Should we ban conversion therapy for minors?

[Peter King]

10 million times yes.

Without question.

When I read it I thought, hell ****ing hell yes yes yes!!!

 

[Dragonfly]

When I read it I thought, hell ****ing hell yes yes yes!!!

Your translation is perfect. :mrgreen:

 

[Conaeolos]

I think the discomfort you are mentioning is due to the fact that they are afraid of the social stigmatization that comes from folks like phattonez, as he has so eloquently represented himself in this thread. The right approach is to ensure that people feel supported in being who they are. I can't think of any modern psychological theories that advocate trying to change who you are to fit into perceived societal norms, other than so called gay conversion therapy. I believe you are legitimately concerned for these kids, but denying who you are, let alone allowing someone else tell you to deny who you are, is never a healthy approach.

That is the common understanding, however, applying this on a clinical basis you are presented with a much more difficult challenge: you have a child who is willing to kill themselves if you can’t help them stop being gay.

Many well meaning professionals believing the root is in the stigmatization attempt to treat through normalization and the child dies. The data is there and it concerns me. Enough to let people group all gay children into this category? Definitely no, but a very real worry and not insignificant in terms of the children affected.

But where you're off base is when you talk about changing the psychology of children. Being homosexual is not psychological. It's not a matter of changing one's mind. It's a hard wired drive, whether or not one acts upon it. We don't help homosexual children by trying to reprogram them, we help them to come to terms with being homosexual in a society that often has trouble accepting them.

I certainly understand your aversion to my statement, but even though homosexual attraction is not psychological*. Homosexual behaviour is what the children I am referring are concerned with and where the feelings of discomfort are turning suicidal. Any sexual behaviour is psychological and can in fact be “changed”. So theoretically the intentions of “conversion therapy” are possible as scary as that might seem to us all.

Now as to this statement:

And more often than not, conversion therapy is not about what children want, but what their parents and their religious communities want. If it were really about the welfare of children, then we would be examining their true natures and helping them be who they really are, as God created them. Let's stop beating around the bush. Conversion therapy is an invention of evangelical Christians who believe homosexuality is wrong. They can't outright torture gay people anymore like they do in Saudi Arabia and Russia, so they just go the pseudoscience route. These people are psychopaths, not scientists, and they should not be granted access to "treating" children. Not with their track record of pedophilia, closet homosexuality, and criminal behavior like embezzlement.

The fact that the world treats homosexuals poorly sometimes is not a reason to give homosexuals conversion therapy. That's like saying if you're a victim of racism then you might as well get gene therapy to turn you white. I would much rather deal with my child being homosexual even if it's challenging for me, than toss them to the evangelical dogs who are totally self-interested in promoting Christianity in the most twisted, unloving ways.

Remove the highly emotionalized language which paints it all as psychopaths out to torture children. I can’t say I feel all that different. But I’ve seen the flip side where even secular liberal child just hate being gay and the therapy will not take them at their word and it doesn’t end up well either :-| So I worry, enough to oppose a ban probably not.

 

[TheGoverness]

Of course it should be banned for minors. It's child abuse, plain and simple.

Word.

 

[Parrish]

Monogamous heterosexual sex does not contract STD's.

Incorrect. Some STD's remain dormant in the body for years before people become symptomatic. So one could be in a monogamous relationship and infect their partner years later.

 

[holbritter]

That is the common understanding, however, applying this on a clinical basis you are presented with a much more difficult challenge: you have a child who is willing to kill themselves if you can’t help them stop being gay. .

I believe if a child is brought up with a loving family who encourage acceptance and confidence in who they are, it would not come to that. It's the children of families who hear/see the negative reactions of their family towards gays that will make them feel insecure and negative about who they are. I bet you would find in many suicide cases that one or more family members, openly or not, made the child feel self conscious enough to keep to themselves and hide what they are. That starts the spiral downward. Some children and young adults are not strong enough to take rejection from their family. It's very sad.

