Rev. Rebecca Voelkel of the National Religious Leadership Roundtable stated today:

The American Psychological Association has clearly articulated that ‘reparative therapies’ don’t work, in fact they can be very harmful. This resolution is welcomed news for all who support the full humanity, morality and worth of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, especially those of us who do so because of our religious understandings.

At the Task Force, we have worked with more than 3,400 congregations to create environments that are supportive and affirming of LGBT people. In addition to these, there are many, many supporters of LGBT people within many religious traditions, even those whose official policy is anti-LGBT. This is important because, while it may be the most psychologically healthy move for some to leave their religious denomination of birth, for others, faith, family, ethnicity, race and culture are inextricably linked and leaving is not an option. For these folks, finding those allies and supporters within their tradition is critical to spiritual and mental health.

Additionally, the report makes some important statements about the relationship between science and religion. Being deeply religious does not necessarily mean being anti-LGBT. In fact, this report shows that religious practice and belief can and does translate into support for LGBT people. The truth is that religion and science do not have to be opposed to one another. In fact, science can be an enormously important tool for understanding the grandeur and wonder of God’s creation. In this case, science helps us understand more fully the gift of sexuality ‚Äî one of God’s greatest gifts.

Today’s Wall Street Journal article by Stephanie Simon begins:

The men who seek help from evangelical counselor Warren Throckmorton often are deeply distressed. They have prayed, read Scripture, even married, but they haven’t been able to shake sexual attractions to other men — impulses they believe to be immoral.

Dr. Throckmorton is a psychology professor at a Christian college in Pennsylvania and past president of the American Mental Health Counselors Association. He specializes in working with clients conflicted about their sexual identity.

The first thing he tells them is this: Your attractions aren’t a sign of mental illness or a punishment for insufficient faith. He tells them that he cannot turn them straight.

But he also tells them they don’t have to be gay.

The article delves into more detail about Throckmorton’s therapy:

For many years, Dr. Throckmorton felt he was breaking a professional taboo by telling his clients they could construct satisfying lives by, in effect, shunting their sexuality to the side, even if that meant living celibately. That ran against the trend in counseling toward “gay affirming” therapy — encouraging clients to embrace their sexuality.

Later in the WSJ article, I comment on the section of the APA’s guidelines that seem to say that Throckmorton’s type of therapy may fall within its new guidelines:

“It’s incredibly misguided,” said Wayne Besen, who runs a group called Truth Wins Out, which fights conversion therapy. He says trying to fight their same-sex attractions can cause immense suffering. “People have their lives destroyed,” Mr. Besen said.

My Thoughts:

I want to clarify that I am supportive of the overall APA report. I think they did a terrific job stating how therapists should handle clients who are struggling to accept their sexual orientation. Most important, they directly challenged “ex-gay” therapists who mislead clients about gay life.

And, the APA made it crystal clear that such charlatans should not be selling snake oil by claiming they can magically turn clients from gay-to-straight. In my view, any therapist who makes such a pitch is a con artist. Any organization that offers such bogus and far-fetched promises is guilty of consumer fraud.

Additionally, the APA should be commended for tackling the affects of religious faith on people working through this issue. Their landmark report explicitly tells religious therapists that clients should be given room to explore who they truly are, without the therapist burdening them with excessive faith-based guilt. This is a step forward, considering that nearly every “reparative therapist” uses shame-based methods to pressure vulnerable and desperate clients into suppressing their natural sexual orientation.

However, (although I am not a psychologist) I remain largely skeptical of the therapy offered by Throckmorton and other conservatives. Throckmorton tells The Wall Street Journal that he starts his sessions by helping clients prioritize their values.

This is where it can get tricky.

Religious therapists (I am not referring specifically to Throckmorton) can manipulate the framing of priorities. For example they may ask clients what they find more important to their value system: “ephemeral hedonism” or “eternal life in heaven”. Given this loaded option, clients may feel they have no “choice” but to live a life of hell on earth in order to get the keys to the Kingdom when they die. This is quite a mental burden for clients to carry and surely can’t be conducive to optimum mental health.

Clients can also be easily manipulated by therapists who induce guilt by saying, “it is fine if you choose to exercise your options in a selfish manner by choosing your sexuality over Scripture.” Such diabolical therapists may be within the new guidelines (barely) by ostensibly offering a troubled client the “choice” and “freedom” to be a “bad” person. But, we all know this is just a tricky form of psychological abuse. While the APA guidelines are helpful, the group may need to address in the future how unsavory counselors use loopholes to continue tormenting the fragile minds of clients.

