CAPITOL HILL—A number of former homosexuals and transgendered people gathered recently outside the U.S. Congress to say sexual identity can be changed, and their changed lives are proof.

Here are excerpts from their remarkable testimonies of change.

APRIL LOCKHART FROM ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO:
“I am a former lesbian.  I’m very passionate about this topic because I really embraced that life.  I won’t talk about how or why I went into that lifestyle.  But I fully embraced it, and I was confident in who I was and I sought it out.  I was a champion for the LGBT and I really even liked to just be out there and promote it.”

“I had fully believed in this lie that gets perpetuated that people don’t change, they can’t change, and if you try to change them, it’s detrimental to their health.  And I just want to say that’s a lie.”

“I almost missed out on some of the best and most precious moments of my life. I wasn’t going to get married. I wasn’t going to meet my husband. I wasn’t going to get to have my own children.  This is not something that my mind was even open to. I didn’t know that it was a possibility for me. And I stand before you now a changed woman. I don’t struggle with same-sex attraction. It’s almost like it never was for me.  And so I would like for that lie to stop being perpetuated.  It’s just simply not true.  People can and do change if they want.  And we need to be allowed as free Americans to seek that out.  Nobody has the right to tell you you can’t be what you want to be. And I did want change.  And through the power of God, the Creator of heaven and earth, this was able to happen. These days we’re able to happen. These moments. And I’m a happy woman. I don’t suffer depression. I don’t suffer with anxiety. I don’t drink myself into stupors like I used to have to.”

LUIS RUIZ FROM ORLANDO, FLORIDA:
“For a long time, I was very broken and hurt.  I found out that I was HIV positive because I was promiscuous. My generation would say a ‘ho.’ While I was searching for men, sleeping around a lot, I didn’t realize that there was a man looking for me.”