 

[Dragonfly]

Since when did monogamous mean ONLY one partner for life????

People can be monogamous, but have been in plenty of different relationships.

 

[Cephus]

We should ban it on everyone.

 

[Jredbaron96]

I'll stop ranting about this when the gay lobby allows any actual science on homosexuality to be done.

There's been plenty of science down on homosexuality that's proven that there's nothing psychologically or socially damaging about it.


Of course I'm sure you'll ignore it, but that's the truth.

 

[TheGoverness]

I believe if a child is brought up with a loving family who encourage acceptance and confidence in who they are, it would not come to that. It's the children of families who hear/see the negative reactions of their family towards gays that will make them feel insecure and negative about who they are. I bet you would find in many suicide cases that one or more family members, openly or not, made the child feel self conscious enough to keep to themselves and hide what they are. That starts the spiral downward. Some children and young adults are not strong enough to take rejection from their family. It's very sad.

Great post, holbritter.

Speaking from my own personal experience, rejection can be very hard to deal with. At school, I did get picked on for it (so did my girlfriend), but nowhere near as much as some of the gay guys did. When it comes to my family, unlike my girlfriend's family (who are very nice, accepting people), my parents (more specifically my mother) didn't have the most loving of reactions to my coming out. Neither did it go over well with quite a few of my other family members (the typical "You're not gay!" type of responses). The only one who really didn't give a **** about me being gay was my sister. In short, that wasn't a very pleasant time in my life. At times I hated myself for being gay. Sometimes I wished I could change it. But not anymore. Even with experiencing all that hurt and rejection, I've learned to stand up for myself, and be confident in who I am. Let's just say I've gotten into a fair number of shouting matches with my mother over this. But it's gotten better. While my mother still has a hard time with it, she's becoming more accepting of it, little by little. My dad just doesn't care if I'm gay or not anymore, which is great.

Apologies for getting a bit personal with this. But yeah, I've got absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Nobody should feel ashamed about who they are.

 

[TheGoverness]

There's been plenty of science down on homosexuality that's proven that there's nothing psychologically or socially damaging about it.


Of course I'm sure you'll ignore it, but that's the truth.

He doesn't care about facts. He just cares about his stupid narrative, no matter how much scientific evidence you wave in his face.

 

[Jredbaron96]

No, obviously.

And I'm not going to let this **** go, because not only do I have friends who are homosexual, I've served with gay and lesbian soldiers and I'm not going to let you sit there and cast them all as "dysfunctional" because you can't accept facts.


For starters, there's virtually no evidence to suggest people can change their sexuality; in fact most of the evidence conducted through peer-reviewed research and credible institutions prove otherwise:

Biological versus nonbiological older brothers and men?s sexual orientation

The worlds largest study of twins confirmed this: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080628205430.htm


There's no connection between homosexuality and rates of child molestation: Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation



There's also no evidence to suggest children raised by homosexual parents are any worse off than kids raised by straight parents, as this Australian study confirmed: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-14-635

If that wasn't good enough, here's the American Psychological Association: Lesbian and Gay Parenting: Theoretical and Conceptual Examinations


And no, Conversion therapy doesn't work, and has been found to detrimental to the health and well being to those who undergo it: https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering...n-gay-bisexual-transgender-queer-lgbtq-issues

http://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6803&Itemid=1926

 

[CLAX1911]

I'll stop ranting about this when the gay lobby allows any actual science on homosexuality to be done.

The gay lobby has that kind of power? I think you have given too much credit to your Boogeyman. Why don't you and all the people that think like you get together and do some science for yourself? I know a lot of "christian based sciences" are laughed at and have no credibility. But there can be independent sciences that christians can support. You just can't control it.

I think the reason such things don't exist is because of fear. The outcome could be anything. You have a sacred cow to protect.

But if you're so sure, get to it. Don't give up so quickly.

