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Why We Need ‘Americans For Truth’
We trust that you have enjoyed a blessed Christmas this year. We know that your year-end giving opportunities are plentiful, but please consider a tax-deductible gift to Americans For Truth (AFTAH) to assist us in our mission of helping Americans confront the homosexual and transsexual lobbies — which are serious about converting the next generation to their harmful agenda.
Click HERE to give safely online or mail your check to: Americans For Truth, P.O. Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567. Or click HERE to become a regular monthly “Truth Team” giver.
To appreciate why AFTAH’s work is so important, consider how one radical gender activist responded to our heart-warming article last week about an EX-transgender young man.
Recall the wonderful story we shared about an Illinois high school student “John” who overcame adolescent “transgender” confusion after becoming a born-again Christian. In response, two websites – one “gay” and one “lesbian” — published a reply from a terribly confused man who goes by the name Autumn Sandeen (pictured below).
Transvestite Autumn Sandeen, as interviewed by the pro-homosexuality
newspaper, San Francisco Bay Times (July 6, 2006):
“My penis doesn’t bother me as a body part…[but] as a sexual organ I’m very uncomfortable with it.
I’m going to be an op, I’m a pre-op I guess, but at the same time
I’m not really sweating how long it takes me to get there.
But at the same time love is out of the question for me.
Well, not out of the question but I feel uncomfortable with relationship stuff.
I’ve literally only had one partner in my entire life and I’m just not interested in sex.
If I could have a relationship with someone that was just as intimate
as a sexual relationship—but without sex—I would love that.”
In his response to AFTAH, Mr. Sandeen rejects wrote of his own frequent “conversions”:
“I’ve gone from fundamentalist Christian
to agnostic
to non-fundamentalist Christian,
while also in my life going from identifying as a boy,
to identifying a transsexual teen,
to identifying as a cross-dressing teen,
to identifying as an ex-transvestite,
to realizing I needed to explore my gender with a professional therapist,
to now identifying and living as a transgender/transsexual-identified woman.”
Yet he concludes by denying that change (overcoming homosexuality or gender confusion) is possible.
You don’t need an academic degree to see the irony of this man — and he is still a man — being troubled at our report of a young man overcoming the pull of “transgender” deviance in his life. We live in a world in which “the experts,” often with impressive sounding credentials, dismiss healthy change yet put their stamp of approval on homosexual and gender-confused identities like that above. Science has been politicized and is being used to guide young people into harmful and unnatural behaviors.
To most Americans, religious or not, leaving homosexuality or gender confusion behind is a good thing. To homosexual and gender-bending activists, any ex-“gay” testimony threatens their central propaganda myth that some people are intrinsically (born) “gay,” bisexual or “transgender.” Some homosexual activists like Wayne Besen and the fellows at “Ex-Gay Watch” have dedicated themselves to discrediting ex-“gay” change by hyping the cases of people who have returned back to homosexual behavior. (Yes, change is difficult, but why focus exclusively on failed attempts? Imagine if someone tried to “prove” that overcoming drug addiction was impossible by popularizing only those cases of addicts who tried to go clean but fell back into their drug-abusing lifestyle.)
As you read on, give thanks that high school student “John” was transformed by Jesus Christ (rather than by modern secular psychiatrists) and will not have to suffer the severe emotional confusion and deep loneliness inherent to “transgender” delusion. “John” is truly free now — to experience gratitude for his body, to fall in love with a woman, to enjoy sex in marriage, to accept the natural blessing of children and grandchildren, to worship and serve his God, to know joy.
Please support groups like Americans For Truth that cut through the fog of the homosexual lobby’s lies and tell young people, especially, that nobody has to be “gay.” Homosexuality and gender confusion are not permanent, predestined “identities” — as evinced by the thousands of men and women who have overcome homosexuality and related deviancies in their lives.
