Personally, I don’t like the bogus term “SSA”, which stands for “same-sex attraction.” There is no such thing (or diagnosis) as SSA and it is a manipulative attempt to separate LGBT people from their natural, inborn sexuality.
The term SSA is skillfully employed to make it appear as if fundamentalist bigots are not attacking the person, just their sexual feelings. It is a diabolical method of creating a medical-sounding term to deliver Anita Bryant’s hateful “love the sinner, hate the sin” message. At least Bryant had the courage to say what she believes and not hide behind euphemisms and phony pop psychology.
If you think I am wrong, ask yourself: Why does disgraced “sexual reorientation coach” Richard Cohen (pictured) love the term SSA so much? It is all over his website and his books. He is basically turning you into a sick patient rather than a real person. The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) also loves SSA.
We should not help our enemies by adopting their language, which is specifically designed and employed to portray us as freaks with a problem that needs to be fixed. SSA — much like STD — sounds like you have a disease that can be cured by running to the local doctor for a shot, the pharmacy for a prescription, or the shrink for a session.
If you don’t think language is important, consider yesterday’s CBS/New York Times News poll. It found a significantly higher level of support for “gays” in the military rather than “homosexuals” in the armed services. Here is an excerpt:
A New York Times/CBS News poll finds that a majority of the public support allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military.
There’s less support, however, for allowing homosexuals to serve openly.
Confused?
The results highlight the importance of wording on the issue. In a test, half of the poll’s respondents were asked their opinion on permitting “gay men and lesbians” to serve, and the other half were asked about permitting “homosexuals” to serve.
The wording of the question proved to make a difference. Seven in 10 respondents said they favor allowing “gay men and lesbians” to serve in the military, including nearly 6 in 10 who said they should be allowed to serve openly. But support was somewhat lower among those who were asked about allowing “homosexuals” to serve, with 59 percent in favor, including 44 percent who support allowing them to serve openly.
At Truth Wins Out, we are not the word police. We allow a great divergence of opinion and if you love to use the phrase SSA, then keep doing so. It’s a free country. Please realize, however, that you are making Dr. Joseph Nicolosi and Richard Cohen quite happy by adhering to their slick public relations scheme.
More than 35 years after homosexuality was erased from the DSM (list of mental disorders) why voluntarily describe yourself in sterile, medical terms, as if you have a “problem” that quacks can “fix” for a hefty fee?
The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is a discredited “ex-gay” fringe organization that peddles fraudulent “cures” for homosexuality. Sadly, a lucrative market still exists for anti-gay stereotypes disguised as science and the greedy ideologue “therapists” eager to profit from unnecessary pain. They take advantage of vulnerable people who want to “fit in” and exploit suffering families who are desperate to believe they can cure a loved one.
Here are 10 Key Facts to know about NARTH:
1) NARTH recommends “treating” males as young as three years old, referring to them as “pre-homosexual boys.” In our view, this is consumer fraud since parents are unlikely to see results, despite expensive therapy sessions. We also believe forcing children to undergo traumatic, shame inducing “therapy” is child abuse that may cause lasting psychological scars. (Read More)
Confused. Isolated. Depressed. Angry. Lansing resident Patrick McAlvey was all of these things both before and during his stint in ex-gay therapy. Now, through a new video produced and released by Truth Wins Out, he’s just determined to make sure that no one else goes through what he did.
The 24-year-old McAlvey’s video was released last month just as the American Psychological Association announced that “mental health professionals should avoid telling clients that they can change their sexual orientation through therapy or other treatments.”
It was too late for McAlvey, but he hopes that the APA findings – plus stories like his – will help other gay youth to love and accept themselves.
Like so many other gay youth, McAlvey was scared when he realized he was attracted to men in sixth grade. Raised in a conservative Christian home, “I didn’t think it was safe to tell anybody,” he said of his young adulthood.
But he did tell one person: Mike Jones, director of Lansing-based ex-gay organization Corduroy Stone.
“When I was 19, I was kicked out of a missionary training school and was forced to move back home with my family,” McAlvey recalled. “I was kicked out because of my attraction to men, so in that time I was sort of in a crisis mode and was very low, very depressed and just trying to make sense of my life and my attraction.”
