Due to the conservative interpretation of scripture and sexuality I grew up with, I’ve spent most of my adult life committed to celibacy. I was an active member of different churches of the pentecostal and charismatic traditions and was a leader in different ministries in some of them.

Since I was a kid I have been drawn to men. However, I tried to suppress my desires and even tried to suppress my attraction, but every attempt was a failure. I did everything that is taught by churches to heal homosexuality: spiritual disciplines such as fasting, “casting away the spirit of homosexuality,” praying evening services, memorization of verses from the holy scriptures. Not finding any result through the traditional methods, I started going through different types of “deliverance,” including exorcisms and therapies such as “inner healing.”

In my rush to be “cured,” I also looked for the help of people that supposedly had been healed from homosexuality. However, some of them admitted that they still felt attracted to men and were engaging in sexual relations with them.

For more than five years I took part in a support group for those “healing” for homosexuality. The group’s leader said he had overcome his same-sex attraction thanks to a North American ministry called Exodus (which closed some years ago due to its failure to effect change in its participants). At the beginning, they promised that we could be healed from homosexuality but as time went by, the narrative changed: They told us we had to learn to live with our attractions and manage them, as if with an incurable disease.

While I was a leader in that group, I had a consensual sexual encounter with a member of the group, which led to my removal from that position. They made me go through public scorn and demanded I apologize in front of the leaders. That embarrassing experience helped me realize that I was wasting my time trying to change who I was and that it was time to become reconciled with my identity.