I know I am supposed to be on a blogging break. But, this tragedy happened. I wanted to write about Alan’s arrest so people who have reached out with concerns and questions can learn more about my perspective.
There are moments in life that split time into before and after. Tuesday was one of those moments for me. I’ve been staring at a blank screen since then, trying to find the words — deleting, starting over, deleting again. Every version sounds either too cold or too forgiving, and I don’t feel either of those things.
So I’m just going to tell the truth. That’s what we do here.
Alan Chambers and I go back 31 years. He was my boss. He was my colleague in the wild, strange, damaging world of Exodus International — the exgay ministry that spent decades telling gay people they could be “fixed,” and that I spent years helping perpetuate before I knew better. We both know what it cost people. We both know what it cost us. And when Alan stood up in 2012 and said this was wrong, I was wrong, I’m sorry — that mattered. It mattered to a lot of people. It mattered to me. This led to us shuting down Exodus in 2013.
Tuesday, he was arrested by the Orlando Police Department for soliciting sex from a minor in a police sting.
I don’t have words for what that is. I do know what it means for the child — or who he believed was a child — on the other side of those messages. I know that matters more than my grief right now. Children are not acceptable collateral damage to anyone’s unresolved interior life. Full stop.
And yet.
He’s like a brother to me. That doesn’t go away when something like this happens. I wish it did, in some ways — it would be so much cleaner to feel only righteous anger, to write a tidy post about how the exgay world produces broken people and this is what that looks like. That’s not untrue. But it’s also not all I feel, and I’ve spent too many years learning to tell the truth about my own life to start performing emotions I don’t have.
What I actually feel is grief. Grief for Alan, who apparently has been carrying something dark and secret for a very long time. Grief for anyone he may have harmed — including people we may never know about. Grief for the version of this story where the apology in 2012 was the end of the damage, not a chapter in the middle of it. Grief because I loved him, and I still don’t know how not to.
I’ve written before about survivor stories needing to arc toward wholeness — about how we owe each other not just the hardship, but the possibility of what comes after. I believe that. I believe it with everything I have. But wholeness isn’t a destination you arrive at and stay. It requires honesty — brutal, ongoing honesty about the places you’re still broken. It requires letting people in, not just letting them watch from the outside while you perform your redemption.
And that’s where I want to speak directly to someone today. Maybe more than one someone.
If you are carrying a dark secret — if there is something living in the shadows of your life that you are managing instead of healing — please hear me: the performance of okayness will eventually collapse. It always does. And the longer you wait, the more people get hurt, including you. This is not a condemnation. This is a plea. Get help. Real help. Tell someone you trust. Walk into a therapist’s office. Make the call you’ve been putting off for years. The shame you’re protecting yourself from is nothing — nothing — compared to the devastation that comes when the secret surfaces on its own terms, in its own way, at the worst possible time.
You still have a chance to choose how this goes. Please choose differently than this.
For the most part, I don’t know what Alan’s inner life has looked like these past fourteen years. I don’t know what kind of help he sought or didn’t seek. I don’t know what was real and what was performance. I may never know.
What I do know is this: the child — real or perceived — is the center of this story. Not our feelings about Alan. Not our complicated history. Not even my grief. If you have been harmed — by Alan, by Exodus, by anyone in that world — you deserve every resource and every support, and I hope you find them.
As for me: I’m going to sit with this for a while. I’m going to let it be as complicated as it is. And I’m going to keep telling the truth — even when, especially when, the truth is that I love someone who has done something I cannot defend and abhor.
That’s where I am today.
If you’ve been affected by conversion therapy or religious abuse, PFLAG and The Trevor Project offer support and resources.
This is Wayfinder — my space for the honest, imperfect, sometimes messy work of living a real life. If this resonated with you, I’d be grateful if you shared it with someone who might need it today.
And if you haven’t already, you can subscribe below so you never miss a post. No spam. Just real talk, twice a week.
Leave a Reply