. The politics of respectability once disguised as a coat of armor and nobility now choked me like a straitjacket, locked into an idea of who I was supposed to be one day: a successful career woman, a role model in my church just as my parents had been, and, most importantly, a wife to a strong black man. I have always been gay but it is only recently that I have begun to accept and love myself for being gay, for changing a small yet fundamental part of that vision. Still, for a long while, I thought that I had betrayed my people and felt the need to hide that which would make me a stranger in my own village. I would return to the sanctuary and look upon the kings and queens with fear and sadness as “…they move[d] with an authority which I shall never have” (“Stranger”, 83). Instead, I would avoid going to church, stay at school for breaks, drop my girlfriend’s hand every time anyone who knew my family walked by. When I did go to church I felt like everyone could see all the lies pulsing just beneath my skin. My sanctuary became a jungle in which I did not know where to hide and where the possibility of being eaten alive felt invisibly imminent.

Then one day I met Audre Lorde. And Bayard Rustin. I learned that there is quite a bit more to Angela Davis’ story than just having a sick afro. Suddenly I had a new village and I had a reason to hope. After a lot of self-reflection, a very simple yet revolutionary idea crossed my mind. I realized, really considered for the first time, that I could be just as gay as I am black. I learned that the person whose love is most important in my life is that which I have for myself. “Coming out to yourself and to others, and then staying out as you walk out the door brings strength in its action,” and, yes, I could feel my strength beginning to build (Johnson, 17). At times the old thinking that lurks on the fringes of my memory, that which is embedded in my reflexes, begins to creep up and make me doubt myself and my wholeness once again, but now more than ever I refuse to let it control or define me. One day far from now my soul will look back and wonder how I got over.

Works Cited Baldwin, James. "Introduction: The Price of the Ticket." The Price of the Ticket: Collected Non Fiction. New York:St. Martin's/Marek, 1985. Print.

Baldwin, James. "Stranger in the Village" The Price of the Ticket: Collected Non-Fiction. New York: St. Martin's/Marek, 1985. Print.

Walker, Rebecca and Mat Johnson, “The Geek” Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness. Berkeley, Soft Skull Press, 2012. Print.

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gingerandwry · 5 years

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Birmingham, Alabama

For my next trip... I’m taking a three week road trip through the American South to some parts familiar and others unknown. My trip began in a part unknown (to me anyway): Birmingham, Alabama, a city perhaps best remembered for its brutal opposition to blacks’ civil rights in the 1950s and 60s. I’ve heard good things about it since, but the past seemed like a good place to begin.

I started my first day at the cute Red Dog cafe, the kind of place filled with millennials and MacBooks that you can find in gentrified neighborhoods the world over. While this globalized hipster culture is somewhat lamentable, it’s reassuring as well and a sign of Birmingham’s economic progress. From there I headed to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. It’s in an historically very significant area. The neighborhood was a black exclusionary zone (one of the few areas of the city where blacks could live, work and own property and businesses). It’s between the Gaston motel (a black-owned motel that became a headquarters for civil rights leaders) and the 16th Street Baptist Church, a popular meeting place for the movement made infamous when a bomb there killed four young girls in 1963. And across the street is Kelly Ingram park, the site of many marches and protests, including a youth-led one where the police and fire department set dogs and high-pressure water houses on hundreds of adults and children.

The museum starts with a short film describing the city’s history. Interestingly Birmingham was founded after slavery, in 1871, as an iron producing town. It grew and prospered quickly, largely on the backs of black labor who were given the worst jobs for a pittance. And despite having never known slavery, the city became renown as one of the strictest and brutalist enforcers of segregation. The next few displays depict life under Jim Crow and some truly stomach-churning artifacts of black stereotypes and white supremacy. It then shifts to the long struggle to end segregation and win the vote and equal rights. It’s a familiar story but the resonance is so local here. As I’ve learned about the civil rights struggle throughout my life, I never really put together how much of the most intense fighting happened in just the one small part of the South. Rosa Parks and the bus boycott in nearby Montgomery. Dr King’s Birmingham home bombing and his famous letter from the local jail. Governor Wallace who won election-- and even carried five Southern states during his 1968 presidential campaign-- with his promise of “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”. Police beating up peaceful marchers in nearby Selma. The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. The city’s Police Chief, Bull Connor, and his notorious attack dogs and water cannons. Freedom Riders being beaten and killed across the state. Of course people fought for civil rights all over the South (and later all over the country), but Alabama-- and especially Birmingham-- were the epicenter. All the familiar speeches, history, newsreels and photos felt devastatingly real seeing them there.

