Is It Possible to Systematilly Turn Gay People Straight? | Disver Magaze

Contents:

• SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS
• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT
• IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
• GAY MAN WHO WAS 'TURNED STRAIGHT' OUT AGA: NETI POSTER BOY FOR 'EX-GAY' MOVEMENT WHO LEFT HIS WIFE AND RETURNED TO HOMOSEXUALY HS OUT AT RICK PERRY
• CAN SOME GAY MEN AND LBIANS CHANGE THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATN? 200 PARTICIPANTS REPORTG A CHANGE OM HOMOSEXUAL TO HETEROSEXUAL ORIENTATN
• CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?
• CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?
• “HELP ME CHANGE FROM GAY TO STRAIGHT”

SOME GAYS CAN GO STRAIGHT, STUDY SAYS

May 9, 2001 -- Can gay men and women bee heterosexual?

Crics, though, say the study's subjects may be ludg themselv and that the subject group was scientifilly valid bee many of them were referred by anti-gay relig Robert Spzer, a psychiatry profsor at Columbia Universy, said he began his study as a skeptic — believg, as major mental health anizatns do, that sexual orientatn nnot be changed, and attempts to do so n even e Spzer's study, which has not yet been published or reviewed, seems to dite otherwise. Spzer says he spoke to 143 men and 57 women who say they changed their orientatn om gay to straight, and nclud that 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of women reached what he lled good heterosexual functng — a staed, lovg heterosexual relatnship wh the past year and gettg enough emotnal satisfactn to rate at least a seven on a 10-pot said those who changed their orientatn had satisfyg heterosexual sex at least monthly and never or rarely thought of someone of the same sex durg also found that 89 percent of men and 95 percent of women were bothered not at all or only slightly by unwanted homosexual feelgs. However, only 11 percent of men and 37 percent of women reported a plete absence of homosexual ditors.

THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT

Spzer argu that highly motivated gays n fact change that preference — wh a lot of Study, Old DebateBut crics have challenged the study, even before was formally unveiled at today's ssn of the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn's annual meetg New Orleans, which was jammed wh televisn meras reportg on the prentatn. Ariel Shidlo and Michael Shroer, two psychologists private practice New York Cy, found that of 215 homosexual subjects who received therapy to change their sexual orientatn, the majory failed to do so. "Hurt by TherapySpzer don't qutn that many gay people have been hurt by therapy.

"There's no doubt that many homosexuals who have been unsuccsful and, attemptg to change, bee prsed and their life be worse, " he said. "In fact, he said, many of his subjects had been sponnt and even suicidal themselv, for the oppose reason — "precisely bee they had prevly thought there was no hope for them, and they had been told by many mental health profsnals that there was no hope for them, they had to jt learn to live wh their homosexual feelgs.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?

"He said some velop such tremendo strs that they bee chronilly prsed, socially whdrawn or even Spzer says his study shows that some homosexuals makg some effort, ually for a few years, make the change. "We found that women our sample moved om a ls extreme homosexual to a more heterosexual level than did men, " Spzer says.

Halman, however, noted that some 43 percent of those sampled were referred by relig groups that nmn homosexualy.

Another 23 percent were referred by the Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy, which says most of s members nsir homosexualy a velopmental disorr. "The sample is terrible, totally tated, totally unreprentative of the gay and lbian muny, " said David Ellt, a spokman for the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force Spzer says while the people his sample were unual — more relig than the general populatn — don't mean their experienc n be dismissed.

GAY MAN WHO WAS 'TURNED STRAIGHT' OUT AGA: NETI POSTER BOY FOR 'EX-GAY' MOVEMENT WHO LEFT HIS WIFE AND RETURNED TO HOMOSEXUALY HS OUT AT RICK PERRY

Rick McKnon, who is openly gay and works as an edor at the weekly Seattle Gay News, is ncerned the study rults n be ed to forward an anti-gay agenda. "Conservative, anti-gay, anti-diversy folks are gog to embrace and they're gonna e for their own agenda to ph their pot of view that, y, you don't need equaly Amerin society for gay people bee they n change, " he said.

"But Spzer — who scribed himself as a "Jewish, atheist, secular humanist" wh no axe to grd — says maybe there are gays who are happy beg gay and ex-gays who are happy beg straight, and that both sis serve more rpect.

CAN SOME GAY MEN AND LBIANS CHANGE THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATN? 200 PARTICIPANTS REPORTG A CHANGE OM HOMOSEXUAL TO HETEROSEXUAL ORIENTATN

Ironilly, Spzer had until now been somethg of a hero the gay muny.

In the early 1970s, he spearhead the effort to get homosexualy removed om the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn's list of mental disorrs. When I was young, I was told the whole world was divid to heterosexual men and heterosexual women, bar a small number of unfortunate ‘homosexuals’ of both genrs and possibly an even smaller number a third tegory, ‘bisexuals’, who ‘swung both ways’; pl, fally, a ty band of wretched creatur who were physilly not que one thg or the other.

CAN GAYS BEE STRAIGHT?

How many ‘homosexuals’ were there? Ksey diststed btal tegorisatn but, wishg to unt, nstcted what me close to a slidg sle ntag seven gradatns between exclive heterosexualy and exclive homosexualy. He found that almost half his male terviewe had reacted sexually to both genrs; more than a third had had a homosexual enunter; and more than one ten reported roughly equally strong sexual rpons to both men and women.

Surveys for the Observer of ten and four years ago suggt that around 4 per cent of Brish men would ll themselv ‘homosexual’. Some of the men I slept wh have gone straight spe a strong cultural barrier to a gay man dog this.

Some iends I thought — knew — to be straight have gone gay, or ‘bisexual’. All all, I’ve probably slept wh as many straight men as self–intifyg gay or bisexual on: I doubt most were lyg, and some s have reason to know they weren’t.

CAN SCTN MAKE STRAIGHT MEN GAY?

For every ‘bisexual’ man who’s actually gay but reluctant to say so, there’s a straight man who’s actually bisexual. And there are plenty of ‘gay’ men who know that, a different life, they uld reasonably ntentedly be straight. In what pass for the gay ‘muny’, there’s somethg of a taboo about admtg, even to ourselv, that que a few of (not me) uld, wh a ltle axg and self-disciple, be ‘straight’.

“HELP ME CHANGE FROM GAY TO STRAIGHT”

There exist strong reasons for this taboo among gays: first, ‘we n’t help ’ was absolutely central to our early pch for equaly, and we need to believe . Joseph Nilosi, a psychologist Enco, Calif., says he n rid adults, teens, and even children of homosexualy. "If [a patient] n accept his bodily homoerotic experience while stayg nnected to the therapist, " he wrote The Paradox of Self-Acceptance, "the sexual feelg soon transforms to somethg else: the regnn of eper, pa-generated emotnal needs which have nothg to do wh sexualy.