He contacted Jones, whom he had spoken with before about his “problem,” and began several months of therapy with Jones that supposedly would cure him and make him straight.
Therapy consisted of embarrassing questions and uncomfortable situations. Jones would instruct McAlvey to lie in his arms for an hour at a time – known in the ex-gay circuit as holding therapy. He forced McAlvey to learn about tools and home repair, and to watch the play “Equus” with him, which features full male nudity. He would ask him to rate his attractiveness on a scale of one to 10.
Then there were the questions. “He asked how large my penis was. He asked if I shave my pubic hair. He asked what type of underwear that I wore,” McAlvey explained. “On one occasion, he asked me to take my shirt off and show him how many push-ups I could do, which I did not do.
“He wanted me to describe my sexual fantasies to him and the type of men I’m attracted to.”
But despite all his efforts, McAlvey never stopped being attracted to men. “I never felt like I was changing,” he said of the therapy.
Eventually, he told Jones he wasn’t going to come to therapy anymore. But the damage had been done.
“I just really came to hate myself; to loathe myself,” McAlvey said. “I didn’t trust anyone and I didn’t allow anyone to get close to me because I was terrified that they might find out my secret and that they would think less of me. I spent many years locked up in my room, crying by myself for no good reason.”
McAlvey hopes that telling his story will mean less LGBT teens face the same tough years he did. “I view it as a real assault on some of the more vulnerable members of the LGBT community,” he said. “I think it’s important to speak up to prevent other people from being harmed in the ways that I was.”
Now, less than five years out of his time in ex-gay therapy, he’s doing just that. And while McAlvey hopes that his video will help others, he also thinks it will help him to move on. “(It’s) a bit of a cathartic experience for me, saying publicly that this is not something anymore that I need to be embarrassed of or regret,” he explained. “Instead, I’m going to turn around and use it for good. … It’s turning a negative experience into something that can be used positively.”
The decision to take his story public took time, and a lot of personal healing for McAlvey. When he stopped seeing Jones, he was still grappling with his sexuality and acceptance of himself. Eventually, he was able to see that it’s OK to be gay. “I realized that I don’t think change is going to happen and I don’t think it needs to happen,” he said. “It was getting to the point where I really was comfortable with who I am, and that takes time, a lot of processing and figuring out how to undo some of the internalized homophobia that was the result of this therapy.”
The video, which has almost 6,000 views on YouTube, is the final step in that reparative process – and McAlvey wants to get his message out to LGBT youth. “I would communicate to them the freedom that I felt when I finally embraced my sexual orientation and accepted it as a beautiful and natural part of myself,” he said of speaking to another teen like himself. “I would certainly convey that it is my belief that their sexual orientation is a beautiful, natural part of them that they should feel no shame for and should not think needs to be changed.”
Focus on the Family does not want its readers to know what the American Psychological Association’s new report says about intentionally flawed studies of ex-gay success stories, and it certainly does not want supporters to know about the organization’s repeated acts of research fraud.
But Focus does want conservative Christians to know what ex-gay lobbyist Joseph Nicolosi, founder and longtime leader of NARTH, thinks of his critics:
Dr. Joe Nicolosi, founder and director of the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic, said the organization has overlooked years of clinical research that shows sexual orientation is changeable through therapy.
“The APA is really failing to not only represent science, which is its primary responsibility,” he said, “but it’s also failing to inform people.”
Good As You, however, points out that the APA report text didn’t overlook Nicolosi’s research; it referenced Nicolosi 60 times and found his work to be seriously flawed. If not for Nicolosi’s legacy of intentionally distorted research, self-promotion, and maltreatment of clients, the APA task force might have had far less reason to spend two years methodically repudiating the less-than-professional behavior toward patients and the bogus pseudoscience of the movement that he led.
Addendum: The APA report criticizes specific examples of Nicolosi’s sloppy research and unfounded assertions.
