Earlier this week, the New York State Assembly overwhelmingly voted to pass a bill that would ban the use of so-called “reparative” or “conversion” therapy – treatments that aim to change sexual orientation – on minors. During the time I wrote this commentary, the New York State Senate had yet to vote on the bill. They have until the end of today, when the 2013-14 legislative session officially closes, to pass the bill. Should it pass, Governor Cuomo is expected to sign the bill into law. This would make New York the third state – following California and New Jersey – to outlaw efforts to turn gay kids straight.
Over 250 organizations around the country currently offer reparative therapy to adults and to minors. Many insurance plans, including Medicaid, also cover the costs of mental health counseling and treatment for homosexuality. This is despite the lack of evidence that conversion therapy works.
Most of the scientific studies conducted to date show that conversion therapy is ineffectual and even harmful. In 2009, for example, the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation conducted a comprehensive review of all available research on reparative therapy. That group concluded that a person’s sexual orientation could not be changed. While some people are able to change their sexual behaviors —by becoming celibate rather than having a relationship with a partner of the same gender — their physical and emotional attraction to members of the same sex remained. Other profession organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Counseling Association and the National Association of Social Workers have reached similar conclusions about the efficacy of reparative therapy.
Of the few studies that actually suggest that conversion therapy works, most are fundamentally flawed. For example, there is the oft-quoted study from famed psychiatrist Dr. Robert Spitzer. That study, which interviewed a small group of gay men and women about their sexual feelings and behaviors before and after reparative therapy, concluded that, “some people can change from gay to straight.”
But participants in that study were recruited through groups like the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), an organization that actively promotes the use of reparative therapy. Most of the participants described themselves as deeply religious, and many were politically active ex-gay advocates. The results of that study are thus heavily biased. Dr. Spitzer himself retracted this study in 2012, stating that he “owed the gay community an apology”. Nevertheless, this study is still cited by NARTH and other anti-gay organizations as conclusive proof that homosexuality is a malleable lifestyle choice rather than an immutable biological fact.
Being gay is not an illness, and it doesn’t need to be treated through therapy. What should be treated is the erroneous belief that people can (and need) to be cured of their homosexuality. When a group like the Texas Republican Party adopts a platform that, “recognize[s] the legitimacy and efficacy of counseling, which offers reparative therapy and treatment for those patients seeking healing and wholeness from their homosexual lifestyle,” they demonstrate their ignorance of facts.
Opponents of legislation that bans reparative therapy, such as Cathie Adams, president of the conservative Texas Eagle Forum, like to describe this as an issue of freedom. Ms. Adams spearheaded the effort to get Texan Republicans to endorse reparative therapy because she does not think that, ”homosexuals are born as homosexuals.” She thus believes that gay men and women should have the right to seek out reparative therapy and thus be rescued from an immoral lifestyle choice.
What folks like Cathie Adams fail to understand, however, is that endorsing conversion therapy doesn’t promote freedom. Rather, it does the exact opposite. It allows (and even encourages) parents to force risky and unnecessary treatment on children and teens that they see as “sick”. It also reinforces dangerous but socially accepted stereotypes that gay men and women are mentally ill or physically diseased, and thus contributes to the continued and destructive stigmatization of sexual minorities in the US.
Such stigmatization and discrimination is why gay men and women are more likely to be the victims of harassment, bullying and violence. It is also why they have higher rates of anxiety, depression, substance abuse and suicide. This is particularly true of gay men and women who undergo reparative therapy, which explains why groups like the American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association openly condemn attempts to change an individual’s sexual orientation.
Quite simply, reparative therapy is wrong and should be banned. It should be banned for everyone, not just for teenagers as California, New Jersey and (hopefully) New York have done.
A public health researcher and ethicist by training, Dr. Sean Philpott is Director of Research Ethics for the Bioethics program at Union Graduate College-Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in Schenectady, New York. He is also Acting Director of Union Graduate College's Center for Bioethics and Clinical Leadership, and Project Director of its Advanced Certificate Program for Research Ethics in Central and Eastern Europe.
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