Gay Conversn Therapy - Part 1

Contents:

• A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT OVER ATTEMPTS TO 'CURE' GAY PEOPLE
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY – REAL OR HOAX?
• WHAT COM AFTER THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT? THE SAME THG THAT CAME BEFORE.
• I WAS 19, GAY AND READY TO BE ‘CURED’ BY NVERSN THERAPY
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
• THE HISTORY OF GETTG THE GAY OUT
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY - PART 1

A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT OVER ATTEMPTS TO 'CURE' GAY PEOPLE

” The article reported that male homosexuals rpond well to group psychotherapy, unr the re of 64-year-old Universy of Pennsylvania profsor and psychiatrist Samuel Hadn.

Throughout the 1960s, psychiatrists Irvg Bieber and Charl Soris were regularly quoted newspapers and magaz, argug that homosexual sire was a form of psychosocial maladjtment, rultg om childhood.

Frd himself had explicly stated by 1935 that homosexualy was not an illns and strongly disuraged attempts to treat ; neverthels, by the 1950s, his theori were wily misappropriated by nservative Amerin and émigré psychiatrists vted reaffirmg the heterosexual, breadwner-homemaker hoehold the wake of World War II.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY – REAL OR HOAX?

Wh the popularizatn of behavral therapi the 1960s and ’70s also me new attempts to treat homosexualy, the form of “aversn” therapi, cludg electric shocks.

Already by the 1960s, such cur had provoked ristance: April 1965, jt months after that TIME article ran, the Philalphia-based gay rights anizatn Jan ved Hadn to give a lecture on his rearch, only to surprise him wh fierce ristance om the dience. In June 1969, the Dorian Society of Seattle worked wh a Universy of Washgton pediatrics profsor to found the Dorian Counselg Service for Homosexuals—the first center of s kd the untry.

WHAT COM AFTER THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT? THE SAME THG THAT CAME BEFORE.

Siar centers would be found across the untry the years to e, cludg the Gay Communy Servic Center Los Angel, Inty Hoe New York, and the Erom Center Philalphia. Gay activists would also claim a major victory December 1973, when the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn voted to remove “homosexualy” om the send edn of the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM-II), which meant that homosexualy was officially no longer nsired a disorr self.

The sense of victory many gay activists felt may have obscured persistg ambivalence and bias among psychiatrists and other mental health profsnals. The diagnosis of homosexualy was immediately replaced by “sexual orientatn disturbance, ” renamed “ego-dystonic homosexualy” DSM-III, which was released 1980 unr the learship of Spzer and social worker Ja Williams. ” Ego-dystonic homosexualy was specifilly aimed at patients who exprsed ongog distrs or sadns about their sexual orientatn, even if homosexualy uld no longer be nsired a mental illns.

Sce the 1970s, reparative therapi have been reborn through “ex-gay” Christian mistri, cludg the umbrella group Exod Internatnal, found Anaheim, Calif., 1976. Mixg pastoral unselg, Bible study, dividual and group psychotherapy, and aversn treatments, ex-gay mistri have promised a cure om—or at least avoidance of—homosexualy to thoands of men and women. The urt refed to hear claims that homosexualy uld be cured om JONAH’s experts, who clu a social worker and clil stctor at Oh State Universy; a psychiatrist and preceptor at Massachetts College of Pharmacy and Health Scienc; and a former Universy of Toronto profsor of psychiatry.

I WAS 19, GAY AND READY TO BE ‘CURED’ BY NVERSN THERAPY

The recent storm of ntroversy surroundg the hband of Michele Bachmann, Republin printial ntenr, and whether his Christian mistri try to "cure" homosexualy, has brought wele attentn to ex-gay mistri and the reparative therapy they claim n change a person's sexual orientatn. A powerful article The Natn last month, "Michele Bachmann's Hband's Clics Practiced Ex-Gay Therapy (While Pocketg $161, 000 of Your Tax Money), " drew on reports om Marc Bachmann's patients and footage of group unselg they were given to unrsre jt how close the Bachmanns' relatnship is to the wir ex-gay movement and the so-lled reparative therapy on which draws very heavily.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS

It also sheds new light on the Bachmanns' embrace of the ntroversial ex-gay movement and related psychologil approach [that] try to cure homosexualy. " The sle of the ntroversy rapidly lated, Blake adds, after ments by Marc Bachmann surfaced last month likeng gays to "barbarians" who "need to be ted" and "discipled. The article draws on one of Bachmann's former patients, Andrew Ramirez, as well as om John Becker, an vtigative journalist at Tth Ws Out, who says he was "repeatedly assured" by one of Bachmann's therapists "that homosexualy uld be overe.

In the Stat, nohels, the most powerful polil group to embrace the ex-gay movement is the Christian Right, partly bee such mistri reprent themselv as pro-fay.

As Blake reports The Natn, "In 2005, Marc Bachmann gave a prentatn lled 'The Tth About the Homosexual Agenda' at the Mnota Pastors' Summ, a gatherg of nservative relig lears signed to build support for anti-gay marriage legislatn.

THE HISTORY OF GETTG THE GAY OUT

Elsewhere the world, may surprise the same nservativ to learn, reparative therapy has far-stronger ti to the type of Stalist thkg, rangg om Mosw to Castro's Cuba, that led many untri to nounce homosexualy as a social evil or "lcuencia, " a social pathology/crime that reparative therapy supposedly uld cure.

Ined, passg very recently through Ecuador, South Ameri, I was astonished and appalled to learn that and around Quo, the natn's attractive pal, there are no ls than 300 clics "didos a ‘curar' la enfermedad la homosexualidad"—dited to "curg" the "illns" or "disorr" of homosexualy, their own lerature brags. In his excellent article "‘Curar' la homosexualidad, " appearg on the op-ed page of Ecuador's prtig El Universo, Rirdo Tello Carrión warns that his untry, the "tenncy to believe that homosexualy is a sickns seems to have creased, " not dimished, over the years: "la tenncia a creer que la homosexualidad una enfermedad parece haber crecido" (Augt 18, 2011). And that's after Ecuador's recent (and still partial) crimalizatn of homosexualy 1997, before which nsentg adults were liable to receive four-to-eight years' imprisonment.

Shortly after the wner of a gay ntt was arrted as a "lcuente" or "crimal" 1997, the man, Pedro, was raped turn by each of the policemen volved arrtg him--"fue vlado una y otra vez. That Ecuador n boast of havg 300 clics dited to "curg" homosexualy while s cisn to crimalize homosexualy is forever lked to a police sndal volvg btal male rape unrsr some of the crazy, twisted thkg volved at such moments, where the punishment meted out for beg gay is, one rpect, more homosexualy—of urse, not regnized as such by the law. In the Stat, after strenuo opposn om pro-reparative psychiatrists such as Charl Soris, the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn fally agreed to pathologize homosexualy 1973.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY - PART 1

" Though the term wasn't formally adopted, helped pave the way for subsequent discsn about "ego-dystonic homosexualy, " which turn stck many as pathologizg "homosexual aroal. In the ex-gay mistri, we see ample amounts of blkered thkg, prejudice, and sanctimony passg as well-meang re for the "patient" and the wisdom of the Lord.