 

[CLAX1911]

That's something that parents ought to decide.

Parents can force their children in to voodoo faith healing nonsense if they claim it's religious. You just can't call it legitimate therapy.

 

[<alt>doxygen]

Yeah, it's stupid.

So is allowing people to change gender before they're adults.

 

[Conaeolos]

I believe if a child is brought up with a loving family who encourage acceptance and confidence in who they are, it would not come to that. It's the children of families who hear/see the negative reactions of their family towards gays that will make them feel insecure and negative about who they are. I bet you would find in many suicide cases that one or more family members, openly or not, made the child feel self conscious enough to keep to themselves and hide what they are. That starts the spiral downward. Some children and young adults are not strong enough to take rejection from their family. It's very sad.

That is a very common belief, however if you get involved with children in crisis you will unfortunately find they come in many shades and all have distinct histories. Not to underplay trauma or certain types of parenting as common factors.

I highly encourage we teach and build the type of environments you refer; however, every child will experience “triggering figures” who beliefs and actions are challenging and there is no way to stop that and limit way to prepare them. As loving parents and humans we should certainly look to reduce hostile environments and promote emotional safety; however, children will still come into crisis and we need to deal with that as they present.
Now since this is a political forum, should we open the real question being skirted here: do loving evangelical Christian parents with a gay child commit abuse when their values and beliefs say that homosexuality is a sin?

that wasn't a very pleasant time in my life. At times I hated myself for being gay. Sometimes I wished I could change it. But not anymore.

I think it’s wonderful you gotten there and hope you continue to share your experience with young people. Children need role models as well as exposure to different types of childhood experience.

Apologies for getting a bit personal with this. But yeah, I've got absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Nobody should feel ashamed about who they are.

I for one greatly appreciate you sharing as it is personal for you! And I agree “feeling ashamed of oneself” is exactly the real disorder that needs to be treated in these situations.

But think back to those times when you did feel that way and supposing circumstances and personality factors were different and you were in a full depression – actively seeking to end your life. You get assigned help and they tell you: "you’re alight, it all the negative talk about gays" but this time you have low agreeableness and “just don’t believe them” … “is there anyway I can do to change this?” You pled…. And their only answer is “No, you’re born the way you’re born”…

It doesn’t end well. As I said “conversation therapy” by any measure I have read is more harmful than helpful; however, when you make a law banning that and don’t clearly define where it goes wrong - you open the interpretation to stop therapy which in certain cases may be necessary to save lives.

 

[joG]

Well...

American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry https://www.guideline.gov/summaries/summary/38417?#Section420

American Academy of Pediatrics http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/92/4/631.pdf

American Counseling Association Ethical issues related to conversion or reparative therapy

American Psychiatric Association https://psychiatry.org/File Library...tion.pdf?_ga=1.101084102.696243170.1483042091

Thank you for the articles. I have seen a number of articles on this and related topics and have found that the science has shifted and seems far less cut and dried than -all Constitutional questions aside- I would like to allow the government an intrusion into the family affairs. And taking the Constitutional considerations into account makes it very doubtful that Congress could pass a generalized law to this end.

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

It's a mental dysfunction.

Your ignorance on this issue is showing again. It certainly is not. And as I always tell you... your uneducated opinion on this matter is not fact... and since that is true, do try to be honest by adding "in my opinion" before you say such invalid things as you did in your post above.

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

Yeah, because the science was never influenced by political pressure. Never.

https://homosexualityandscience.wor...entary-on-dr-yiks-response-to-lawrence-khong/

Actually, that link is completely inaccurate. I have posted a lengthy 5 post work up on how homosexuality was actually declassified. I will now repost it for everyone to see, so people know that what you say is completely inaccurate.

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

I originally wrote these posts back in 2010 and have reposted them about a dozen times.

