Much ado about changing.

Publication: The Advocate (The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine)

Publication Date: 19-JUN-01

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2001 Liberation Publications, Inc.

Robert Spitzer says he is "appalled" at the way the media "simplified" his study suggesting gays can change to straight

It was the kind of sensational story the news media can't resist. The leader of the 1973 campaign to have homosexuality removed from diagnostic manuals as a mental disorder, Robert L. Spitzer, was releasing a study indicating that gays could change their sexual orientation through counseling.

The Associated Press declared May 8 that "an explosive new study says some highly motivated gay people can turn straight." The next day, Good Morning America provided Spitzer a platform to expound on Ids research. Time magazine breathlessly asked. "Can Gays Switch Sides?" Conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher called Spitzer a "brave man."

But lost in the media frenzy was the study's fine print. Unveiled at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association on May 9. the research was based on a scientifically insignificant sample of 200, most of whom were drawn from the right-wing "ex-gay" movement and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, which contends that homosexuality is not an...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.