Why are ex-gays (and ex-trans) so dangerous?

In my book The Silencing of the Lambs, I devote one chapter to the question: Why are these lambs so dangerous?

Which “lambs” did I have in mind?

I was speaking of ex-gay and ex-trans Christians.

Why are they considered so dangerous? Why must these lambs be silenced?

I personally know quite a few ex-gay Christians, along with an increasing number of ex-trans Christians. Most of them are extremely kind-hearted people, people who do not strike me as nasty and mean-spirited and aggressive. They have already been through a lot, and they tend to be very compassionate and caring.

Not only so, but many of them have suffered tremendous rejection over the years, because of which most are not looking for another battle.

Think about it for a moment. At one point in their lives, they had to come out as gay or transgender. They may have been bullied in school. They may have lost friends over the years. Their families may have rejected them. Their churches may have spoken against them. This was the first trauma they had to survive, a trauma that could have lasted for many years.

Then, they found a new community. They found new relationships. They found others who affirmed and accepted them. They were embraced as gay or transgender. But then something else happened. They became convinced that God had a better plan.

They realized that they were not living according to His will. They cried out for forgiveness and transformation. And whether their attractions changed, or their identity issues disappeared, one thing was clear to them: God did not want them to live as gay or trans.

Because of this, they had to come out again. They had to suffer rejection for a second time. They had to be criticized and vilified and even demonized for the choices they were making. And all this happened to them despite the fact that they were not being hostile or confrontational or angry or hateful. They were simply saying, “This is what the Lord has for me.”

You can read some of their stories on sites like ChangedMovement.com and others, and these people seem like anything but an aggressive threat.

What, then, makes them so dangerous, to the point of people seeking to deny their very existence? Why are others in the LGBTQ community so hostile to them, even saying, “You are lying! You know inside who you really are. You are just putting on an act. You do not exist!” Why this reaction? Why does their existence pose such a threat?

And why pass laws in state after state and country after country making it illegal for people with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender-identity confusion to get professional help?

The answer is simply this. If there is such a thing as ex-gay or ex-trans, then the whole idea that you are “born that way” goes out the window. If it is true that being homosexual or bisexual or transgender is not innate and immutable, then these things cannot rightly be compared to skin color, in which case “LGBTQ rights” cannot rightly be compared to the Civil Rights movement.

Yet that concept has undergirded LGBTQ activism for decades. “This is who we are! We were born this way, and we cannot change, and it is cruel and inhumane to suggest otherwise.”

The very existence, therefore, of ex-gay and ex-trans individuals challenges this foundational assumption. It also says, “Even if you were born gay or trans, the fact is that all of us are born broken and flawed and fallen as human beings. And to all of us Jesus says, ‘You must be born again!’ Plus, the bottom line is that there is no reputable scientific evidence that we were born this way, and our own lives prove that change is possible.”

That is why the very existence of ex-gay and ex-trans individuals must be so strenuously denied. They completely undermine one of the main pillars of LGBTQ activism. That is why they are considered such dangerous lambs.

That is also one reason why there are such vigorous efforts to make it illegal for individuals to pursue change. (I dubbed one bill pushed in California two years ago the “Must Stay Gay Bill.”) If change is possible, then neither homosexuality nor transgenderism can be the new black.

And that’s why, in today’s cancel culture, there is a group of lambs with a giant target on their backs. They have crossed a forbidden line. They have claimed that change is possible. That is why they must be silenced.

With our help, standing in solidarity and support of this small but growing community, that will not happen.

Excerpted and adapted from Michael L. Brown, The Silencing of the Lambs: The Ominous Rise of Cancel Culture and How We Can Overcome It.