‘Restoring the Broken Image’: The Language of Gender and Sexuality in an Ex-Gay Ministry

Abstract

In this chapter I explore the ways in which religious beliefs about the nature of gender impact and affect both language and linguistic practice in an ex-gay ministry. Specifically, I demonstrate how the inextricable links made between sex, gender and sexuality within ex-gay evangelical theology allow transforming expressions of gender to be interpreted as transforming sexuality as well. While some of the changing gender expressions are predictably towards more of what could be considered a traditional cultural norm, interestingly there is also the creation and reception of a new freedom of gender expression within the ex-gay community, as concepts of masculinity and femininity are constructed that resist certain dominant cultural stereotypes and reframe what man-hood and womanhood look like for these Christian men and women in particular.

This research project was generously supported by a Social Science Research Council Sexuality Research Fellowship Program Dissertation grant, 2003–2004. I would also like to thank Keith Walters of UT-Austin for his supervision, as well as thank both him and Allyson Jule for comments on drafts of this chapter.