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In the heart of red California, deeply conservative Shasta county has earned a troubling reputation over the past decade. Once known for its scenic hiking trails and scorching temperatures, now it’s become a case study of what happens when far-right, ultra-religious politicians takeover.
Threatening messages flood the inboxes of politicians, independent journalists and LGBTQ+ leaders. A growing armed militia called Clendenen’s Cottonwood Militia are a firm presence across the county, with MAGA-supporters dominating all levels of local politics, leaving little room for dissent.
At the centre of this hot-bed of Christian fundamentalism sits neo-charismatic megachurch Bethel Church. Based in Redding, the county seat of Shasta county, church leadership offer pro-Trump, anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice rhetoric found in countless conservative churches across the country. However, Bethel goes far beyond typical right-wing ideologies to embrace extreme and, at times, bizarre activities.
From holding a service to pray for the literal resurrection of a dead two-year-old to hosting so-called “prayer rooms” where cancer can be healed; Bethel is no stranger to making extreme claims.
Perhaps the most impactful project that calls Bethel home is the “ex-gay” CHANGED Movement. Created by Bethel pastors Elizabeth Woning, a self-described former lesbian, and Ken Williams, a self-described former gay, the group is actively working to spread their message of leaving homosexuality across Europe.
Global Conversion Drive
The annual conference of the International Foundation for Therapeutic and Counselling Choice (IFTCC), a London-based organisation that says it’s a “home for the once-gay”, brings together leading figures of the ex-gay movement. For the last few years, IFTCC has chosen Poland as its host nation, with the upcoming 2024 “Into The Wind” event being held in Warsaw once again in October.
Woning and Williams are regular speakers at IFTCC conferences and sit on its general board. In 2023, Williams spoke to conference guests about the “faith-based journey out of LGBT,” leaving Woning to focus on sharing the biblical foundation of the CHANGED Movement to the hundreds of gathered guests.
The platform offered by IFTCC is arguably one of the largest anywhere in the world for those who are tirelessly working to stop conversion therapy bans and find new ways to rebrand harmful and unscientific conversion practices.
The new Labour Government in the UK has said it will introduce a Conversion Practices Bill, to ban practices aimed at changing or suppressing someone’s gender identity or sexual orientation in England and Wales, the BBC reported last month. The bill, currently in draft, aims to stop professionals offering support to those exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity, or those providing medical care and support.
Woning and Williams are just two individuals within the global conversion therapy ecosystem. So-called best practices for enabling conversion therapy to continue are discussed at conferences, with it not being unusual to see Slovakian politicians talking to US professors about how LGBTQ activists are destroying the traditional family.
It’s no accident that Eastern Europe has been chosen by the IFTCC year after year as the location for a conference that is the ideal networking event for participants from more than 30 countries.
After eight years in power, Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party lost office in October 2023, with centrist Donald Tusk being elected Prime Minister. Despite this shift, the Law and Justice party still won the most seats and the country remains conservative on issues such as LGBTQ rights.
The majority of conference participants come from around Europe, with a heavy contingent from Eastern Europe. An outsized number of presenters travelled from America to share their insights. This connected network of fundamental religious doctors, politicians and professors are seeking to evade medical standards and laws in an attempt to enable conversion therapy practices to continue.
Polish psychologists Dr Szymon Grzelak, who created the influential European Institute of Integrated Prevention, and Agnieszka Marianowicz-Szczygieł, attended the IFTCC conference last year, with the former giving a presentation on “How to Include Homosexuality and Gender Dysphoria Issues in Prevention of Youth Risk Behaviour and Youth Problems”.
Facing increasing opposition in America from LGBTQ rights activists, growing numbers of US Christian organisations are looking further afield to countries in Europe where their ex-gay message has a better reception.
“Up until the last couple of years in the US, there had been win after win for the LGBTQ community, and people who cared about individual rights and liberties,” explains Wendy Via, co-founder and president of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, a non-profit organisation working to address transnational far-right extremism.
These outfits are pushing an anti-LGBTQ and anti-woman agenda in Europe very successfully. As Europe starts to move to the right, they are very good at being opportunistic. They’re in Eastern Europe, they’re in the UK – they’re extremely strategic and effective
Wendy Via, Global Project Against Hate and Extremism
Exporting Toxic Ideologies
Some conversion therapy advocates proudly point to their faith as the reason for embracing scientifically discredited practices, with many believing that being gay and religious are incompatible. However, a growing number of these advocates are contorting sexual fluidity research to allege that conversion attempts are scientific in nature.
