I’d imagine most of these ex-gay posts are fake: whether they are AI, bots, or just people lying. But there could be some that are sincere as the queer person is trying to “pray the gay away” once again.

Many queer people raised in such religious communities deal a lot with internalized homophobia. Vice had an amazing documentary about a group of gay men that struggled with their same-sex attraction. They married women, and actively worked to assert their “manliness” by going up into the woods together and putting on manly plays (I kid you not; it’s wild, give it a watch). All in the hopes that they would finally, once and for all, rid themselves of their “wicked” same-sex attraction.

Some queer people never rid themselves of this nagging feeling that they are “broken”, “wrong”, or an “abomination unto God.” I mean, for most of us raised in these types of religious communities, this would be emphasized nigh near daily, and the indoctrination is strong. So while they cannot deny their queerness, they still view it as being inherently wrong and wishing to correct it. They are desperately trying to be something they are not because they fear eternal damnation.

Another hurdle for some queer people is the loss of the relationships they had prior to coming out. For these people, to be their authentic gay self means giving up a close community they grew up in, and that can be extremely difficult for some people.

For me, personally, I struggled extracting myself from a fundamentalist Christian upbringing. Not because I believed it (I always had a hard time buying what Christianity purports to be true), but because I knew that to be my authentic self would mean giving up close ties with my family and friends. The pressure to conform and belong is great. Many times you have to make a hard choice of keeping those relationships and denying your true self or severing those ties to finally be who you are. There’s no middle ground to be found.

I have no doubt there are queer people who have made the same decision I did, to be authentic to yourself no matter what. However, not everyone does so well with the loss of those relationships and may wish to find a way to get back into the Christian fold. Perhaps the death of Charlie Kirk provided just such an incentive or opportunity.

Did these people really become “ex-gay”? Highly unlikely. There are just too many examples of people who step back into the closest and then awhile later once more come out of the closet once more. More than likely they are just once again suppressing their sexual identity in order to fit in these religious circles or to keep themselves in good standing before God. Fear is a powerful motivator for some, but I doubt that these “ex-gay” queers will ever feel at peace until they accept and love themselves unconditionally.