A well-known conversion therapist has come out as gay.

David Matheson, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), built a career selling therapies that attempt to alter the sexual orientation of gay men.

According to a 2007 The New York Times story, Matheson holds a master's in counseling and guidance from Brigham Young University and charged $160 an hour to help men develop “gender wholeness.” He opened his practice in New Jersey in 2004.

“The therapy I do really just uses standard, normal therapeutic principles. Cognitive therapy and emotional-based therapy, standard therapeutic approaches, with an emphasis on helping them feel more comfortable in their masculinity,” Matheson said.

Matheson is the author of Becoming a Whole Man, which, according to its synopsis, “is the result of a six-year quest to understand and respond to the most difficult challenges facing men with unwanted homosexuality.”

Truth Wins Out, a watchdog group focused on the “ex-gay” industry, on Sunday said that it had obtained a private Facebook post in which Rich Wyler, director of Journey into Manhood, revealed that Matheson is “seeking a male partner.”

“David...says that living a single, celibate life just isn't feasible for him, so he's seeking a male partner,” Wyler said. “He's gone from bisexuality to exclusively gay.”

In a statement given to Truth Wins Out, Matheson acknowledged that he had “chosen” to “pursue life as a gay man,” but failed to apologize for the harm he had caused.

“My time in a straight marriage and in the 'ex-gay' world was genuine and sincere and a rich blessing to me,” Matheson said. “I remember most of it with fondness and gratitude for the joy and growth it caused in me and many others. But I had stopped growing and was starting to die. So I’ve embarked on a new life-giving path that has already started a whole new growth process. I wasn’t faking it all those years. I’m not renouncing my past work or my LDS faith. And I’m not condemning mixed-orientation marriages. I continue to support the rights of individuals to choose how they will respond to their sexual attractions and identity. With that freedom, I am now choosing to pursue life as a gay man.”

Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, responded: “If conversion therapy does not work for authors like David Matheson who write books on the discredited practice, it is naive to expect it to work for those reading such deceptive publications. Conversion therapy employs guilt and shame to browbeat desperate and vulnerable people into renouncing their humanity. This is the latest evidence that conversion therapy is consumer fraud and ought to be outlawed in all 50 states.”