On page 32:
For instance, to assess whether sexual orientation had changed,
Nicolosi et al. (2000) performed a chi-square test of association on
individuals’ prior and current self-rated sexual orientation. Several
features of the analysis are problematic. Specifically, the nature of
the data and research question are inappropriate to a chi-square test
of association, and it does not appear that the tests were properly
performed. Chi-square tests of association assume that data are
independent, yet these data are not independent because the row
and column scores represent an individual’s rating of his or her past
and present self. Chi-square tests ought not to be performed if a cell
in the contingency table includes fewer than five cases. Other tests,
such as the nonparametric McNemar’s test for dichotomous variables (McNemar, 1969) or the sign (Conover, 1980) or Wilcoxon signed-rank tests (Wilcoxon, 1945) for nominal and ordinal data, respectively, are used to assess whether there are significant differences between an individual’s before and after score and are appropriate when data fail to meet the assumptions of independence and normality, as these data do and would have been more appropriate choices. Paired t-tests for mean differences could also have been performed on these data. There are procedural problems in performing the chi-square test such as missing data, and the analyses are conducted without adjustment for chance, with different numbers of subjects responding to each item, and without corrections to the gain scores to address regression artifacts. Taken together, however, the problems associated with running so many tests without adjusting for chance associations or correcting for regression artifacts and having different respondents in nearly every test make it difficult to assess what changes in scores across these items actually reflect.
Page 62:
Some SOCE teach men how to adopt traditional masculine behaviors as a means of altering their sexual orientation (e.g., Nicolosi, 1991, 1993) despite the absence of evidence that such interventions affect sexual orientation. Such theoretical
positions have been characterized as products of stigma and bias that are without an evidentiary basis and may increase distress (American Psychoanalytic Association, 2000; Isay, 1987, 1999; Drescher, 1998a; Haldeman, 1994, 2001). For instance, Haldeman (2001) emphasized in his clinical work with men who had
participated in SOCE that some men were taught that their homosexuality made them less masculine—a belief that was ultimately damaging to their self-esteem. Research on the impact of heterosexism and traditional gender roles indicates that an individual’s adoption of traditional masculine norms increases sexual selfstigma and decreases self-esteem and emotional connection with others, thus negatively affecting mental health (Szymanski & Carr, 2008).
Page 66:
The first finding from our review is that there is insufficient evidence that SOCE are efficacious for changing sexual orientation. Furthermore, there is some evidence that such efforts cause harm. On the basis of this evidence, we consider it inappropriate for psychologists and other LMHP [licensed mental health professionals] to foster or support in clients the expectation that they will change their sexual orientation if they participate in SOCE. We believe that among the various types of SOCE, the greatest level of ethical concern is raised by SOCE that presuppose that same-sex sexual orientation is a disorder or a symptom of a disorder. (Footnote: See, e.g., Socarides (1968), Hallman (2008), and Nicolosi (1991); these theories assume homosexuality is always a sign of developmental defect or mental disorder.) Treatments based on such assumptions raise the greatest level of ethical scrutiny by LMHP because they are inconsistent with the scientific and professional consensus that homosexuality per se is not a mental disorder. Instead, we counsel LMHP to consider other treatment options when clients present with requests for sexual orientation change.
Chapter 8 begins with a criticism of Nicolosi, among others, for endorsement of involuntary ex-gay therapy for youths:
Publications by LMHP directed at parents and outreach from religious organizations advocate SOCE for children and youth as interventions to prevent adult same-sex sexual orientation (Cianciotto & Cahill, 2006; Kennedy & Cianciotto, 2006; Nicolosi & Nicolosi, 2002; Rekers, 1982; Sanchez, 2007). Reports by LGB advocacy groups (e.g., Cianciotto & Cahill, 2006; Kennedy & Cianciotto, 2006) have claimed that there has been an increase in attention to youths by religious organizations that believe that homosexuality is a mental illness or an adverse developmental outcome. These reports further suggest that there has been an increasing in outreach to youths that portrays homosexuality in an extremely negative light and uses fear and shame to fuel this message. These reports expressed concern that such efforts have a negative impact on adolescents’ and their parents’ perceptions of their sexual orientation or potential sexual orientation, increase the perception that homosexuality and religion are incompatible, and increase the likelihood that some adolescents will be exposed to SOCE without information about evidencebased treatments.