The problem that all history museums face is deciding when and how to end because history never ends. In this case, by the late 60s the segregationists started to accept defeat (Wallace’s campaign notwithstanding), and the action moved away from Birmingham and Alabama. The Civil Rights Movement itself splintered into countless factions espousing varying goals and methods, the chaos of which helped spur a backlash and the election of Nixon by his “silent majority.” The museum kind of rushes through the late 60s and ultimately ends by celebrating the 1979 election of Birmingham’s first black mayor, Richard Arrington, Jr (depicted with an entirely pointless recreation of the mayor’s office). While that is an achievement to be lauded and the curators probably felt compelled to leave visitors feeling uplifted, it parallels (and foreshadows) the “problem solved” mentality that followed Obama’s election. Gaining legal equality was a first step (or second, after ending slavery), but I think it would have been powerful for the museum to highlight some of the many ways racism still persists: in politics, government, urban design, economics, business, education and health, not to mention in many hearts and minds. (Arrington’s election was followed three years later by Wallace’s re-election as governor to a fourth term.) A final, more uplifting display could depict the ways that blacks’ civil rights struggles inspired others like women, gays, Native Americans and immigrants. (There actually are some colorful displays honoring a few civil rights causes around the world, but they seem more random than anything.)

After seeing the museum I walked over to the church (which was closed) and through the park, which has several haunting sculptures depicting the violent crackdown on young protestors there. It’s all so calm and quiet now, it’s almost hard to believe what was happening there in my parents’ living memory.

(For the surprising backstory on the above statue and the photo on which it’s based, check out this podcast of Revisionist History.)

From there I went to the Birmingham Museum of Art. I actually just wanted to see the sculpture garden which had a good sampling of thoughtful and whimsical works. After a quick lunch stop at a middle eastern place (which still managed to be brown, fried and greasy since this is the South), I went up to Vulcan Park. It’s the site of a massive statue of Vulcan, the god of fire, and it’s the largest cast-iron statue in the world. The museum next door is an ode to Birmingham and iron, the metal that built the city literally and figuratively; iron mining and production was the dominant industry for the city’s first 100 years. While I liked learning some of the city history and seeing the old photos, the generally unqualified enthusiasm raised doubts about how fairly the story was being told. It was at least a stark contrast to the unflinching, ugly history lesson I experienced earlier.

That evening I visited a couple gay bars, Chapel (housed in a former church and up until a few months ago, a leather bar named Spike’s) and Al’s. Chapel’s crowd was thin but admirably diverse. They felt like the high school outcasts who had all banded together. And the drag show (featuring queens and kings in equal number) was cute but decidedly low-rent DIY. The host was wearing a Star Trek costume.... Al’s was the opposite, the popular clique in high school. It looks like your standard pop-fueled gay dance bar, and their drag show was much more polished. (Apparently Birmingham gay bars are all about drag shows.) The star that night was Trinity “The Tuck” Taylor who grew up in Birmingham and is now in the final four on RuPaul’s Drag Race. So that was probably exciting to anyone who cares.

On Saturday I slept too late again, but eventually got up and made my way to brunch at Five in the hip little Southside area (near the gay bars). I then drove to Sloss Furnace, a massive dormant ironworks, originally built in the 1880s. Much of the machinery and infrastructure is still in place (tho rusted away), and you can walk around and explore. It’s captivating, like walking around an ancient ruin, but one which was still in use only 50 years ago. It’s a lot to think about as you wander through the deserted behemoth: how massive this operation once was, how many resources it sucked up, how much iron it produced, how many people died working it, how much it grew Birmingham’s economy and how it’s now literally a shell of its former self just 150 years after it was built. Along with the Civil Rights Museum, Sloss is another reminder to Birmingham just how quick and difficult change can be.

The mini-museum at Sloss unfortunately is not so inspiring. Obviously it’s very pro-iron, like the one at Vulcan Park, but its white-washing of history is both comical and offensive. There’s no mention of the environmental impact. The factory towns sound like great places to live (they were not). The (mostly immigrant and black) workers are described as pioneers seizing opportunity, not exploited labor. The only mention of the racist division of labor was an admission that the factory had separate baseball teams for whites and blacks (but supposedly they would all go to each others’ games anyway so it was all good). In one confused sentence we learn that Sloss had a “decent safety record” but injuries and deaths were also very common. In fact we learn the best protection a worker could get was from having good coworkers (not from, say, adequate gear, precautions and risk reduction, all of which cost money). And, by the way, the state’s whole iron industry went into decline after the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the removal of tariffs on foreign iron. (No mention of how these events impacted the quality of air or the cost of iron to builders and consumers.) The ingenuity, hard work and rapid success of the city’s iron industry is very impressive but it’s worth remembering the cost.