If you all want to see the history of how homosexuality was defined as a mental illness... quite incorrectly and in an invalid way, and how it came to be that it was declassified, quite justifiably, I put together a historical perspective 14 months ago. I will now repost that. I apologize that some of the links seen to be no longer working.

Dispelling the myth of Pro-Gay Politicizing of the APA
Reproduced, with permission from CaptainCourtesy

Part I

Homosexuality has been seen in a negative light for centuries. Early on, it was completely due to the interpretation of Bible passages and because of religious and moral beliefs. Genesis's description of "Sodom" coined the word "sodomy" which by the 18th century, came to describe an act that the Church saw as "unnatural' or "crimes against nature". Homosexuality, bestiality, masturbation, oral and anal sex were all included in this definition. There was zero research or evidence that any homosexual was disordered in any way. This was a moral stance, completely baseless in empirical evidence. No substance, just value judgements.

Karl Westphal, a German physician, was one of the first medical professionals to examine homosexuals, observationally. He concluded from these observations that homosexuality was a "condition "contrary sexual sensation" and claimed it was congenital. As such, he argued, it should come under psychiatric care rather then legal prosecution." He was the first, I believe, to argue that gays should be looked at as having a disorder. Note, this was based, purely on observation and his own theory and beliefs, probably based on the attitudes of the time (19th Century). No research was done. Jean-Martin Charcot, a teacher of Freud's and considered the founder of modern neurology, considered homosexuality to be a hysteric disorder, which, translated to 21st century vernacular, would be a psychiatric ailment. Charcot based this belief on the, at the time, widely accepted theory of "hereditary degeneration". This was a theory, expoused by Benedict Augustin Morel in the 19th Century. It is somewhat technical, but the essence of the theory is that any issue or disease that was deemed incurable, would be degenerative through heredity and damage future generations. Tuberculosis, hysteria, homosexuality, alcoholism, and cretinism were all issues that Morel determined were heredity based, untreatable, and those who had these issues should be placed in assylums and prevented from reproducing. Again, there was no research or evidence into any of these claims. Looking at the list of issue, we know now that this theory is ridiculous, but based on Morel's morals and the lack of knowledge about medicine and heredity at the time. Interestingly enough, the Nazi's used some of Morel's theories to justify placing Jews in concentration camps.

In the 20th Century,Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis' theories of sexual inversion, the belief that "homosexuality was an inborn reversal of gender traits. Interestingly enough, early on, Krafft-Ebing saw homosexuality as a severe hereditary degeneration (see above), but as he met more homosexuals, he saw it as a normal sexual varient, and not a disorder. Ellis also felt this way.

No discussion of psychology can be conducted without discussing Sigmund Freud. Freud did not view homosexuality as an illness, but rather as the unconflicted expression of an innate instinct based on trauma. He believed that all of us had both hetero- and homosexual traits, but under normal and non-traumatic circumstances, one would act like one's anatomical sex. He also saw homosexuality as an immature, but not pathological expression of sexuality. As with all of Freud's theories, there was not empirical research done; his belief was based on theory and observation, and the tenor of the times.

Late in life, Freud wrote this to a mother, asking him to "cure" her son's homosexuality: "Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness".

Continued in Part II...

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

Part II


In the mid-20th Century. two theorists/researchers theories propelled homosexuality far further into the realm of pathology. And both were based on flawed beliefs/research.


Sandor Rado argued that Freud's theory of homosexuality was based on a flawed 19th Century theory: embryonic hermaphroditism (the belief that all embryos had the potential to be either male or female). He was correct about this. His error in logic was to then assume that heteosexuality was the only non-pathological alternative. He did no reasearch or provided evidence of his theory.