Under the pretence of counselling and religious freedom, the California-based Reintegrative Therapy Association, created by Joseph Nicolosi Jr, a leading advocate of “spontaneous” sexual orientation change efforts, purports to show that “spontaneous sexuality change” is possible, as a by-product of healing trauma. As a result of the trauma and harm that conversion practices cause, all mainstream medical and psychological bodies in the UK and US are opposed to all forms of conversion therapy, no matter what they are called.
It’s not just in-person events where ultra-religious US Christians are pushing their once-gay agenda. UK-based Strong Support bills itself as a peer support organisation for “Muslims struggling with same sex lust”, offering everything from training to schools and counsellors to what it describes as “one-to-one coaching” for “unwanted same-sex lust”.
Close to a dozen of the interviewees in the Strong Support webinar series, which offers interviews with so-called experts on “the exploration of therapeutic options available for Muslims with unwanted same sex lust”, come from America, including Woning, Joseph Nicolosi Jr and Michael Gasparro, a licensed therapist in California who says Reintegrative Therapy has helped clients “decrease their same-sex desires and sexual behaviours”.
All eight of the counsellors listed on the Strong Support website are based in America. One of the life coaches listed is Rich Wyler, who founded Brothers Road, which claims to help “men supporting each other in addressing our same-sex attractions”.
While based in the US, Brothers Road holds its ‘Journey Into Manhood’ gay conversion retreat across the world, including in England and Poland.
The ideological underpinning offered by American religious organisations on conversion therapy has proved essential for similar projects running in Europe. For example, the website of prominent Italian “ex-gay” Luca Di Tolve lists his favourite experts on sexual orientation change efforts with the majority coming from the US. They include Brothers Road and Joseph Nicolosi, Jr.
Hometown Hate
Back in Redding, Bethel continue to push ahead with its Seven Mountain Mandate, which seeks to influence virtually all aspects of society: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government.
“It would be impossible to live in Shasta county and not have Bethel Church touch you in some way,” explains Doni Chamberlain, an independent journalist based in Shasta county and publisher of news site, A News Cafe. “They were telling their congregation to vote for Trump and vote against these bills stopping conversion therapy.”
As a Bethel ministry, the CHANGED Movement is not opposed to charging top-dollar for its “expertise”. For $299.99, those struggling with “same-sex attraction” can buy the “Finding You: An Identity-Based Journey Out Of Homosexuality.”
This online course includes a more than 300-page guidebook and dozens of videos “offering encouragement and guidance from those who have left LGBT to follow Christ”. Or, for $9.98, CHANGED offer the “#OnceGay Stories Book,” where readers can “find insight into the real pain of homosexuality”.
“They charge for every freaking thing. Do you want to learn how to dance in the spirit? That’d be hundreds of dollars. Do you want to learn how to not be gay through Jesus? You think they would just give it away for free, but no, it all has a price,” adds Chamberlain.
It’s no understatement to say the impact of Bethel’s CHANGED Movement ministry can be felt all the way from Redding to Europe, thanks to the work of Woning and Williams.
Terrie Carson, Executive Director of the Wolfpack Clubhouse, a Redding-based non-profit supporting lesbians in the city, knows what a difference the safe space makes to the community. “We do things together, if someone’s got a problem, we have all these different people with expertise [to help],” she says.
Carson mentions how followers of Bethel have walked up to a group of Wolfpack members and asked if they can pray for them. At a local restaurant, Carson’s wife was asked by a waitress if she could put her hands on her and pray for her.
If fundamentalist Christians are successful in their efforts to revitalise conversion therapy practices, these same scenes could play out in conservative European cities.
They think we need praying for because of our sexuality. It’s really sad to say, but I feel like it’s gonna get worse before it gets better
Terrie Carson, Wolfpack Clubhouse
The thought of leaving Redding crosses Carson’s mind at least once a week.
“My wife said to me maybe there’s a reason why we’re here. Maybe we’re here to show people that there’s another way to bring about change,” she says. “Because you are making a positive change in people’s lives and giving them a place to feel they are worth something – that they belong somewhere.”
Bethel Church and the CHANGED Movement did not respond to a request for comment.
Research for this article was made possible with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Washington, DC, and the Fund for Investigative Journalism.