Also offer up a prayer for Mr. Sandeen’s genuine ‘trans’-formation as well, for, as the Christmas story teaches, nothing is impossible with God. (Click HERE for a great ex-“gay” resource.) It’s certainly not too late for Mr. Sandeen to experience the only “conversion” that counts. God bless. — Peter LaBarbera
———————————
The following commentary was carried on two homosexual activist blogs, Ex-Gay Watch and Pam’s House Blend, in response to our story on a high school student who overcame gender confusion through Jesus Christ:
Statements of Conversion: Student ‘Trans’-formed by Christ
Here on the Ex-Gay Watch I know I frequently point out logical fallacies in logical (or perhaps better said illogical) arguments, and my peers here do the same thing. My peers and I have noted ex-gay and ex-gay affirming organizations — such as NARTH and Exodus International — often use Statements Of Conversion to make their points, vice referencing statistically sound research or widely recognized subject matter experts.
Backing up a little, a Statement Of Conversion is where a person asserts that he or she used to believe one way, but now has a rejected that previous belief, and now because he or she has personally experienced belief in both sides of a particular argument that he or she is now a topic authority. This is a version of Argument From Authority — where the speaker is claiming to be, or has been asserted to be an expert, and it’s implied that because the person is an expert he or she should be trusted.
Americans For Truth‘s President Peter LaBarbera has recently used a Statement Of Conversion in his recent article Great News: IL Student ‘Trans’-formed by the Christ of Christmas! to argue for donations, and argue “change is possible”.
Long story short, suburban Chicago high school student John identified last year as transgender student Joanna, but now has converted back to John. From Peter LaBarbera’s telling of the story:
God intervened and John was “born again” through faith in Jesus Christ, he told his student newspaper.
Now “transgender” Joanna is no more and John is reestablishing his true, God-given male nature at his high school. His newfound reality is precisely the sort of story that homosexual/transsexual activist groups like GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) do not want other teenagers to hear. Because GLSEN knows that such stories undermine the “gay” myth that people are born GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered), and that such aberrant identities are mere natural and innocuous “orientations.”
The problem with resorting to a tale of conversion as a tool for arguing is that other stories exist. For example, I’ve gone from fundamentalist Christian to agnostic to non-fundamentalist Christian, while also in my life going from identifying as a boy, to identifying a transsexual teen, to identifying as a cross-dressing teen, to identifying as an ex-transvestite, to realizing I needed to explore my gender with a professional therapist, to now identifying and living as a transgender/ transsexual-identified woman. Is John more of an expert on transgender and ex-transgender experience because of his life conversions, or am I more of an expert due to my life conversions?
The reality is that one can’t draw wide conclusions by means of Statements Of Conversion. John’s and my conversions make us each a little more knowledgeable about transgender issues than John Q. Public (and Joanna Q. Public too), but our conversions alone don’t make us authoritative speakers on transgender issues.
If we want to draw wide conclusions, we need to ask:
– What do studies and research reveal?
– What do the subject matter experts in the field think?
– What do the professional organizations state about a topic in their position papers?
And, this is where we at the Ex-Gay Watch differ from ex-gay and ex-gay affirming organizations. We don’t rely on personal experiences alone to draw broad conclusions — we look for other information, and then don’t knowingly distort the information we cite.
It perhaps goes without saying that the experts don’t agree with the broad conclusions Peter LaBarbera draws from John’s conversion testimony. (To read up on what some of the experts say, one can read the Harry Benjamin Standards of Care, the American Psychological Association’s Answers to Your Questions About Transgender Individuals and Gender Identity, info about gender psychology at GenderPsychology.org’s Psychology Of Gender Identity And Transgenderism, and info about Gender Identity Disorder (GID) on Gid Reform Advocates.)
Peter LaBarbera in his piece further states:
But, of course, change is possible, because God is in the business of changing repentant sinners. If the Christ of Christmas can turn around the lives of drug addicts, murderers, and drunks, He certainly can save men and women — and adolescent children — trapped in gender confusion and homosexuality.
And Peter LaBarbera is an authority on the change is possible dogma because…?
I’ll end this answering that rhetorical question — Peter LaBarbera’s personal religious conversion alone doesn’t make him an authoritative voice on sexuality or gender identity.
Americans For Truth
P.O. Box 340743
Columbus, OH 43234