The Bieber study is often used to prove the pathology of homosexuals, by showing that they could be "cured". The two major outcomes of his study was to show that 27% of homosexuals, treated, were "cured" and in identifying the familial traits of the families of homosexuals. Biber's study had major methodological flaws, and has been widely criticized and debunked. Firstly, he only used subjects that were already under psychiatric care. Secondly, no long term follow-up was done to determine if the result remained. Thirdly, Bieber was unable to produce even one of his subjects he claimed to have cured. Lastly, Biebers conclusions about the familial structure of a homosexual's family have been debunked by the 1981 study of a much larger, nonpatient gay population, a study that is methodologically sound. In essence, the Bieber study, often the cornerstone of the anti-gay agenda, has been shown to be completely flawed and invalid when studying this issue.


The Bieber study was a response to the Kinsey study. Alfred Kinsey, the well-known sex researcher, created the Kinsey scale, through extensive research. Kinsey was one of the first to do evidence based research on a nonpatient population. What he found was that people varied on a scale from "exclusive heterosexual" to "exclusive homosexual" and variations in between. His research showed that at any given time throughout history, 3%-7% of the population was gay. His theories showed that homosexuality was both natural and widespread. Though this had an impact on non-pathologizing homosexuality, as Kinsey's reasearch did not, specifically address this issue, it did not confirm it. The Hooker study, however, did.


Evelyn Hooker's study was published in 1956, and throughout the '60s gained more and more recognition, as more and more studies reproduced here findings, accurately. Here is a great brief description of Hooker's studyu and findings:

Psychologist Evelyn Hooker's groundbreaking study compared the projective test results from 30 nonpatient homosexual men with those of 30 nonpatient heterosexual men. The study found that experienced psychologists, unaware of whose test results they were interpreting, could not distinguish between the two groups. This study was a serious challenge to the view that homosexuality was always associated with psychopathology.

This was the first study that examined, psychologically, nonpatients; the opposite was a serious methological flaw in past studies. Experienced psychologists saw NO difference.


When the first DSM came out in 1952, homosexuality was classified as a mental illness, not only matching with the societal attitudes of the time, and throughout the ages, but matching with the volume of research, all of which, as can be seen, above, was based on poor methodology, research based on observation only, morals, or opinions.


By 1973, the Hooker study, replicated studies showing the same results, and many other studies showing the non-pathology of homosexuality had been published. Yet, in spite of this evidence, the APA held onto it's position that homosexuality would remain a disorder, and many on committees had never seen much of the research proving this inaccurate. It was only when the gay activists, including gay psychiatrists/psychologists pressed the APA to review and examine the research, that they did. When the APA saw the volume of research that showed that homosexuality was not an illness, and examined the methological issues with the research that showed that it was, further discussions were had in order to determine whether homosexuality would be declassified or not.


Continued in Part III

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

Part III

When the APA voted, 58% voted to declassify homosexuality, which it was. Why only 58% if the research was so conclusive? For the same reason that we see here, at DP, that no matter how much conclusive research is presented that shows that homosexuality is not a disorder, some still hold onto that fallacious belief: bigotry, prejudice, inflexible thinking, morals over logic, and probably some other illogical reasons. Even Bieber, when presented with the evidence, and seeing his own study debunked because of methological reasons, refused to alter his belief. Why? Well, he was described as someone who would not admit he was wrong, even when proven so. Sounds like some folks around here. On this thread, even.


So, was the APA decision to declassify homosexuality as a disorder politically motivated? The politics involved was to force the APA to look at and examine, objectively, research showing that homosexuality was not a disorder, and that the research that showed it was, was flawed. As I said earlier, the concept of politicizing this issue has been misrepresented by the anti-gay side of this issue to appear as if it were something it was not. One can compare this, to some extent, to the black civil rights movement. Was that political? Yes, but not in the way a bigot would make it.