The report adds on page 72:
Childhood interventions to prevent homosexuality have been presented in non-peer-reviewed literature (see Nicolosi & Nicolosi, 2002; Rekers, 1982).57 These interventions are based on theories of gender and sexual orientation that conflate stereotypic gender roles or interests with heterosexuality and homosexuality or that assume that certain patterns of family relationships cause same-sex sexual orientation. These treatments focus on proxy symptoms (such
as nonconforming gender behaviors), since sexual orientation as it is usually conceptualized does not emerge until puberty with the onset of sexual desires and drives (see APA, 2002a; Perrin, 2002). These interventions assume a same-sex sexual orientation is caused by certain family relationships that form gender identity and assume that encouraging gender stereotypic behaviors and certain family relationships will alter sexual orientation (Burack & Josephson, 2005; see, e.g., Nicolosi & Nicolosi, 2002; Rekers, 1979, 1982).
The theories on which these interventions are based have not been confirmed by empirical study (Perrin, 2002; Zucker, 2008; Zucker & Bradley, 1995). Although retrospective research indicates that some gay men and lesbians recall gender nonconformity in childhood (Bailey & Zucker, 1995; Bem, 1996; Mathy & Drescher, 2008), there is no research evidence that childhood gender nonconformity and adult homosexuality are identical or are necessarily sequential developmental phenomena (Bradley & Zucker, 1998; Zucker, 2008). Theories that certain patterns of family relationships cause same-sex sexual orientation have been discredited (Bell et al., 1981; Freund & Blanchard, 1983; R. R. Green, 1987; D. K. Peters & Cantrell, 1991).
Page 82:
The recent nonreligious interventions are based on the assumption that homosexuality and bisexuality are mental disorders or deficits and are based on older discredited psychoanalytic theories (e.g., Socarides, 1968; see American Psychoanalytic Association, 1991, 1992, 2000; Drescher, 1998a; Mitchell, 1978, 1981). Some focus on increasing behavioral consistency with gender norms and stereotypes (e.g., Nicolosi, 1991). None of these approaches is based on a credible scientific theory, as these ideas have been directly discredited through evidence or rendered obsolete. There is longstanding scientific evidence that homosexuality per se is not a mental disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 1973; Bell & Weinberg, 1978; Bell et al., 1981; Conger, 1975; Gonsiorek, 1991; Hooker, 1957), and there are a number of alternate theories of sexual orientation and gender consistent with this evidence (Bem, 1996; Butler, 2004; Chivers et al., 2007; Corbett, 1996, 1998, 2001; Diamond, 1998, 2006; Drescher, 1998a; Enns, 2008; Heppner & Heppner, 2008; Levant & Silverstein, 2006; Mustanksi et al., 2002; O’Neil, 2008; Peplau & Garnets, 2000; Pleck, 1995; Rahman & Wilson, 2005; Wester, 2008).
Exclusive Truth Wins Out interview with Thomas Maier
For decades, anti-gay organizations have gleefully pointed to Masters & Johnson’s 1979 book, “Homosexuality in Perspective”, that claimed to cure homosexuality. Indeed, Dr. William H. Masters and Virgina E. Johnson, the husband and wife sex research team, went on Meet the Press on Sunday, April 22, 1979, to discuss their finding that homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals. The book has since been used by the so-called “ex-gay” industry to “prove” gays could go straight, if they just tried hard enough.
In his groundbreaking new book, “Masters of Sex”, author Thomas Maier discovered through investigative reporting that the results of Masters & Johnson’s study were entirely fabricated. Virginia Johnson acknowledged that the results were fake. She had actually argued in 1978 that book should never have seen the light of day – but it was already to late in the publishing process to undo the damage.
One can not overstate the importance of Maier’s findings. They undo the very underpinnings of the so-called “ex-gay” therapy movement, further showing that there is no scientific evidence or data to support the outdated idea that gay people can become heterosexual through therapy. Indeed, many people who have undergone such “treatment” claim the experience was harmful and that they were psychologically damaged. The American Psychiatric Association says that attempts to change sexual orientation can lead to “anxiety, depression and self-destructive behavior.”