The WSJ article also mentioned how the APA report considers celibacy a viable “option”:

But if the client still believes that affirming his same-sex attractions would be sinful or destructive to his faith, psychologists can help him construct an identity that rejects the power of those attractions, the APA says. That might require living celibately, learning to deflect sexual impulses or framing a life of struggle as an opportunity to grow closer to God.

“We’re not trying to encourage people to become ‘ex-gay,’” said Judith Glassgold, who chaired the APA’s task force on the issue. “But we have to acknowledge that, for some people, religious identity is such an important part of their lives, it may transcend everything else.”

The APA has long endorsed the right of clients to determine their own identities. But it also warned that “lesbians and gay men who feel they must conceal their sexual orientation report more frequent mental health concerns.”

It is true that in extreme cases, a lifetime of celibacy may lead to a happier existence than coming out of the closet. These rare people, unfortunately, are often so damaged by fundamentalism that they are unable to express their sexuality in healthy ways. Indeed, they are stricken by excessive guilt if they enjoy any form of pleasure that is not sanctioned by their church.

In such instances of irreparable damage to victims of faith-based oppression, celibacy may work (sort of) as a last ditch effort to help these people find a small measure of peace. There are also individuals with low sex drives who may not have an inordinate amount of trouble conforming to onerous religious strictures.

However, celibacy is not a serious option for healthy individuals with normal desires. If a therapist tells a teenager that he or she will have to live the next 50 or so years sexually frustrated and without the possibility of love, you are not going to convince me that this is in the best psychological interest of that conflicted youth.

Imagine being that young person with raging hormones, yet having to suppress powerful urges every minute of the day. On weekends, you stay home playing video games while your friends are dating. At lunchtime in the cafeteria, you have to hear about their sexual exploration, while you bitterly nurse longings that will never be fulfilled. On the way home from school, love songs play on the car radio that are meant for everyone but you. And then you settle on the couch and watch television shows brimming with a sensuality that you will never discover.

Living in such a way would, in the vast majority of cases, make an otherwise healthy person neurotic, depressed and even suicidal. Celibacy, for the most part, is a fantasy concocted by conservative therapists who so despise homosexuality that they would rather see a person loveless and lonely than openly gay.

I also worry that suppression of sexuality will lead to increased mental and sexual abuse in society. The ex-gay ministries (and the Catholic Church) are rife with examples of supposedly celibate or “healed” leaders taking advantage of young people in their care. Youth are easier to manipulate (see TWO video below)and the path of least resistance for the tortured and troubled souls who swear off sexuality (heterosexual and homosexual), only to find that it is not possible over the course of a lifetime. Celibacy is not realistic, nor advisable for most people, and can have deleterious side effects. The idea of the “satisfied celibate” is largely a misguided myth perpetuated by therapists who can’t overcome their own anti-gay leanings.

Ultimately, the more ex-gay ministries and counselors are forced to move away from stigmatizing homosexuality, promising fake miracles and selling false hope, the better off clients will be. If these groups can’t sell the proverbial “heterosexual light at the end of the tunnel”, the vast majority of young gay people will leave the traumatic tunnel behind and come out into the light of freedom and honesty.

Everyone deserves the chance to love and be loved – and conservative therapists will have an increasingly difficult time telling gay clients that they are exceptions to this rule. By calling for more accountability among anti-gay therapists and demanding they be truthful and adhere to modern science, the APA has made a worthy contribution with its report.

By Wayne Besen, TWO Executive Director

There is “no evidence that sexual orientation change efforts work.” This was the American Psychological Association’ verdict on “ex-gay” therapy after an appointed task force of experts studied the issue for two years.

The conclusion did not surprise those of us who work with people who have been harmed by such programs. For example, I just interviewed Patrick McAlvey, who entered therapy to change his sexual orientation at the age of 19. His counselor, Mike Jones, is the director of Corduroy Stone, an affiliate of Exodus International.

McAlvey says that his sessions included prolonged hugs, the suggestion that he use handyman tools to increase his masculinity and questions about the size of his genitalia. There was also an episode of “holding therapy” where he reclined into the lap of his supposedly “ex-gay” counselor for an hour. The goal, according to McAlvey, was to get comfortable with his own manliness by “feeling the strength” and “smelling the smell” of another man.

