A rights campaigner who attended a controversial church event featuring members of a group that encourages people to “break free” from homosexuality told how she felt “traumatised” and “sick” when listening to the question and answer session.

Shari-Lynn Pringle, a pansexual who bases attraction on personality rather than gender, sat through two hours of speeches on Saturday by panellists from the Coming Out Ministries.

The organisation, which is made up of “ex-gays”, was invited by the Southampton Seventh-day Adventist Church to talk about how they turned their backs on homosexual lifestyles.

Ms Pringle, who has campaigned for equal rights for people of all sexual orientations with the Two Words and a Comma group, said: “I was traumatised. I felt sick, I felt uncomfortable and I felt disrespected. It was like they were talking about aliens. Some of the questions were just juvenile.”

According to Ms Pringle, panellist Wayne Blakely told the audience that children of the same sex should not bathe together because it could lead to confusion about sexuality.

She said an audience member then asked whether there were certain types of food you could avoid to reduce your chance of becoming gay. But what really affected Ms Pringle, she said, was a statement by Mr Blakely that many homosexual males had been molested by other men, that they might have experienced some pleasure from being raped, and that it had led to confusion about their sexuality.

“At this stage, my brain just packed up,” Ms Pringle said. “You can’t make a statement like that and just leave it like that unchallenged. The session wasn’t interactive — one of the panellists went around with a basket for people to place their questions in and they were read out on stage.

“I couldn’t fathom someone making a statement like that with no opportunity for us to exchange views.

“All of his references were about people who had become ‘ex-gay’ or people who were dead. He didn’t speak of anyone living happy lives in the gay LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community.

“At one point, Wayne said he could go on to an elevator and use his ‘gaydar’ to spot all other homosexuals on that elavator.

“When he was asked about food that can help people avoid becoming gay, Wayne said, ‘I’m vegan, I don’t eat meat’, at which point people were laughing. It was an obvious innuendo.

“They made many mistakes in this event. They didn’t even reach out to the LGBT community for us to get involved. It was an event about us, but not for us.”

Ms Pringle said the event “follows on” from Deputy Mayor of Hamilton Donal Smith’s remarks in September 2013, when he grouped gays with “freaks” on a Seventh-day Adventist TV programme.

“This follows on from Donal Smith’s comments,” she said. “He is Seventh-day Adventist and there has been no attempt for reconciliation by the church. It’s time we got rid of the elephant in the room.”

Pastor DeJaun Tull, of the Southampton Seventh-day Adventist Church, which invited the Coming Out Ministries to speak in Bermuda as part of the weeklong event, did not respond to a request for comment by press time last night.

He said in a previous interview with The Royal Gazette: “We are a very compassionate church, but we are committed to the biblical education of the Disciples of Christ.

“We are trying to get the people to understand that, while we may differ, that does not prevent us from loving each other. We are teaching respect and love for all mankind — that is the purpose of the meetings.”