David Matheson has spent a large chunk of his professional life working to "cure" people of their homosexuality. Not anymore.

In a Facebook post dated Jan. 21, Matheson acknowledged that he's a gay man. He explained that the realization struck him about a year ago, in early 2018, right around the same time he and his now-former wife divorced.

"Toward the end of this decline [in my marriage], I also realized that being in an intimate relationship with a man was no longer something I wanted to avoid. It had become a non-negotiable need," he wrote.

Truth Wins Out, an LGBTQ non-profit that stands against "anti-gay religious extremism," first reported the news. Matheson was initially outed in a private Facebook group post from Rich Wyler, the man with whom Matheson co-created a conversion therapy program.

Matheson responded to a Truth Wins Out request for comment with a message that the non-profit notes "was surprisingly unrepentant and failed to apologize for the grave harm he has caused many of his clients." (You can see it at the link above.)

His subsequent public Facebook post on the matter is similarly short on apologies. He does openly say he's sorry at one point, but with a significant amount of hedging.

I used to be caught in an ideological prison of my own. I know my work helped many, many people because they’ve told me so. But I’m sure I’ve hurt some people too. Not that I would excuse myself, but any shortcomings I had as a therapist came from too narrow a view of what “emotionally healthy” can look like. They came from my own homophobia and narrow mindedness. I am truly sorry for those flaws and the harm they have surely caused some people. And I’m sorry for the confusion and pain my choice may be causing others.

The rest of Matheson's Facebook missive focuses mostly on his personal journey and on the public's reaction to this latest news. He also continues to defend his former work — which, it should be noted, has been denounced by both the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association.

So, what can you take from my course change? Not that I was faking it all those years or that the choice I’m making now was inevitable. Not that I’m renouncing my faith or my past work—even if I wish I could go back and change some things. Not that I condemn marriages between same-sex attracted and a straight person. And not that I’m giving up or jumping ship.



What you can take from this is that my time in a straight marriage and in the “ex-gay” world was genuine and sincere and a rich blessing to me. I remember most of it with fondness and gratitude for the joy and growth it caused in me and many others. But I had stopped growing and I had to change. So I’ve embarked on a new life-giving path that has already started a whole new growth process.

"Conversion therapy" operates under the false (and damaging) belief that homosexuality is an illness that can be cured. It's actually banned by law in multiple U.S. states, as well as in various non-U.S. jurisdictions around the world.

The APA denounced such practices almost 20 years ago, in a position statement released in 2000. "The American Psychiatric Association opposes any psychiatric treatment, such as reparative or conversion therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality ... is a mental disorder or ... that the patient should change his/her sexual homosexual orientation," the document reads. The AMA's language is similar.

A great number of other medical organizations have also denounced "conversion therapy" as a form of pseudoscience.

Among those reacting to the news was Chaim Levin, who lived through Matheson's and Wyler's program and who later participated in a lawsuit that shut down another conversion therapy effort. Levin's statement to Truth Wins Out pretty much says it all.

While I am pleased for Mr. Matheson that he has found a path forward for his life, I can’t help but think of the hundreds if not thousands of people who are still stuck in the closet, a closet that was created in part by Mr. Matheson himself. I hope that Mr. Matheson will do whatever he can to rectify the harm that he’s inflicted on many people in the LGBTQ community, myself included.

UPDATED Jan. 26, 2019, 4:04 p.m. ET with additional context about how the professional healthcare community takes a dim view of "conversion therapy."