For dinner Saturday night I went to Hot & Hot Fish Club, one of the city’s finest. It was delicious but didn’t seem especially distinctive. I’m not sure why it’s on so many must-do lists. I figured some sleep would do me good so I stayed in that night.

For my last day I visited the popular Five Points South and Homewood areas. Five Points is (or was) a hip area (it’s near the University), but that’s hard to see, especially on Sunday when most businesses are closed. It has some lovely Spanish Revival and Art Deco buildings, but it’s very small and a bit run-down. Homewood is better kept-up, kind of like a quaint 1950s main-street but with yuppie boutiques selling linens and children’s toys. It has a lot more shops and restaurants, and I found a good lunch at Real & Rosemary and a friendly coffee at Henry’s.

After that I visited the Botanical Gardens. As one would expect in early February, not much was in bloom, but the gardens were still very nice. They’re sprawling and serene, with a good mixture of design styles. Half the gardens are built into a hillside, and the terraced paths offer ample opportunities to get lost and discover. And of course there are lots of gazebos because this is the South. The evening was chill. I had dinner at a Southern burger ‘n beer chain called Jack’s (pretty good but small burger) and stopped at Chapel for a drink. The tiny crowd was once again eclectic and this time watching the Grammys.

Birmingham is definitely a small city in Alabama (especially for the gays). I sensed racial and socioeconomic stresses beneath the surface-- or rather around the edges. (I spent my time in the center between downtown and some very fancy neighborhoods, and I hardly saw any black people although they are 75% of the population here.) And yet it has a hard-to-define appeal. By all logic it should be a cultural backwater, but it’s not. Despite its origins as essentially a factory town for iron producers, its deeply disturbing racial history, and its on-going racial and socioeconomic divides, it seems determined to persist, to accept its past and celebrate the openness and diversity that came out of it. In the city’s early days, its rapid growth and economic success earned it the nickname “The Magic City.” During the Civil Rights era, it was re-dubbed “The Tragic City.” But Birmingham’s drive to prosper despite-- and because of-- its past has brought back much of the magic.

#birmingham #alabama #travel #intentionaltravel #gaytravel

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lifeasabpdmum-blog · 5 years

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Why Conversion Camps are BAD!

Conversion camps or Conversion Therapy is coming back into “Fashion” in a big way. But here is why I think they should be completely banned and Illegal.

Conversion therapy is the Pseudoscientific practice of trying to change an individual’s sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual using psychological or spiritual interventions.

In Russia they claim that they have no Gay People in Chechnya, So therefore cannot have any Gay Torture Camps, Even though evidence has repeatedly proven that statement to be false, There are Gay People literally everywhere.

Amnesty International has announced that police are kidnapping and imprisoning gay men simply for being gay. They’re tortured and killed. It is hard to believe that these places exist in these days. It might be even harder to imagine that similar camps exist in the United States today, and have for decades.

It is said that Gay Conversion Camps are quieter these days, than they were decades ago. largely because they’ve fallen out of political favor. We’ve long since established that being homosexual is not a mental disorder: it’s just as natural as heterosexuality, Unfortunately there are some groups, almost mostly exclusively religious, that are determined to believe otherwise.

Here is a small story I found while I was researching information for this post.

“Samuel Brinton was told he was the “only gay person left in the world."Brinton, now 29, was raised as a Southern Baptist missionary, growing up in Africa and the Amazon jungle. After returning to the United States, Sam wasn’t having the “urges” that other young boys his age had. It quickly became clear that Brinton was indeed having those feelings; they were just directed toward a male friend. Sam’s father attempted to “scare the gay away” through physical abuse, but when that didn’t work, his parents allegedly sent the 10-year-old youngster to conversion therapy in their home state of Kansas. Brinton describes it as having been “mental torture.” But what took place there has been impossible to wipe from Sam’s memory. The conversion therapist allegedly told Brinton that the government “had come and killed off” all gay people because they “brought AIDS into America.” Sam claims that the therapist also said that homosexuals are an “abomination” in God’s eyes. When that didn’t cure Brinton of his same-sex longings, Sam says that the therapist attempted “physical aversion therapy,” burning or freezing the child’s hands when pictures of men touching other men were displayed.”

