Milestones

2021: Launched the “Love Yourself, Live Your Truth“ Internet ad campaign that warns people about the dangers of “ex-gay” conversion programs. Truth Wins Out also debuted the “It’s So Weird” and “It’s Dangerous” ad campaigns to highlight how bizarre and even deadly conversion therapy truly is.

Love Yourself, Live Your Truth

2020: Released a groundbreaking ad campaign featuring former “ex-gay” leaders who now renounce conversion ministries as dangerous and ineffective

2019: Broke the story of Journey into Manhood co-founder and prominent LDS therapist David Matheson coming out of the closet.

2018-19: Led a successful campaign to have Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google remove an “ex-gay” app by Living Hope Ministries from their online stores

2018: Orchestrated an undercover operation that outed “ex-gay” conversion therapist Norman Goldwasser as a hypocrite who “cured” LGBTQ youth by day, while at night cruised Man Hunt and Bear Nation for sex with men.

2017: Truth Wins Out takes a one year hiatus after playing a key role in shutting down several major “ex-gay” conversion groups.

2015: Launched an innovative ad campaign to counter right wing attempt to oppose LGBTQ equality under the guise of religious freedom.

2014: Created the Center Against Religious Extremism (TWOCARE) to provide deep background research against the Religious Right

2013: Co-founded the NALT Christians Project, to show that Christianity does not require homophobia, and that many Christians support LGBT equality

2013: Launched “The Science Project” that interviewed key researchers to rebut right wing misinformation on LGBTQ issues

2011: Initiated a successful undercover investigation that proved Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and her husband, Marcus, own a therapy clinic that practices “ex-gay” conversion therapy.

2011: Led successful campaign to have Apple remove Exodus International’s “ex-gay” iPhone app

2011: Worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to find plaintiffs for their landmark lawsuit that put Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH) out of business. The campaign stemmed, in-part, from a video Truth Wins Out filmed with “ex-gay” JONAH survivors Chaim Levin and Ben Unger.

2011: Truth Wins Out Executive Director, Wayne Besen, had a high profile “Red State” speaking tour, appearing in Indiana, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Alabama.

2010: Organized the American Prayer Hour, an event that shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

2010: In a joint investigation with South Florida Gay News in 2010, Besen exposed JONAH’s Arthur Goldberg as a Wall Street con artist who served time in jail for stealing millions of dollars

2009: The Lansing, Michigan-based “ex-gay” ministry, Corduroy Stone, was shut down by Truth Wins Out after we released a video featuring survivor Patrick McAlvey. He bravely revealed that group’s “ex-gay” minister was making unwanted sexual advances toward clients.

2006: Created Respect My Research, an online platform where scientists could take right wing extremists to task for distorting their scientific studies.

June 2006: Truth Wins Out is founded. The organization is launched at Washington, DC’s National Press Club in response to George W. Bush having “ex-gay” leaders speak inside the White House. At the press conference, “ex-gay” survivor Lance Carroll shares his story with the national media. ”I didn’t want to go. I was forced to go,” said Carroll, adding that the experience boiled down to week after week of ”negative reinforcement of shame.” He added that it didn’t work for him, and that he didn’t see it working for any of his fellow campers, either. His parents, he concluded, got more for their $10,000 — it helped reinforce their homophobia.