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Spitzer
On Friday, something monumental happened.
Dr. Robert Spitzer announced plans to officially apologize to the gay community for a 2001 study he published which claimed that gays can change their sexual orientation.
This apology is a boon for the gay community and closes the book on a long controversy. I detailed it in my 2007 book Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters:
Robert Spitzer is one of the psychiatrists who was instrumental in getting the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in the early 1970s.
In 2001, he published a controversial study that seemed to claim that a small number of people can change their orientation from gay to heterosexual. In 45-minute individual telephone calls with 143 “ex-gays” and 57 “ex-lesbians,” Spitzer asked them 60 questions dealing with their feelings and behavior before and after they allegedly changed their orientations. They also talked about their strategies, feelings and motives for changing.
Many of these individuals were referred to Spitzer by “ex-gay” groups. When Spitzer’s findings were made public, the anti-gay industry lauded him, making sure to mention that he was one of the principle people who led the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.
They also made sure to portray him as a martyr of political correctness, making it sound as if some sort of gay Mafia was attempting to suppress his study. Concerned Women for America even sent out a press release claiming that Spitzer’s life and livelihood were being threatened.
The Traditional Values Organization published its own press release of Spitzer’s study. Like other so-called “pro-family” groups, it manipulated the findings without going into detail about how Spitzer came to his conclusion, but making sure to emphasize his support of gay rights.
Over the years, Spitzer has denounced how the religious right used his study for its own agenda. In a 2006 interview with The Los Angeles Times, Spitzer said that he believed that some of those he interviewed for his study may have been either lying to him or themselves. In that same year, he teamed up with Dr. Judith Stacey, Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc and Soulforce, a group that combats “spiritual violence” against the gay and lesbian community, in a press release demanding that Focus on the Family, another religious right group, stop distorting research.
But now, according to The New York Times, Spitzer has completely recanted the study:
Dr. Spitzer could not control how his study was interpreted by everyone, and he could not erase the biggest scientific flaw of them all, roundly attacked in many of the commentaries: Simply asking people whether they have changed is no evidence at all of real change. People lie, to themselves and others. They continually change their stories, to suit their needs and moods.
By almost any measure, in short, the study failed the test of scientific rigor that Dr. Spitzer himself was so instrumental in enforcing for so many years.
“As I read these commentaries, I knew this was a problem, a big problem, and one I couldn’t answer,” Dr. Spitzer said. “How do you know someone has really changed?”
Now there are some on my side of the spectrum who don’t want to take Spitzer’s apology. To them, I say stop being so nasty. According to The New York Times article, Spitzer was manipulated by the religious right and the ex-gay industry into creating the study, and he had no idea that they would use his work to demonize the gay community.
So I accept Spitzer’s apology and also say that the real culprits are the organizations and individuals who exploited this man’s work and name — organizations such as the Family Research Council.
FRC have cited Spitzer’s work continuously to defame the gay community, including on March 4. 2011:
And evidence that homosexuals can change has come even from Dr. Robert Spitzer, the psychiatrist who led the effort to remove homosexuality from the official list of mental disorders. In a 2003 study, Spitzer found that “changes [in sexual orientation] . . . were not limited to sexual behavior and . . . self-identity. The changes encompassed sexual attraction . . . the core aspects of sexual orientation.”
Even Robert Spitzer, one of the psychiatrists who led the 1973 effort to remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental disorders, confirmed in a study 30 years later that change is possible, noting, “The changes following reparative therapy were not limited to sexual behavior and sexual orientation self-identity” but … “encompassed sexual attraction, arousal, fantasy, yearning … the core aspects of sexual orientation.”
It is undeniable that some people experience same-sex attractions as unwanted, and it is demonstrable (if oft-denied) that some people experience change in one or more of the elements of sexual orientation (attractions, behavior and self-identification) over time. Even Dr. Robert Spitzer, a notable pro-homosexual psychiatrist, did research that confirmed this.
These pieces continue to exist on FRC’s webpage along with pamphlets such as the fraudulent The Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality which also includes citations to Spitzer’s work.
The question is, will FRC remove Spitzer’s work now that he has recanted. Neither the organization nor its members have made a statement. Therefore, I am sending a plea out that we tweet either Tony Perkins or Peter Sprigg and ask them the following:
Dr. Spitzer has disavowed his ex-gay study. Shouldn’t you be removing it from your ‘studies’ of the gay community?
Peter Sprigg’s twitter address is @spriggfrc and Tony Perkins’ address is @tperkins
Be nice and polite, but be direct. The Bible says that if you wrong your brother, you should apologize. If FRC is a truly Christian organization, it shouldn’t need any prodding in that direction. By its continued citation of Spitzer’s flawed study, FRC has definitely wronged the gay community (granted it’s one of many times, but this time is especially sad).
And while we are owed an apology here, a simple acknowledgement from FRC that its usage of Spitzer’s was wrong would be nice.
8 Comments
FRC recant? Don’t hold your breath. They and the rest of the religious right still use Paul Cameron’s “research” — they just don’t mention Cameron’s name. There’s no chance they’re going to let Spitzer’s study go — they’ll just stop acknowledging the source.
No.
Simple answers….
See also, will Cory Booker engage in false equivalencies again? And whazzup with make-a-gaffe on MTP? C’mon, guys….
Why would the Family Research Council start telling the truth now? Hell will freeze over first.
I read about this in the nooz paper, and my first thought was: that’s “nice,” I guess, but all those homophobic organizations & Michele Bachmann’s hubby will continue to use clearly discredited “studies” like to preach to their minions about how teh gheyz can be magically transformed into “correct” hetereosexuality… sort of like how we can all just go out and transform lead into gold, right???
Conservatives, in particular, don’t truck in facts. Facts is for pussy elitist LIEbruls, after all.
If the dirty-energy-funded climate-change-denialist groups won’t change their tunes even after people like Bjorn Lomborg defect from them, why would the folks whose main motivation is ideology (as opposed to money) change their tune when confronted by Spitzer’s defection?
Dr. Spitzer’s opinion of the study he conducted is ultimately irrelevant — the value of a study is independent of the author’s opinion. (This is why the whole fundie “Darwin recanted on his deathbed” schtick is pointless — even if Darwin had changed his opinion, the evidence still supports the evolutionary model, so Darwin would simply have become less right in changing his opinion.) On the other hand, when even the author of a study is willing to go into detail about how the methodology was flawed and how the results don’t say what people like the FRC want to pretend — yeah, it looks pretty bad for the heterosexual-supremacists.
We are not dealing with rational people here. Anyone who expects them to recant is as crazy as they are. Just look at their track record. Lots of people have denounced them for misusing their research and we have yet to them recant even once.
For four decades, Robert Spitzer has played pivotal roles in mental health policies, not only on sexual orientation, but on gender diversity as well. While Dr. Spitzer’s denunciation of sexual orientation conversion therapies and apology to cis-gay and lesbian communities is historic, it is equally important that he refused to retract a lifetime of trans psychopathologization: stereotyping gender identities and expression that differ from assigned birth roles as mental disease. Trans people continue to lose our jobs, homes, children, families, dignity and civil justice because of these stereotypes and continue to face predatory gender conversion psychotherapies. These stereotypes lie behind extremist political campaigns (including those by the FRC) that demean our most basic civil rights as “bathroom bills.” These stereotypes lie behind military discrimination and government policies that still malign us as “mentally unfit.” These stereotypes convince parents and school officials to dismiss trans youth as “confused” or going through “a phase.” Trans communities have waited many years for a retraction or an apology from Dr. Spitzer, and we are still waiting.