When applying hot and cold didn’t work either, they moved onto electroshock therapy.

hese treatments — which lasted for two years — didn’t cure Brinton’s urges, but they did have harmful, long-lasting effects. The pain Sam experienced made Brinton “terrified” to be physically affectionate with men, even something as small as exchanging a friendly hug. Over 15 years later, Sam is still “constantly in need of mental health support,” often experiencing thoughts of suicide. This is extremely common. Statistics from the American Psychological Association show that survivors of conversion therapy are 8.9 times more likely than their peers to consider taking their own lives. “

Here is the link to this information if you wish to read the whole thing.

https://www.salon.com/2017/03/21/conversion-therapy-is-torture-lgbt-survivors-are-fighting-to-ban-pray-the-gay-away-camps/

Gay conversion therapy survivor, Chris Csabs, has amassed 43,000 signatures on a petition to outlaw the kind of 'therapy’ Aside from Victoria, no other state in Australia has a ban on conversion therapy. “Far from going away, [gay conversion therapy] is actually expanding in Australia,” says researcher at La Trobe University, Dr. Timothy Jones. Which is fucking disgusting and so sad to know, This is 2019, why do so many people around the world still believe that these are helpful? how many more people have to die before these get banned and become illegal?

“If you have ever seen American Horror Story: Asylum, you may have seen a glimpse of what gay conversion therapy is. During this season a woman by the name of Lana Winters, played by Sara Paulson, is a lesbian woman who is brought into the asylum on the accounts of being gay. During her time there a doctor trying to get her out does a series of tests and practices to try and change her sexual orientation from lesbian to straight. The tests that he practices are all also used in some Gay conversion camps”. Now I only vaguely remember this happening because that season was pretty traumatic for me.

These tests and therapy treatments include:

-institutionalization

-castration : the removal of the testicles of a male animal or man. This is used due to the belief that homosexuality is rooted in the testicles, they would remove the testicles of a gay man and give them “heterosexual testicles”

-electroconvulsive shock therapy: this includes the doctor to send shocks through a persons body while looking at erotica of the same sex or sexual photos of the individuals partner until vomiting occurs.

-psychological abuse: this can be categorized into many things but this is also one of the top treatments used to conversion therapy.

While some of these aren’t used much anymore today, it is still important to address it

Here is another link you should read, where I got information from

https://aminoapps.com/c/lgbt-1/page/blog/gay-conversion-camps-what-you-should-know/Rr8k_4D2cwuWa5Gl0YVX5jQWP2QqBlR0PdB

Here is another link I haven't added anything from this page but I think you should read it

https://www.nowtolove.com.au/news/real-life/what-really-goes-on-during-a-gay-conversion-therapy-session-10468

Members that manage to endure the months of torture and abuse at the hands of these gay conversion programs are forced to live a lie and repress their true selves when they rejoin the outside world. For others, the horrors of the camp leave them with no choice but to escape and risk further abuse or put an end to it all and commit suicide. Astonishingly, most of these horrifying true accounts of life in a gay conversion camp are fairly recent – proof if any were needed that so much more needs to be done about protecting and ensuring the rights of the LGBT community.

Here are 15 moving and truly chilling stories from gay conversion therapy camps.

FOUND ON https://www.therichest.com/shocking/15-haunting-stories-from-gay-conversion-therapy-camps/

HAVING TESTICLES ELECTROCUTED

Many of the young men and boys that are sent to ‘straightening’ camps are felt especially stigmatized and judged by their father – this was the case for one unnamed member who was determined to reprogram himself because his own father didn’t view him as a normal kid. Most people would be equally hurt by their parents' decision to send them to a gay conversion camp, but feeling like a disappointment in the eyes of your main male role model can have a significant impact on some young boys.

Concerned so much about earning his father’s approval, one boy agreed to undergo a form of electroshock torture which involved taping electrical pads to his testicles while he viewed gay porn. If the young man got an erection from watching the video, he would get his manhood electrocuted. The lengths this boy went to just to win his dad’s respect is heartbreaking and reveals just how brainwashed camp members can become.