The Southern Baptist Convention extends its battle against freedom of religion among Southern Baptists.
The antigay National Organization for Marriage exploited Miss California pageant winner Carrie Prejean last week when it created an ad around her and falsely claimed that Prejean had lost a Miss USA crown (she never had the crown — she wasn’t even a front-runner) due to her false and uneducated answers to simple questions about marriage for gay people. After a week of interviews in which Prejean touted Christian values, criticized liberal values of individual freedom, and demonstrated an absence of critical thinking and pro-family insight regarding marriage, now NOM is embarrassed by the revelation of recent nearly-nude pictures of Prejean, who — like her gay nemesis Perez Hilton — appears willing to say or do almost anything to generate controversy and fame for herself. Now she will likely lose the Miss California crown — as she should: Her amorality, partisan politics, and poor judgment are a poor reflection upon America. But don’t blame Prejean or ask her to demonstrate personal responsibility. Blame the homosexuals who made her act intellectually vacant, politically intolerant, and oversexed.
Joseph Nicolosi, ex-gay therapist and former president of NARTH, declares that 75 percent of his patients have been cured of homosexuality — though, when consulted independently, these patients seem neither to agree that they have been cured, nor to agree with Nicolosi that their parents caused any trauma that would result in their ongoing homosexual attraction. Nicolosi refuses to document his claim.
Exodus International president Alan Chambers — not content to foster vigilante violence in Uganda — is now referring to U.S. gay people as God’s cripples. Or, to be more precise, God’s hell-bound and “handicapped” children — but with a wink and a nudge that says a bit too much.
Similar to U.S. ex-gay poster boy Christopher Delaney, the Italian songwriter Povia believes that homosexuality is little more than a phase that anyone can overcome:
“[I] had a gay phase, it lasted seven months and then I got over it.”
Povia, a headliner for the upcoming Sanremo Music Festival, has raised the concern of Italian gay equality group Arcigay because he penned a song, Luca Was Gay, about an ex-gay man.
Pinknews says the song implies homosexuals can be “converted” to heterosexuality.
Aurelio Mancuso of Arcigay told Pinknews that Povia also said he has two friends that he has “converted” to being straight.
According to Pinknews:
Two years ago Povia won the Sanremo festival with a song about marriage, and the Vatican has been accused of overtly interfering with the event.
Mancuso believes that Luca Was Gay refers to Luca Tolve, who says he was “cured” of his homosexuality at the hands of controversial Catholic American psychologist Joseph Nicolosi.
A Facebook protest has accumulated more than 16,000 members since its launch in mid-January. It seeks to pressure festival organisers to remove Povia from the lineup.
By Brian Maffly
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
A national group that advocates “treatment” of homosexuality is being criticized for allegedly distorting a Utah researcher’s work to advance the theory that people choose their sexual orientation – a controversial notion rejected by mainstream psychology.
Lisa Diamond, a University of Utah psychologist whose sexual identity studies suggest a degree of “fluidity” in the sexual preferences of women, said in an interview Tuesday that the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, or NARTH, misrepresents her findings. Position papers, some penned by NARTH president A. Dean Byrd, an adjunct professor in the U.’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, point to Diamond’s research as evidence that gays’ sexual orientation can be straightened out through treatment – much to Diamond’s dismay.
“If NARTH had read the study more carefully they would find that it is not supported by my data at all. I bent over backward to make it difficult for my work to be misused, and to no avail. When people are motivated to twist something for political purposes, they’ll find a way to do it,” Diamond says in a videotaped interview posted on the Internet.
Diamond made those remarks two weeks ago as Californians were debating Proposition 8, the divisive ballot measure that mandates marriage as solely between a man and a woman.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints encouraged members to give time and money to the successful campaign, triggering a cascade of criticism and protests.Diamond’s comments specifically targeted Encino, Calif., psychologist Joeseph Nicolosi, co-founder of NARTH and the author of “Healing Homosexuality,” and “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.”
“You know exactly what you’re doing,” says Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender studies, in the videotape. “There’s no chance this is a misunderstanding or simply a different scientific interpretation. … It’s illegitimate and it’s irresponsible and you should stop doing it.”