Here are all of the links and research used and cited in these posts:


404 Not Found - LGBT Mental Health Syllabus
Gays become mentally healthy | Chicago Free Press
story in depth, 1857:* Morel "Discovers" Degeneration
Homosexuality and Mental Health
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Hooker"]Evelyn Hooker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Bieber"]Irving Bieber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
Irving Bieber, 80, a Psychoanalyst Who Studied Homosexuality, Dies - New York Times
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judd_Marmor"]Judd Marmor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
Sexual inversion (sexology) - Wikipedia
A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries: Jean-Martin Charcot
Being Gay Is Just as Healthy as Being Straight
The Kinsey Institute - Reference - Bibliographies - Homosexuality [Related Resources]
Gay Affirmative Therapy | American Psychiatry and Homosexuality: An Oral History


I also used quite a few other Wikipedia articles as starting points, and some other research papers that, due to copyright violations, I cannot link to. Also, I notice that many of the links either no longer work are are misformatted. I will fix this as some point.


Here is the link to the original thread, back from nearly 11 years ago. Start at post #119:
Dutch pedophiles to launch political party - Page 4

Continued in Part IV...

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

Part IV


In 1981, Ronald Bayer wrote a book claiming that the reason that the APA declassified homosexuality was solely because of gay activists. Bayer, not a Psychologist, but a Professor of Political Science, reported on this, but was not an active participant. As a direct refutation on Bayer's work, the book, "American Psychiatry and Homosexuality: An Oral History" was published 2007. In it 17 APA members who participated in the 1973 APA meeting, are interviewed and discuss what really happened and what the attitudes towards homosexuality was like, at the time. These are people who were actually there, not someone like Bayer, who just reported on this. Here is a description:

Product Description
Interviews and first-hand accounts of an historic decision that affected the mental health profession—and American society and culture Through the personal accounts of those who were there, American Psychiatry and Homosexuality: An Oral History examines the 1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from its diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM). This unique book includes candid, one-on-one interviews with key mental health professionals who played a role in the APA’s decision, those who helped organize gay, lesbian, and bisexual psychiatrists after the decision, and others who have made significant contributions in this area within the mental health field.
American Psychiatry and Homosexuality presents an insider’s view of how homosexuality was removed from the DSM, the gradual organization of gay and lesbian psychiatrists within the APA, and the eventual formation of the APA-allied Association of Gay & Lesbian Psychiatrists (AGLP). The book profiles 17 individuals, both straight and gay, who made important contributions to organized psychiatry and the mental health needs of lesbian and gay patients, and illustrates the role that gay and lesbian psychiatrists would later play in the mental health field when they no longer had to hide their identities.
Individuals profiled in American Psychiatry and Homosexuality include:

Dr. John Fryer, who disguised his identity to speak before the APA’s annual meeting in 1972 on the discrimination gay psychiatrists faced in their own profession
Dr. Charles Silverstein, who saw the diagnosis of homosexuality as a means of social control
Dr. Lawrence Hartmann, who helped reform the APA and later served as its President in 1991-92
Dr. Robert J. Campbell, who helped persuade the APA’s Nomenclature Committee to hear scientific data presented by gay activists
Dr. Judd Marmor, an early psychoanalytic critic of theories that pathologized homosexuality
Dr. Robert Spitzer, who chaired the APA’s Nomenclature Committee
Dr. Frank Rundle, who helped organize the first meeting of what would become the APA Caucus of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Psychiatrists
Dr. David Kessler, AGLP President from 1980-82
Dr. Nanette Gartrell, a pioneer of feminist issues within the APA
Dr. Stuart Nichols, President of the AGLP in 1983-84 and a founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists of New York (GLPNY)
Dr. Emery Hetrick, a founding member of both AGLP and GLPNY
Dr. Bertram Schaffner, who was instrumental in providing group psychotherapy for physicians with AIDS
Dr. Martha Kirkpatrick, a long-time leader in psychiatry and psychoanalysis, both as a woman and an “out” lesbian
Dr. Richard Isay, the first openly gay psychoanalyst in the American Psychoanalytic Association
Dr. Richard Pillard, best known for studying the incidence of homosexuality in families of twins
Dr. Edward Hanin, former Speaker of the APA Assembly
Dr. Ralph Roughton, the first openly gay Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst to be recognized within the American and International Psychoanalytic Associations
American Psychiatry and Homosexuality presents the personal, behind-the-scenes accounts of a major historical event in psychiatry and medicine and of a decision that has affected society and culture ever since. This is an essential resource for mental health educators, supervisors, and professionals; historians; and LGBT readers in general.
Amazon.com: American Psychiatry and Homosexuality: An Oral History: Jack Drescher, Joseph P. Merlino: Books