DRIVEN TO SUICIDE

Gay conversion camps are hell-bent on destroying self-worth by any means necessary, so it’s no surprise to learn that for some, suicide can seem like the only way out. This was the tragic outcome for one young girl, who at the age of 17 decided to end her own life after camp counselors did what they do best by convincing her that she didn’t deserve to be loved.

According to her cousin, the young girl had long pleaded with her parents to take her back home since she was hopelessly unhappy. Unfortunately, her parents were adamant that she saw the gay therapy program through to the end. By then, of course, it was too late. Her suicide letter pointed the blame towards her parents, saying “Mom, Dad I love you, despite how misguided you are, you taught me how to hate and feel disgusted with myself rather than to love myself.”

STARVED AND TORTURED TO DEATH

At age 15, South African teen Raymond Buys was enrolled into a ‘Game Rangers’ camp by his parents. Buys was not gay, but was thought to have exhibited ‘gay traits’, so his mother and father sent him off to a training camp that they assumed would make him “a better man, and give him a better future.” The next time they saw their teenage son was in the hospital three months later – he was severely malnourished, bruised and fighting for his life.

The camp Buys’ parents had assumed would simply train their son in the art of being 'manly' turned out to be a gay conversion camp that subjected Raymond and the other boys to round the clock torture. According to a camp mate of Raymond’s, their camp leader reportedly chained Buys to his bed every night, refused him toilet access and one occasion, Buys was forced to eat his own feces. Raymond was later taken to hospital emaciated and suffering from brain damage as a result of his beatings. He died soon after.

A BRAVE AND RISKY ESCAPE

An anonymous gay man on Reddit shared his experience of escaping from a ‘Pray the gay away’ program organized by his local church as a teenager. Faced with endless sermons about how destructive and sinful homosexuality was for the soul, he felt increasingly isolated and close to suicidal. He bravely decided that enough was enough and it was time to plan his escape.

Luckily one morning, one of the doors outside his dorm was unguarded and he managed to slip out of the camp and on to the main road. He followed it until he was out of sight and was able to get a reception to call his dad and brother. To the young teen’s surprise, his dad was proud of his successful escape attempt and applauded him for sticking to his beliefs. The camp counselors, on the other hand, were not so happy and considered him an abomination and destined for hell. By the sounds of things, he’d already escaped hell.

PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY TORTURED

29-year-old Samuel Brinton is truly an inspiration to the LGBT community. As a boy, Brinton was physically abused by his father for revealing he had feelings for another boy. Soon after this, his mother sent him off to be treated with gay aversion therapy – the methods of which belong in a horror movie. Throughout his time in therapy, Brinton was made to believe that all gay people had AIDS, that all other gay people had been killed by the government and that he would be next.

In addition to the brainwashing came the physical and emotional torture that continues to plague him in adulthood. Brinton was made to associate gay sex and feelings of arousal with extreme pain using methods which included electrocution, being burnt with hot copper coils and being frozen with ice. Brinton attempted suicide 5 times and still experiences pain when his current boyfriend shows him any affection. Admirably, Sam now speaks about his hellish ordeal around the world as a campaigner for LGBT rights.

REGULAR EXORCISMS TO ‘DISLODGE’ SHAMEFUL DEMONS

When most of us think of exorcisms, we can’t help but picture spinning heads, a possessed girl, and projectile vomiting. The reality, however, can simply involve hours of intense prayer and repentance for the so-called sin of being born homosexual – but this doesn’t make the experience any less traumatic for the individual. Exorcisms in gay conversion therapy can consist of shaming techniques to expose the unnatural ‘demons’ within people. This is what Peterson Toscano had discovered.

Toscano was raised as a devout Christian and problems arose when his faith stood in the way of his true sexual orientation. Fearful about being a gay teenager at a time when ‘gay’ was synonymous with AIDS, Toscano’s faith convinced him that he needed ‘fixing’. One area of his exorcism-like treatment forced him to record every homosexual encounter he ever had and share the most embarrassing one with his family. Toscano suffered from a long period of depression as a result of his treatment, which did nothing to suppress his true nature.

TAUGHT TO HATE THEIR FATHERS

Very often, young gay men who are struggling to come out have a fractured relationship with their father and this is something gay conversion camps will frequently use to their advantage. An undercover reporter at a gay reprogramming camp recalls how most men in the camp lacked a father figure in their life and were often asked to think of their most traumatic and painful memories involving feelings of fatherly neglect. It wasn’t long before things got out of hand.

