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Gay Pride?
On Parade

Row as researcher claims homosexuals can be 'straightened'

Polly Curtis
Thursday October 2, 2003
The Guardian

An international row has broken out after an American journal published research which claimed that therapy can make homosexual people become heterosexual. Gay rights groups have already dubbed the research "dangerous and sinister".

The study of Americans who had undergone so-called "reparative therapy" claimed that 78% of men and 95% of wome reported a change to predominantly or completely heterosexual behaviour.

The study's author, Professor Robert Sptizer, a psychiatrist at Columbia University, claimed it was the first study of its type. The Times Higher Education Supplement quoted him as saying: "It questions the politically correct view that once you're gay that's it and suggests that there is more flexibility than many people have assumed."

Professor Spitzer, who was central to the 1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders insists he is not anti-gay. But the study's methods have encountered heavy criticism.

The paper was rejected by the prestigious American Journal of Psychiatry, but accepted by the Archives of Sexual Behaviour, which is also well respected in academic circles. One member of the International Academy of Sex Research, which supports the journal, resigned in protest.

Doctor Qazi Rahmana, a lecturer at the University of East London and specialist in the biological basis of human sexual orientation, criticised the methodology of the research, but defended the right for academics to debate controversial subjects.

"My main concern is the method. He [Spitzer] relied on self-reports from a select sample of individuals. They were not your average gay or lesbian man - they were mostly from ex-gay ministries and organisations involved in reparation."

He went on: "I strongly believe in academic freedom. The results should have been disseminated - whether they should be published in a reasonably prestigious publication I'm not so sure."

Doctor Rahmana said that the existing research indicated that the seeds of sexuality are sown in the "hard wiring" of the brain before birth.

A spokesperson for the gay rights campaigning group Stonewall said: "This is dangerous, sinister, nonsense, there's no evidence that gay people can be 'cured' as if it's some kind of illness.

"We're in favour of free speech. I don't think we would say repress it, but we would say it was flawed and flimsy research. It would be interesting to see research on whether straight people can be made to be gay."