“I’d say: ‘Joe, you can’t promise to cure people. “I will cure this.” But Chambers was happy as he was. “If you’ll just come into therapy with me, I will fix this,” Nicolosi insisted. During speeches and television appearances, Chambers admitted that he was still attracted to men, that “99.9 percent” of people with unwanted same-sex attractions don’t change and that conversion therapy - sometimes called reparative therapy - is often psychologically harmful, particularly for teenagers.Īfter each public denunciation of the industry they helped build, Nicolosi, a clinical psychologist who believed that male same-sex attraction was a developmental disorder caused by childhood trauma and gender confusion, called Chambers on the phone. It was 2012, and Alan Chambers, Nicolosi’s friend and a fellow leader in the ex-gay movement, was causing trouble by telling the truth.
Joseph Nicolosi wouldn’t take gay for an answer.