Camp leaders would often encourage these young men to engage in roleplay whereby they were able to beat up and brutally ‘kill’ their fathers. The undercover camp member reportedly watched as one young man was given a bat and a punching bag to represent his father. The camp leaders encouraged the member to beat his imaginary father until he was dead, allowing a new more accepting father to appear. By the camp’s logic, the young man no longer had father issues and was therefore no longer homosexual. Horrific.

ESCAPING TO A PSYCHIATRIC WARD

You know things are bad amongst intolerant and homophobic people when you’d rather seek solitude in a psychiatric ward. This is exactly what one 16-year-old girl was driven to after facing extreme prejudice both from her family and officials at a ‘pray the gay way’ program. The young girl (who has shared her experiences anonymously on Reddit) recalls how she was found out as a lesbian by her brother. Her parents' immediate reaction was to send her to what she thought were ‘family counseling’ sessions.

These, of course, turned out to be a gay conversion-style program, where the 16-year-old was repeatedly told by staff members and her own flesh and blood that she was destined to go to hell. To make matters worse, her parents even asked her to sign a contract before allowing her to live at home again. Before long, the pressure overwhelmed her so much that she asked to be admitted to a psychiatric ward for a whole week, just to escape her overbearing counselors and family.

BRAINWASHED TO BELIEVE HE WAS ABUSED

James Guay was brought up in a strict Christian household in California, where homosexuality was viewed upon with the same level of disgust as rape and child molestation. Once Guay began to experience feelings for other boys, he fought his natural desires at every opportunity, which eventually led to self-harm and suicidal tendencies. Since suicide was as much of a sin as homosexuality, however, Guay was torn between being true to himself and the prospect of burning in hell. Discovering he had self-harmed, Guay’s parents enrolled him in therapy sessions and it was here that he was told that his gay feelings were down to his parents.

Guay was wrongly told by his therapist that his gay feelings were down to ‘an overbearing mother and distant father’ and convinced him that he had suffered physical and sexual abuse throughout his childhood. There was no absolutely no truth to this, but James’ therapist would encourage him to remember non-existent abuse memories to ward him off homosexuality. Forced associations between abuse and homosexuality is a popular technique of anti-gay counselors, and these practices are thankfully now banned in Guay’s home state of California.

BRED INTO A VIOLENT PERSON

Like anything you repress about yourself for years on end, bottling up your true desires when it comes to your sexual orientation will always have a lasting and very damaging effect in later life. As well as affecting the life of the camp member, gay conversion camps can destroy so many other lives in their wake. One boy on Reddit disclosed how his father’s experience at a gay conversion camp in his youth eventually turned him into an abusive father and husband.

His father forced himself to believe he was ‘cured’ of his homosexuality and vowed to live a straight life – getting married to a woman for 30 years and fathering a son in the process. Throughout the marriage, they boy’s father was a pressure cooker of emotions – leading to violent outbursts that culminated with his father leaving his mother for a man. His son forever blames the camp for turning a man against himself and destroying innocent lives - all for the sake of being gay.

A STRAIGHT KID WAS MISTAKENLY SENT TO CAMP

This sounds like the premise of a comedy film, but the reality was far more disturbing that it sounds. When one teenage girl was spotted hanging out with her gay and female best friend, her strict Catholic parents believed the two girls were secretly dating and decided to take action. Recalling her experience on a forum, the straight 15-year-old revealed that her parents had sent her to a ‘pray the gay away’ camp, where she spent a week before making a break for it.

While in the camp, she was made to attend regular prayer circles and was often denied food and water because she refused to admit that she was gay and had a ‘problem’. During her time there, she also witnessed a camp counselor and camp member of the same sex get together. Finally, sick of the hypocrisy and abuse at the hands of the camp, she escaped with the help of a male friend. When her parents found the two together, they assumed the conversion therapy had been a huge success!

HORRID TEACHINGS DISCOVERED BY AN UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATOR

An anti-gay organization in Australia known as Living Waters intrigued investigator, Claire Weaver, to go undercover and discover exactly how they operate. Like most gay conversion programs, Living Waters was designed to help men and women across the country ‘overcome’ their homosexuality – mainly by inventing idiotic statistics about gay people and brainwashing camp members into believing them.