Nicolosi did not respond to an interview request and Byrd claimed he did not know why Diamond, a fellow U. faculty member, took umbrage with NARTH’s citation of her work.
“NARTH’s view is that people can adapt any way they want and there is freedom of choice,” Byrd says. “If it says ‘fluidity’ it says ‘fluidity.’ How you interpret it is something else.”
Diamond, who has never met Byrd, said in an interview that NARTH “cherry picks” findings or references from her work that appear to support their position. Her denunciations of NARTH was instigated by Truth Wins Out, a New York City-based watchdog that patrols social conservative groups’ use of social science in support of hot-bottom agendas.
“They use these fake statistics and distort science to support bigotry and discrimination. It’s important to take these tools away from them,” founder Wayne Besen says.
NARTH is based in Nicolosi’s California office, but maintains an office in the same downtown Salt Lake City building as Evergreen International, a Mormon faith-based group that encourages gays to abandon same-sex attraction. While the two groups do not advertise their association, NARTH’s sole paid staffer last year was Evergreen’s executive director David Pruden, according to tax documents.
NARTH is no stranger to controversy. One past president, the late psychiatrist Charles Socarides, campaigned for years against the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 decision to discontinue listing homosexuality as a mental illness. The American Psychological Association likewise maintains a stance of deep skepticism toward reparative therapies that seek to convert patients to heterosexuality.
“To date, there has been no scientifically adequate research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation is safe or effective,” the APA says on its Web site. “Furthermore, it seems likely that the promotion of change therapies reinforces stereotypes and contributes to a negative climate for lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons.” Diamond goes even further.
“The therapists are saying, ‘We can change your orientation,’ when all of the data, all of the data suggest that is not the case. They say same-sex attractions can disappear – they don’t,” she says. Reparative therapies “do additional damage” with techniques that incorporate electroshock and nausea-inducing treatments “that leave people feeling greater shame, greater guilt, worse about themselves.”
Dr. Lisa Diamond’s Charges Come One Week Before NARTH’s Annual Convention In Denver
Truth Wins Out released an exclusive video interview today with University of Utah professor, Dr. Lisa Diamond, who said that the National Association of Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) grossly and deliberately distorted her research on sexual orientation. Dr. Diamond’s assertion comes one week before NARTH’s annual conference in Denver, which will take place Nov. 7-9.
“Dr. Nicolosi, you know exactly what you are doing,” said Diamond in the video, addressing NARTH’s co-founder Dr. Joseph Nicolosi. “This is a willful misuse and distortion of my research. Not an academic disagreement. Not a slight shading of the truth. It’s willful distortion. And, it’s illegitimate and it’s irresponsible and you know that. And you should stop.”
“We are fighting back against the gross distortions of our lives by anti-gay organizations who manipulate science for political gain,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “These organizations claim to be moral, but often twist scientific research in the most shameless and dishonest ways imaginable. We are committed to exposing these lies and ensuring that science is accurately and honestly presented.”
Lisa M. Diamond, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies in the Department of Psychology at the University of Utah. She has won a number of awards for her work. In 2000, Dr. Diamond published a study, “Sexual identity, attractions, and behavior among young sexual minority women over a 2 year period.” This study was distorted by NARTH. The anti-gay organization falsely claimed that Dr. Diamond’s work shows that sexual orientation is “amenable to change.”
Dr. Diamond also produced a second study, “Female Bisexuality From Adolescence to Adulthood: Results From a 10-Year Longitudinal Study” in Developmental Psychology (2008, Vol. 44, No 1., 5-14). NARTH recently cited this study to support its anti-scientific belief that homosexuality is a mental disorder that should be treated. Truth Wins Out informed Dr. Diamond about these misrepresentations of her research, and she agreed to discuss how her work was manipulated. (Read More)
During the course of 2008, critics of the ex-gay movement have pointed to at least three prominent ex-gay activists whose web pages or recent statements spread unhealthy myths and ignorance about the human health disaster of HIV/AIDS.
In a post yesterday, I wrote the following:
nt rather than a real person. The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) also loves SSA.
Povia, a headliner for the upcoming 
