Wayne Besen

Wayne Besen (born 1970) is an American journalist and LGBTQ rights advocate. He is a former investigative journalist for WABI-TV, a former spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, and the founder of Truth Wins Out. Besen came out to his parents before starting his Truth Wins Out Organization. He hosted a radio talk show and is a former columnist.

After coming out to his parents, they bought him an ex-gay DVD that could supposedly hypnotize people and turn them straight. It was that and the invitation by President George W. Bush of ex-gay leader Alan Chambers to the White House that led him to start the Truth Wins Out organization. He wrote the books Lies with a Straight Face: Exposing the Cranks and Cons Inside the Ex-Gay industry and 'Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth' and a collection of his columns has been published titled Bashing Back: Wayne Besen on GLBT People.

Besen has interviewed hundreds of former and current "ex-gays", and is an outspoken critic of conversion therapy organizations such as Homosexuals Anonymous.