Joseph: Agree with Sam2. Reparative therapy has essentially been debunked and proven to cause a lot of pain, trauma and damage.
Syag: I never said it was right. I said why from their perspective it makes sense. I honestly find it hard to judge, but I never said it was right. The bit about it being a reflection on the general culture is just to say where such an idea would come from- facts on the ground more than justification. And I already said that I don’t agree with the parade- they can make their own decisions, but I know of people who choose to and not to based on their cheshbonos. I feel more comfortable with the reasons not, as it seems you do as well. I’m not even specifically talking about Judaism here (and honestly, many of the people who are most active are OTD- certainly not all, but some)- just the sociocultural Jewish community. What’s the right hashkafa is a completely different question, and you’re probably at least mostly right about that (lefi aniyus da’ati) with the caveat that I do think that less paranoid intolerance from the frum world and more sympathy would probably be a good thing, and that people in a group commiserating doesn’t equal waving a rainbow flag at a pride parade. Also, the fact is that now a lot of people marched because of this year’s specific circumstances who might not have marched otherwise- so this year’s not a good example. The vibes I was getting were that it was more standing up for ourselves as a group against the murder last year rather than wholeheartedly supporting the parade, even amongst gay people. (If anyone’s wondering, I have… diverse friends.)
Should people identify themselves by their nisyonos? Like I said above, I think you have a point when it comes to parades and tacit approval of actually sinning, but if you want to make a comparison to your sister (who I hope is doing well b’nefesh and b’guf), then I imagine she would want people to be sensitive about the issue, and would possibly want to meet and exchange chizuk and experiences with people in a similar situation. There would seem to be a parallel here.