Founder of gay conversion ministry McKrae Game comes out

McKrae Game came out as gay after leading a conversion ministry for twenty years. Photo / Supplied

A South Carolina man who founded one of the nation's biggest conversion therapy ministries has something to say: he's gay.

The Post and Courier reports Hope for Wholeness founder McKrae Game came out of the closet this summer, nearly two years after he was fired from the faith-based conversion therapy programme.

He's now trying to come to terms with the harm he inflicted when he was advocating for religious efforts to change a person's sexuality.

Game led Hope for Wholeness for two decades, building the organisation into one of the largest providers of conversion therapy in the US, spanning 15 states.

Game estimates they "counselled" thousands of people in that time.

"I created it all," he said.

"We have harmed generations of people."

Game was out to a small group of people as a young man, before reaching out to an evangelical church and receiving counselling himself that saw him bury his feelings and marry a woman he met in the church.

Game has reached out to the community he once targeted. Photo / Supplied

The 51-year-old also is trying to find his place in a community he's assailed for at least 20 years.

He recently posted an apology to Facebook and called for an end to conversion therapy, writing that "these practices are harmful".

Game still believes that groups like his could still be a benefit to people who believe "homosexuality is incongruent with their faith".

This doesn't go far enough for some, with a man who once sought counsel from Hope for Wholeness telling the Post and Courier that the sentiment was "inadequate".

"I think he should be afforded the time and space to process all the things he needs to process and become who he is," Josh Crocker said. "But I'd love for him to apply that same passion he had for Hope for Wholeness ... to advocacy for the LGBTQ community ... and to dismantle conversion therapy and ex-gay ministries."

Game is one of several former movement leaders who have left the pulpits of heterosexuality, come out as LGBTQ and condemned conversion therapy as a dangerous and misleading practice.

-Additional reporting, AP