I came out of the closet in 2005, at age 17, and was blessed to have my parents, grandma and close friends and family accept me despite our differences in who we like to love. My mother’s side of the family didn’t, but they’re white supremacists – and that’s a story for another day, folks. Undoubtedly much of the world has woken up to gay acceptance, but there will always be a few who hold fast to their hateful viewpoints. Unfortunately, social media influencer Andrew Hartzler knows this better than anyone else.
It’s hard to mention Hartzler as just an out social media influencer who uses his platform to spread awareness for gay rights and other important causes. Really, I should be highlighting him as a survivor because he’s had to endure so much psychological and emotional torture at the hands of his own parents. Not only was the now 25-year-old subjected to gay conversion therapy at age 14 – which comes with a high rate of suicide post-conversion – but he was also forced into gay conversion counseling through most of high school before being forced into a conservative Christian college. Imagine the blackmail. Think what we want you to think, or you can’t get higher education. Just sick…
That finally brings me to Andrew’s TikTok video, which is currently going viral on social media. While attending college, he felt like his privacy was being violated at home, so he set up a security camera to catch any unlawful activity in his bedroom. Soon, he discovered that his parents hired an evangelical pastor (priest?) from The Power Team to bless and exorcise demons from his bedroom. Literally taking the term “out of the closet” into reality, the pastor blesses his bedroom, bed and specifically the closet – even going as far as to bless the remove the demons from the young man’s clothes.
here is the footage from when my parents though a demon in my room was making me gay. pic.twitter.com/ggyzanqbmm
— andrew hartzler (@andyhartzler) June 2, 2023
Although the video was filmed several years ago, Mr. Andrew Hartzler is just posting it to TikTok this week. Of course, Andrew no longer speaks to either of his parents. Freedom can bring you that kind of healing. Thank God, no pun intended.
Instead of focusing on his shitty, shitty family – one of whom is a prominent political figure – I felt like I wanted to focus on his success instead. Let’s support this young man in all his future endeavors by following him on each of his social media platforms: TikTok, Twitter and Instagram.
Source: Pride
My bff & I both grew up in the same church (both gay) and we had very similar experiences w/ our families as well. Conversion, praying the gay away, trying to suppress/hide these gay feelings, etc. I’m thankful we still have each other and had each other when going through those traumatic things. So very sad.