What Jones and other ex-gay counselors routinely call “therapy” can seem a great deal like foreplay to the rest of us.

“I think it does a lot of damage to peoples’ mental health,” said McAlvey. “If I had had a fair representation (of gay life) I could have avoided a lot of suffering.”

Of course, such therapy and ministry programs can only exist by grossly distorting the lives of gay people. For example, in a recent radio interview, ex-gay activist Charlene Cothran claimed that gay people do not want legal equality and are really only interested in the “freedom to be a homosexual in a park with no clothes on.”

The APA deserves credit for taking ex-gay therapists to task for twisting the truth and holding them accountable for their scare tactics, such as claiming that there are no happy gay people. (Read More)

Contact: Wayne Besen
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
Web: www.TruthWinsOut.org

“Ex-Gay’ Therapy is Harmful and Ineffective, Says TWO

NEW YORK — Truth Wins Out commended the American Psychological Association today for adopting a resolution and releasing a report that explicitly says that “there is insufficient evidence” for therapists to claim conversion therapy works. The APA report also admonishes so-called “ex-gay” counselors to not mislead clients by telling them that their sexual orientation can be changed.

“Ex-Gay therapy is a profound travesty that has led to pointless tragedies and we are pleased that the APA has addressed this psychological scourge,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “It is our hope that persistent violators of the principles enumerated by the APA will be held accountable for their unethical actions.”

The APA report cast doubt on efforts to change sexual orientation and said, “Enduring change to an individual’ sexual orientation was unlikely.” It also questioned the objectivity of some counselors promoting “change” programs and cautioned them to not “prioritize one outcome over another.”

“We recommend that the APA take a leadership role in opposing the distortion and selective use of scientific data about homosexuality by individuals and organizations and in supporting the dissemination of accurate scientific and professional information about sexual orientation in order to counteract bias,” the report said.

“It is clear that many ex-gay therapists use stigma and shame to keep gay and lesbian people from genuine self-acceptance,” said Truth Wins Out’ Wayne Besen. “We hope that the APA’ willingness to couch its criticisms so directly will limit the number of psychological casualties produced on the couches of ex-gay therapists.”

The report included a section on adolescent inpatient facilities that try to change sexual orientation in youth.

“The limited published literature on these programs suggests that many do not present accurate scientific information regarding same-sex sexual orientations to youth and families, are excessively fear-based and have the potential to increase sexual stigma,” said the APA report, “Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation.”

Additionally, the report recognized survivors who “described their experiences as a significant cause of emotional and spiritual distress and negative self-image.”

Truth Wins Out released a new video today featuring, Patrick McAlvey, a survivor of ex-gay counseling under Mike Jones, director of the Exodus International ministry, Corduroy Stone, based in Lansing, Michigan. Jones’ sessions with McAlvey, who was 19 at the time, included prolonged hugs, the suggestion that he use handyman tools to increase his masculinity and questions about the size of his genitalia. There was also an episode of “holding therapy” where he reclined into the lap of his supposedly “ex-gay” counselor for an hour. The goal, according to McAlvey, was to get comfortable with his own manliness by “feeling the strength” and “smelling the smell” of another man.

“I think it does a lot of damage to peoples’ mental health,” said McAlvey. “If I had had a fair representation (of gay life) I could have avoided a lot of suffering.”

The APA report came one week after Exodus International’ President, Alan Chambers, admitted that he is still “tempted” and must live in “self-denial” to remain “ex-gay.”

“The truth is, I’m in denial, but it is self-denial,” Chambers told Citizen Link, Focus on the Family’ online magazine. “…What I’ve found is that my freedom, and the freedom of those who’ve left homosexuality, was centered around denying what might come naturally to us…there is a way out for those who want it, but it doesn’t say that they are going into heterosexuality.”

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that counters anti-gay misinformation, exposes the ex-gay myth and educates America about gay life.

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As reported yesterday, several religious-right organizations have falsely claimed this week that the American Psychological Association has changed its position regarding the factors that influence or determine sexual orientation.

The reason for the false claim became apparent today when antigay activists Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber cited the false claim as a reason for antigay bigots to call their senators and oppose the inclusion of sexual orientation in existing federal laws that punish felony violence against targeted groups of people.