Continued in Part V

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

Part V

Some quotes and anectodes from the book:

By contrast, these first-person accounts provide corrective insider views of the process. Several speak of the depressing psychiatric attitudes prior to 1973. Lawrence Hartmann recalls, "The few analysts who wrote about gay people tended to describe them as nasty psychopaths, close to psychosis. I am not making this up!"

Judd Marmor recalls the view that "homosexuals were inherently seriously mentally disturbed, irresponsible, and completely driven by needs over which they had no control." They were supposedly "emotionally immature, deceptive, impulsive, unreliable, and incapable of truly loving."

...gay activist Ron Gold arranged for gays to meet with the APA's Committee on Nomenclature where they laid out evidence from studies supporting gay mental health. Robert Jean Campbell recalls, "They had a lot of data that I had never seen. I don't know where they got it, but I was really overwhelmed by the data."

Campbell argued that the committee should take its own look at the scientific evidence about homosexuality.

Spitzer recalls thinking, "Is there something that they (other mental disorders) all share that I can argue does not apply to homosexuality?" His conclusion was that people with other conditions "were usually not very happy about it. They had distress or...in some way the condition interfered with their overall functioning."
Spitzer continues, "If you accepted what the activists said, clearly here were homosexuals who were not distressed by being homosexual. Instead, they might be distressed by how people reacted to their being gay."

Cure-therapists, mostly psychoanalysts such as Irving Bieber and the zealously homophobic Charles Socarides (whose son is openly gay), were furious and began gathering signatures demanding a referendum to overturn the board's decision. Edward Hanin recalls, "The controversy was led by people who essentially said this was politics intruding into science. It wasn't. The APA Board of Trustees had reviewed very carefully the evidence related to homosexuality."

Judd Marmor agrees: "The fact is that the decision to remove homosexuality...was not based on gay political pressure but on scientific correctness and only after a full year of exploratory hearings and study of the issue. The so-called 'politics' surrounding the decision was subsequently instilled into the process by opponents."

Robert Jean Campbell comments, "I thought the only reason they were worried was that they wouldn't have any patients if this went through. People would no longer go to them for something that was no longer a disease."

[FONT=&quot]Dr. John Fryer, M.D., a psychiatrist who in 1972 spoke at a psychiatry panel on homosexuality, appearing as “Dr. H. Anonymous,” disguising his true physical identity—and even his voice. In those days, to come out as a gay psychiatrist meant a ruined career. [/FONT]

I would take the word of those who were there, rather than that of a reseracher-reporter, any day.


I hope this has been helpful and cleared up a lot of misconceptions. I do not believe that those on the opposite side of this issue will change their mind because of this information. Prejudice and bigotry can rarely altered, even in the light of irrefutable evidence. Thing is, regardless of whether they believe it or not, they are wrong. And that is factual.


Original links that this information was taken from:
For Those Opposing Gay Marriage: Answer This One Question: How Does It Affect You? - Page 45
For Those Opposing Gay Marriage: Answer This One Question: How Does It Affect You? - Page 45
For Those Opposing Gay Marriage: Answer This One Question: How Does It Affect You? - Page 45

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

So, that concludes our lesson on how homosexuality was actually declassified as a disorder in the DSM. Ignore any of the BS that phattonez posts on this issue. He wasn't there. The people I quoted WERE.