Sexual and spiritual identity transformation among ex-gays and ex

340 Pages·2004·0.86 MB·English

Copyright
by
Amy Eilene Peebles
2004
The Dissertation Committee for Amy Eilene Peebles Certifies that this is the
approved version of the following dissertation:

Sexual and spiritual identity transformation among ex-gays and
ex-ex-gays: Narrating a new self

Committee:

Keith Walters, Supervisor
Megan Crowhurst
Elizabeth Keating
Tony Woodbury
Qing Zhang
Sexual and spiritual identity transformation among ex-gays and
ex-ex-gays: Narrating a new self

by
Amy Eilene Peebles, B.S.W., M.A., M.A.

Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
The University of Texas at Austin
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin
December, 2004
Dedication

To my mother and the memory of my father
Barbara Ann Peebles and Billy Charles Peebles (1933-1999)
and to my dear mentor and friend
Mrs. Kathy Jeffrey
Without whom I never would have begun the graduate school quest

And to three who have supported me from the beginning of my life in Austin and who
serve here as representatives of my entire community of friends and hope
from Austin to Indonesia and back again
Dr. William and Mrs. Yvonne Taylor
and
Mr. Kyle Miller
Without all of whom I never would have finished
Acknowledgements
I would like to begin my acknowledgements by thanking the people who truly
made this dissertation possible. While this project certainly could not have been done
without academic support and funding, there would have been nothing to write about
without the individual participants in this study being willing to share their stories and
their lives with me. I am so thankful for, and at times overwhelmed by, the time and trust
they gave me. I cannot name them by name, but to all of those who participated in this
study, I am deeply grateful. To Rico, Peter, Mick, and especially all the participants at
Liberty, thank you. And to the MCC pastors, and especially Alex and the ex-ex-gay
dinner group, thank you. I can never repay you for the gift of your words.
I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of my supervisor, Keith
Walters. More than at any time during the course of writing my dissertation, I now find
myself at a loss for words to express my depth of gratitude. Most supervisors direct their
students through one dissertation prospectus, but Keith has served me twice in that
regard. Upon my return from Indonesia, with a request to work on a completely different
topic that was potentially challenging on so many fronts, he could have easily and
justifiably declined. Instead, he did what he did not have to do, and he supported me
beyond what I could have hoped for. Keith has demonstrated the highest level of
intellectual honesty and academic integrity throughout the course of this project. There is
simply no way I could honor him enough or give him the thanks he deserves. I could not
even begin to enumerate the ways in which he has gone “above and beyond,” to explain
how much work he himself has put into this project, to acknowledge that the touch of his
improvement is on every page, to articulate how our conversations have shaped not only
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my work, but me. I never could have done this without him. As words and time fail me,
I simply must place myself in the position of realizing that I can never repay all that I
have received and humbly say, “Thank you.”
I also would like to thank my other committee members for the roles they have
played in my graduate education and this project. Tony Woodbury has unwaveringly
encouraged and supported me for the last 10 years, and I am deeply grateful for his
confidence in me when I had none in myself. Also, he and Elizabeth Keating
immediately agreed to remain on my committee when the topic was changed, and I
appreciate their gracious flexibility. Finally, Qing Zhang and Megan Crowhurst agreed
to work with me even though I had never taken a course from them, and I am indeed
grateful for their openness to and support for both me and this project and their
willingness to serve.
In addition, I would like to thank Brian Price and Ben Rapstine for their diligent
work on my behalf in administrating the SSRC funds during the fellowship year. Both
Brian and Kathy Ross have worked with me from the beginning of my tenure in the
program, and I am grateful for all their help over the years. My friends and colleagues in
the department have helped me in more ways than they can know, from sharing teaching
materials so that there could be less time spent on class preparation and more time spent
on writing to words of encouragement, their assistance has been invaluable, and I am
thankful to have known them throughout this process. Specifically in my last few years,
Michal Brody, Claude Mauk, Ginger Pizer, Er-xin Lee, Susan Kung, and Andrea Jacobs
have been there at just the right moments, and I am grateful for their friendship and
support.
This dissertation was supported by a grant from the Social Science Research
Council Sexuality Research Fellowship Program, 2003-2004, and I could have never
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adequately completed it without such generous outside funding. Through the SRFP
fellowship, I was able to travel extensively in order to obtain the data I needed and was
then freed up to write for almost a year. The project would have been so much less
without these resources, and I am deeply indebted. I would also like to thank the
University of Texas for the bestowment of a Bruton fellowship.
When thinking about writing acknowledgements and thanks to those outside the
academic realm, I immediately get images of the “Hands across America” campaign that
took place a number of years ago, with long chains of people holding hands to show
strength in solidarity and mutual help, stretching out as far as the eye can see. This image
may seem hyperbolous to some, but I feel it in my depth, as I trace the chain from Denton
to Austin to Indonesia to my research sites to Austin again and even now to Missouri.
Were I to begin naming all who have supported me during this work and all to whom I
am indebted, I would undoubtedly miss people and probably would miss my deadline as
well. I must simply say “thank you” to all of you and trust that you know that I know
who you are. To my “second committee,” I am forever grateful to you.
In closing, graduate school was a quest that I never really wanted to begin. But I
am so glad now that I did. The quest is now ended. I finished only by the grace of God.
And so I give thanks.