Throughout her time at the organization, Weaver attended speeches that told members that 80-85 % of lesbians were sexually abused in the past and that women who were never breastfed were more likely to become attracted to women! Weaver also discovered the detestable philosophy the camp lived by, which was to enforce gender stereotypes in order to prevent homosexuality in kids. Living Waters believed in forcing feminine things on to girls and vice versa to ensure children never grow up ‘confused’. The only thing guaranteed to confuse children is to be taught this utter bullsh*t

TREATED LIKE ROBOTS, NOT HUMAN BEINGS

In the words of one gay conversion camp survivor, simply known as ‘TC’, conversion therapy made him and others feel that they “were no longer people at the end of the program.” At the age of 15 in 2012, TC was forced by his parents to receive conversion treatment. This form of treatment wasn’t simply designed to change his sexual orientation, however, it was to kill any trace of his former self and start afresh.

TC’s conversion therapy consisted of two major steps – to break his self-worth using torture methods and to rebuild a ‘new’ character with the teachings of Jesus. The initial step (lasting six months) involved shock therapy and physical abuse with sessions lasting for 1-3 hours at a time. By the second step, members had become numb, blank shells ready for the program to rebuild with a different way of eating, talking and thinking. TC survived his horrific experience but saw many friends take their own lives because of the inhumane system.

THE BLACK SHEEP OF HER OWN CHURCH

Churches should be seen as a place of peace and a sanctuary that welcome all of God’s children. In recent years, however, some have shown themselves to be very judgemental and backward in their view of the LGBT community. This was apparent to a girl from West Yorkshire, who found herself victim to anti-gay blackmail in her own evangelical church.

In 2007, the girl (given the pseudonym ‘Louise’ to protect her identity) was told that she was forbidden from socializing with anyone under the age of 18 in the church for fear that her homosexuality could influence younger churchgoers. As well as this, she was made to feel further isolated by having regular exorcisms performed on her. Her progress in shedding her ‘gay tendencies’ was constantly monitored by the church elders. Louise later revealed that if she had been more impressionable, she could have easily become very “damaged by the process.”

FORCED TO LIVE A LIE

Sometimes, the most difficult period in the lives of gay conversion camp members is the life that awaits them once they become ‘cured’. Having spent their formative years being taught that their natural desires for a homosexual relationship are inherently wrong and sick, many camp survivors struggle to form same sex relationships and consequently, wind up married to the opposite sex, raising kids and living a lifelong lie.

This was the harsh reality for men like Anthony Venn-Brown and Simon Tinkler from Australia, who spent years married to women and even fathering children because evangelical pastors convinced them that through enough prayer and marriage, they could become straight. Years of brainwashing treatment and enforced ‘manly chores’ in their youth had people like Venn-Brown and Tinkler convinced that their conversion therapy had worked. But both now live openly gay and are having to start their lives from scratch – all because religious nutcases perceived their natural feelings as ‘evil’.

Sources: BBC News; Huffington Post; Now To Love.

The below stories come from this website

https://www.ranker.com/list/reprogramming-camp-horror-stories/jacobybancroft

A Girl Commits Suicide After Attending a Conversion Camp

This redditor had a friend whose 17-year-old cousin was sent to a reprogramming camp, and the results were both tragic and avoidable. While she was there, she begged her parents to pick her up and take her home. She told them that all the camp was doing was making her hate herself for who she was. She was absolutely miserable, but her parents insisted she finish the program. Of course, it didn't work.

A month later, she committed suicide, with a letter to her parents saying, "Mom, Dad I love you despite how misguided you are, you taught me how to hate and feel disgusted with myself rather than to love myself."

An Undercover Straight Reporter Watches as a Gay Man Beats His Imaginary Father to Death

n his undercover mission to research the harmful and deceitful reprogramming camps that were designed to offer a "freedom from homosexuality," Ted Cox witnessed some crazy and truly horrendous acts. Throughout his weekend posing as a gay man on a quest to cure his "disease" at the Journey into Manhood retreat, he was constantly asked to define what manhood and masculinity was, and was forced to face his most traumatic memory. Most of the other men in the group had memories dealing with neglect from their fathers (a big talking point of the conversion therapy camps is that homosexuals just didn't receive the proper love from a father figure), but when the time came to face those memories, things got violent.

A majority of the men in the group recreated scenes with counselors portraying their fathers and then were forced to physically drag the counselors out of the room and shut the door. One of the younger guests was given a bat and a punching bag was placed in front of him. He started whacking the punching bag with half-hearted enthusiasm, but with the encouragement of the counselors, he was told to really hurt the bag until it was dead. While he was hitting it, the man's imaginary father died, and in his place a new father appeared, one who was more accepting. This was to help the man get over his father issues and therefore, no longer be homosexual.

