Well-known YouTuber Anthony Quintal, higher often called “Lohanthony,” made statements seemingly renouncing same-sex attraction in a latest video riddled with anti-gay language, regarding and surprising longtime followers.
In a video referred to as “Surviving Sexuality” posted on the Lohanthony YouTube channel on August 21, Anthony, who got here out as homosexual when he was a young person, mentioned his similar sex-attraction was a results of him “looking for God’s love.” Now, Anthony mentioned he has been referred to as to “Christian celibacy,” a time period LGBTQ individuals have identified echoes concepts peddled in conversion remedy — a dangerous and discredited follow trying to alter somebody’s sexual orientation or gender id.
“After I entered center college, I started what could be my decade-long seek for homosexual love that will finally finish with disappointment towards the solace I assumed I used to be bred to solely discover in males,” he mentioned. “A void which might later be crammed by Jesus Christ.”
Anthony mentioned that he was sexually assaulted at a younger age, implying this made him homosexual. “I by no means understood my very own sexuality as a result of I used to be so broken, so damaged, so bruised, due to these conditions,” he mentioned, including that his relationships with males felt like “making an attempt to suit a circle right into a sq..” This, many have identified, perpetuates false concepts about trauma and being homosexual that portrays same-sex attraction as a detrimental aspect impact of one thing unhealthy occurring to you. He additionally appears to say that his dependence on substances was a results of being homosexual.
“It is no coincidence that by means of pursuing my same-sex attraction I used to be additionally hooked on alcohol, I used to be additionally hooked on weed, I used to be additionally making an attempt hallucinogenics, I used to be additionally hooked on cash, I used to be additionally hooked on views, I used to be hooked on consideration,” he mentioned within the video.
Whereas he notes within the video that he is “not right here to sentence anybody, not right here to say what’s sinful and what isn’t sinful, not right here to guage anybody,” the concepts Anthony perpetuated in his video might be dangerous to younger queer viewers. In an interview with Insider, Mathew Shurka, co-founder of the anti-conversion remedy group Born Excellent and survivor of conversion remedy, mentioned the best way Anthony spoke echoes what’s taught in some conversion remedy packages, and might be “extremely harmful” for viewers.
Conversion remedy, which has been renounced and deemed harmful by a slew of human rights and medical organizations, can imply the try to alter somebody’s sexuality, or it may be a method to suppress it — which appears to be what Anthony is speaking about. In keeping with OutRight Motion Worldwide, many conversion remedy efforts have shifted from the objective of “altering” somebody’s sexuality to encouraging them to not act on same-sex attraction.
In keeping with an OutRight Motion Worldwide report, such organizations “original their interventions to assist so-called ‘strugglers’ to suppress their sexual needs, together with dwelling celibate lives, reclaiming their cisgender identities, and regaining social acceptance. As one well-known group that promotes ‘conversion remedy’ notes on its web site, ‘Gay temptation will not be a alternative, however gay conduct is.’”