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Sexual and spiritual identity transformation among ex-gays and
ex-ex-gays: Narrating a new self

Publication No._____________

Amy Eilene Peebles, Ph.D.
The University of Texas at Austin, 2004

Supervisor: Keith Walters

This dissertation is a qualitative sociolinguistic study of the ways in which certain
groups of evangelical Christians dealing with same-sex attraction use narrative to
negotiate perceived conflicts between their sexual and religious identities. Specifically, I
collected the personal “life story” narratives of two groups: ex-gays, or self-identified
evangelical Christians who claim to have transformed or are attempting to transform their
sexual identity in order to bring it in line with their understanding of evangelical
Christian theology, and ex-ex-gays, or individuals who claim to have attempted some
form of sexual identity transformation and concluded in the end that it was not possible,
not necessary, or both. This study also includes analyses of the discourse of an ex-
lesbian support group, as well as focus group discussions from both men and women
involved in an ex-gay ministry where I conducted three months of ethnographic
fieldwork.
Using Burke’s (1966) notion of terministic screens and applying Linde’s (1993)
work on the creation of coherence in life stories, I analyze the role that both overarching
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metanarrative beliefs and personal narrative constructions play in individuals’ attempts to
resolve spiritual and sexual identity conflicts and create a coherent sense of self.
Narrative is employed by speakers as a means to make sense of their lives and achieve a
coherent sense of self. By focusing on stories of the management of identity conflict, I
investigate a significant form-function interaction, i.e. the linguistic structures that result
when challenges to one of the primary personal and social functions of narrative are
intrinsic to the life experience and hence the language event. These narratives are
theoretically important because they provide a salient opportunity to test the limits of
performativity (Butler, 1990) and the potential of narrative to transform membership in
what have come to be viewed as relatively fixed identity categories. Individuals use
narrative not only as a means of expressing identity, but also as a primary tool for
creating and transforming it; thus, analyzing these narratives’ genres, structures, and
features provides insight into the critical roles language and narrative itself play in sexual
and spiritual identity transformations.

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Table of Contents
Transcription Conventions...................................................................................xiii
Chapter 1: Introduction............................................................................................1
Chapter 2: Literature review....................................................................................8
2.1 Introduction...............................................................................................8
2.2 Ex-gay ministries: Prior work...................................................................9
2.3 Life narratives: Conflict and self-transformation...................................13
2.4 Language, gender, and sexuality.............................................................18
2.5 Other relevant research issues.................................................................21
2.6 Conclusion..............................................................................................21
Chapter 3: Methodology........................................................................................26
3.1 Introduction.............................................................................................26
3.2 Data collection........................................................................................26
3.2.1 Participant selection....................................................................27
3.2.2 Negotiating access and conducting the research.........................32
3.3 Data: Disposition, analysis, and presentation.........................................48
3.4 Conclusion..............................................................................................50
Chapter 4: Terms of transformation in ex-gay discourse.......................................53
4.1 Introduction.............................................................................................53
4.2 Ex-gay terministic screens......................................................................54
4.2 Narrative therapy....................................................................................67
Chapter 5: The ex-gay evangelical metanarrative................................................83
5.1 Introduction.............................................................................................83
5.2 The ex-gay evangelical Christian metanarrative.....................................84
5.3 Beliefs about truth: “Truth with a capital T”..........................................85
5.4 Beliefs about sexuality............................................................................87
5.5 Beliefs about morality: “Choices” amidst “conflict”..............................95
5.6 Beliefs about personal identity: “New” and “old,” “true” and “false”...99
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