IN THESE days when no TV sitcom is complete without a gay character or two, when openly gay men and women are governing cities, and when all authority in matters of style and fashion has been ceded to the queer eye, you might think that success-oriented heterosexuals would be lining up for conversion to homosexuality. But, sad to say, the market for sexual conversion is still driven mainly by unhappy homosexuals who want out. And now, a scientific study claims that this questionable goal can be achieved.
As a gay man who would rather fight than switch, I have always taken a jaundiced view of attempts to change people鈥檚 sexual orientation. Down the decades homosexual people 鈥� mostly gay men 鈥� have been subjected to every imaginable intervention in the attempt to change them. They have been castrated, given testicular implants and injected with hormones; they have had brain surgery, and been exposed to electric shocks or nausea-inducing chemicals; and they have been subjected to any number of talking cures, often collectively referred to as 鈥渞eparative therapy鈥�. Yet, after initial bursts of enthusiasm, most of these treatments have been abandoned as ineffective and likely to cause physical and mental harm.
My own research, published in 1991, documented differences in brain structure between homosexual and heterosexual men. Other studies have pointed to the importance of genes and prenatal hormones. Collectively, these studies suggest that biological factors operating very early in development play a significant role in determining a person鈥檚 orientation 鈥� that it may, to some extent, be hard-wired. Still, both neuroscience and psychology teach us that the mind is amazingly plastic, even in adult life. So whatever our biases, we should not dismiss out of hand the notion that orientation can be changed.
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At the centre of the current storm is a paper in the October issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior by Robert Spitzer, professor of psychiatry at New York鈥檚 Columbia University. Spitzer has long had a reputation as gay-friendly: he played a key role in getting homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association鈥檚 official list of mental disorders in 1973. When he embarked on the present study, he thought it unlikely that he would find any evidence for the efficacy of conversion therapy. But he did.
Spitzer鈥檚 strategy was to advertise for men or women who started out homosexual, who underwent some form of conversion therapy at least five years ago, and who believe that their sexual orientation has changed as a result. He then performed a structured telephone interview with 200 respondents 鈥� far more than have been studied in comparable earlier studies. His finding: the majority of the respondents did in fact report a successful transition. They said that they were experiencing sexual attraction to at least one opposite-sex partner, their homosexual urges were diminished or (less commonly) abolished, and they did not experience any harm as a result of the therapy.
Although Spitzer left open the possibility that the respondents were deceiving themselves or lying, several observations persuaded him that their accounts were truthful. For example, the respondents admitted that their conversion was a slow one and was, in most cases, incomplete. Furthermore, the women reported more striking changes than did men, on average. This finding is consistent with other lines of evidence suggesting that sexual orientation is more fluid in women.
Still, there are obvious shortcomings to the study. In particular, the subjects were a highly selected group. Many were recruited through therapists whose reputations depend on the perceived success of conversion therapy. Nearly all described themselves as 鈥渧ery鈥� or 鈥渆xtremely鈥� religious. The study thus says nothing about the success rate of therapy for unhappy homosexuals in general, nor about the long-term effects even for those who do convert.
The ideal study would be a prospective one: gay men and women who want to convert would be randomly assigned to treatment or no treatment, and their orientation over the ensuing years followed. According to Spitzer, such a study is not practical, so we should accept his conclusions as the best obtainable.
Anyone who respects personal autonomy must agree that people have the right to try to change their sexual orientation and to seek professional help in doing so. Yet gay people who wish to become heterosexual should be aware that the odds are stacked heavily against them, and that the effort to change may be marked by great hardship, expense and wasted years. They might do well, before they embark on therapy, to read accounts by gay people who subjected themselves to all kinds of tortures in a futile effort to become straight.
And to heterosexuals thinking about joining the trendy queer crowd, I have only one thing to say: Girl, this is our century, and we鈥檙e keeping it!