To Earn Dad's Approval, a Boy Gets His Testicles Electrocuted

The only reason this kid went to a reprogramming camp was because his father didn't see him as normal. Many of the other stories on this list include people who worried about eternal damnation, but this boy was only worried about his father's approval.

At the camp, counselors would tape electrical pads to young men's testicles while making them watch gay porn. If they got an erection, they got zapped.

After the camp, this man got married to a woman, only for it to end in divorce later when it turned out that both he and his wife were homosexual.

Pray the Gay Away Gathering Leads to Admittance to the Psych Ward

After she was outed by her brother, a lesbian's parents made her go to "family counseling" that turned out to be a "pray the gay away" meeting. Throughout it all, her stress continued to grow. Not only was she constantly told by both her family and the staff that she was going to tell, but her parents took it a step further by whipping up a contract she had to sign in order to continue living in their house.

At that point, the pressure became too much. The girl, age 16, asked to be admitted to a psych ward and stayed there for a week just to get some space from her family and the camp counselors.

A Conversion Camp Creates a Ticking Time Bomb of Violent Rage

The biggest thing this redditor is mad about is the damage these camps do to a person's sense of self. At a young age, this man's father went to one of the camps after being told by his church that he could be normal and cured of his sinful thoughts. At the camps, they claimed an abusive home, depression, and a poor relationship with one's father is what leads to homosexuality.

After he left the camp, the man's father was told he was "cured." He married a woman without telling her his past and they had kids. Throughout their almost 30 years of marriage, he was a bad husband and father. He was abusive, angry, and even violent before finally leaving his wife (the redditor's mother) for a man.

Today, his son doesn't entirely blame his father, but rather he blames the camp and the church that convinced his father that he was wrong and sinful, ruining not only his own life, but the lives of his wife and children, too.

After Realizing He Didn't Belong, a Young Man Plans his Great Escape

During a "pray the gay away" weekend, a gay teen realized that he wasn't in the right place. He was subjected to sermons about how the homosexuals were destroying the world and he was treated like a leper. He realized that staying at that camp would only be bad for him. So, fearing for his safety and believing that he would quite possibly become suicidal after the ordeal, he woke up early in the morning and fled into the forest.

In the end, when he called his father to tell him he'd escaped, his dad was proud that his son stuck to his guns. Though the counselors themselves weren't too happy and were convinced that the kid was an abomination and going to hell

A Straight Girl Was Sent to a Camp Accidentally and Her Heterosexuality Was Taken as Proof the Camp Worked

This redditor was put in a situation straight out of a 90s sitcom. When she was younger, her best friend was gay and the girl's Catholic parents thought they were dating. They forced her to go to one of the "pray the gay away" camps where she was subjected to "prayer circles and abuse."

After a week there, where she witnessed a bunch of strange things (including a camper hooking up with a counselor of the same sex on the obstacle course), she decided to run away. The camp staff waited two days before reporting her missing, because they thought she would return, but she didn't. The girl called one of her male friends to pick her up and she stayed in his treehouse for a few days. When it was raining, she snuck inside his basement, but was caught by the boy's parents.

Her parents were furious at her for running away, but also saw her staying with a boy as a sign that the camp was a big success

A Woman Goes Undercover and Is Taught Absurd Myths About Lesbianism

Clair Weaver was curious about how Living Waters, an organization dedicated to help people overcome their homosexuality, got their message out, so she decided to infiltrate one of the camps. During her investigation, she attended seminars where she was told that 80-85 percent of lesbians were sexually abused in the past, that women who weren't breastfed ended up sexually attracted to women, and that popular culture is somewhat to blame for glamorizing same-sex relationships and making them seem okay.

She was also told that it parents should push feminine things onto girls and masculine things onto boys so they aren't confused about what they like when they grow up. According to the camp, if you keep up a healthy childhood filled with strict gender distinctions, homosexuality can be prevented a majority of the time.

Conversion Camps May Just Offer Some Young People a Place to Hook Up

This story isn't verified, but this reddit user claims he has a friend who was forcibly sent to a conversion therapy camp, and then proceeded to have more sex there than he had ever had before. On some level, that doesn't sound too far-fetched. You're putting a vast number of boys or girls who are questioning their sexuality all together in one place, away from home, and then putting them through exercises that involve a lot of touching and emotional connectedness.

Is it that hard to believe some campers would start having sex with one another?

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