LaBarbera’s reasoning — and perhaps that of his source, NARTH former president A. Dean Byrd — was simple: If Americans can be misled into believing that sexual orientation is readily changeable, then (they contend) there’s no reason for U.S. lawmakers to provide gay people with the same protection from felony violence that other groups already enjoy.

Instead of aiding their readers with a link to the actual federal antiviolence legislation, Senate Bill 909, LaBarbera, Barber, and the American Family Association directed readers to far-right web sites which claim that punishing antigay felony violence punishes free speech and protects pedophiles.

The notion that a single gene might determine sexual orientation was briefly proposed and swiftly rejected in the early 1990s.

That hasn’t stopped antigay activists from circulating the myth that, because numerous researchers in the past decade have found a mix of biological factors and possibly other unknown factors in the formation of sexual orientation, therefore these experts must believe in the existence of a single “gay gene.”

After spending more than a decade hearing and repeating their self-generated lies about a “gay gene,” this week several evolution-denying religious-right groups are crowing over a year-old reiteration of well-known facts by the American Psychological Association.

WorldNetDaily, LifeSiteNews, Virtue Online, and Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth all parroted A. Dean Byrd of NARTH, who repeated his previous false assertions that “activist researchers” have contended anytime in the past decade that there is a gay gene.

The antigay activists (Byrd included) illogically contend that, because there is no single gene that determines sexual orientation, therefore sexual orientation is caused entirely by the environment — lousy parents, in particular — and therefore, they insist, anyone can “change” their sexual orientation with sufficient right-wing Christian brainwashing.

Not so, said the APA last year:

Many [researchers] think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.

Byrd falsely cites three limited studies as proof that anyone can change and that ex-gay therapy causes no harm, even though at least two of the cited studies — by Dr. Robert Spitzer and Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse — excluded potential subjects who reported being harmed or who reported that the ex-gay program failed to change them.

Spitzer, in particular, has repudiated the mischaracterization of his study by NARTH and other ex-gay activist groups, saying that he believes change of attraction and orientation are exceedingly rare and that most people cannot “change” their orientation.

More about Dr. Robert Spitzer here at Truth Wins Out.
Hat tip: Good As You

Download Ex-Gay & The Law (PDF Format, 1.4 MB)

New Landmark Publication By Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal Offers Legal Options To Those Hurt By Ex-Gay Programs

If You Have Been Harmed By ‘Ex-Gay’ Programs, ‘Ex-Gay & The Law’ Is For You

CHARLOTTE — Truth Wins Out and Lambda Legal released a landmark publication today, “Ex-Gay & The Law“, that aims to educate victims of “ex-gay” programs of their legal options. This work was inspired by the many people who have had their lives damaged by programs that seek to “pray away the gay” or use questionable counseling techniques.

“Ex-Gay & the Law helps survivors of ex-gay programs explore their legal rights if they believe they have been harmed,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “This groundbreaking publication offers practical legal advice so important questions can be answered.”

“We are pleased to help support this publication and to be a part of this effort,” said Hayley Gorenberg, Deputy Legal Director of Lambda Legal. “Groups that proclaim to ‘cure’ gay people of their sexual orientation lack any legitimate medical backing, cause harm, and sometimes operate unlawfully and unethically. If you have experienced any of the scenarios outlined in the last pages of ‘Ex-Gay & the Law‘, we welcome you to contact or Legal Help Desk.”

Each year, thousands of men and women enter “ex-gay” programs. Adolescents are even forced into these boot camps by their parents. While their stories differ, nearly all of these individuals have one thing in common: They are harmed by the traumatizing experience.

The American Psychiatric Association says, “The potential risks of ‘reparative therapy’ are great, including depression, anxiety and self destructive behavior.”

Ex-Gay & The Law was released at a press conference in Charlotte to counter Focus on the Family’s ex-gay Love Won Out conference. The Charlotte Rainbow Action Network for Equality (CRANE) hosted the event.

CRANE is a grassroots coalition of activists and community members working toward civil and social equality for Charlotte‘s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) community.

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that defends gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from anti-gay lies. TWO also counters the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.

Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full regonition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.

Focus on the Family falsely claimed on Friday that the American Psychological Association believes sexual orientation “is likely developmental in nature.” Focus downplays emphasis by the APA and researchers on biological factors including birth order, genes, and hormones.