Cited in Paper by Mark Yarhouse
![Cited in Paper by Mark Yarhouse](https://www.peter-ould.net/wp-content/uploads/author1.jpg)
Thanks to Wesley Hill for pointing out that Mark Yarhouse referred to my work in his latest paper for the Christ on Campus Initiative.
Still others reject a gay identity label altogether. This may be the more common response among sexual minorities who do not endorse same-sex relationships and the theological and biblical studies that are cited to support such behavior and/or relationships. These individuals are sometimes referred to as ex-gays or post-gays. Exodus International popularized the word ex-gay, although there has been recent movement away from that designation by some in leadership. Post-gay has been popular among some Christian sexual minorities, including Peter Ould:
Post-gay isn’t an ontological statement, it’s a vectorial statement. For those uninitiated in the deeper arcane magicks of mathematics, a vector is simply a description of a direction and magnitude. It describes a movement, not a position (which is ontology). Post-gay then is less about being straight or gay and rather about a choice of a journey.67
In our own work studying similar individuals, we used the more descriptive (but somewhat clunky) language of â€dis-identifying“ with a gay identity. What these terms and others seem to convey is a rejection of the label â€gay“ by either not being gay, not identifying as gay, or moving beyond gay as a personal identity label. In keeping with Ould’s sentiment, it is primarily a discussion of life trajectory or, in his words, a choice of a journey.
You can read the whole paper here – it’s worth your time.
Great!