The Homosexual Double Standard, Ad-hoc, Cavalcade!

[fm93]

Re: classification of homosexuality, here's a helpful summary of how the change ultimately happened.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/he...nted=all&_r=1&

Up into the 1970s, the field’s diagnostic manual classified homosexuality as an illness, calling it a “sociopathic personality disturbance.” Many therapists offered treatment, including Freudian analysts who dominated the field at the time.

Advocates for gay people objected furiously, and in 1970, one year after the landmark Stonewall protests to stop police raids at a New York bar, a team of gay rights protesters heckled a meeting of behavioral therapists in New York to discuss the topic. The meeting broke up, but not before a young Columbia University professor sat down with the protesters to hear their case.

“I’ve always been drawn to controversy, and what I was hearing made sense,” said Dr. Spitzer, in an interview at his Princeton home last week. “And I began to think, well, if it is a mental disorder, then what makes it one?”

He compared homosexuality with other conditions defined as disorders, like depression and alcohol dependence, and saw immediately that the latter caused marked distress or impairment, while homosexuality often did not.

So yes, some gay rights advocates objected on political grounds, but Dr. Spitzer (the same fellow who I mentioned earlier) actually met with the advocates to discuss the scientific grounds and found that homosexuality didn't belong in the same category as genuine disorders. That's how he and the other psychologists built their case that the APA ultimately accepted on those grounds. You can now stop this nonsense that the change was purely political and involved a mass conspiracy to shut up "good and competent psychologists" in favor of some non-existent gay agenda.

[Teallaura]

One person doesn't make the decision for the body as a whole - and if, as claimed, it is 'science' then a single person's objections would still be insufficient.

It's unquestionably a political change - no studies, no professional work, NOTHING you just quoted supports anything else.

[fm93]

Link to the study you think is flawed - not merely the explanation.

Spitzer's initial study:
Spitzer, R. L. (2003). Can some gay men and lesbians change their sexual orientation? Two hundred participants reporting a change from homosexual to heterosexual orientation. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32, 403-417.

Masters and Johnson:
Masters, W. H., & Johnson, V. E. (1979). Homosexuality in perspective. Boston: Little, Brown.

Bieber, I., Dain, H. J., Dince, P. R., Drellich, M. G., Grand, H. G., Gundlach, R. H., et al. (1962). Homosexuality: A psychoanalytic study. New York: Basic Books.

Or concede you don't have that information although you believe it exists. (It's a valid, if weak, position.)

Even if I didn't, does the testimony of Exodus International's co-founders, who admitted that they didn't actually see any "healed" patient and that the failed therapy drove people to suicidal thoughts not mean anything?

[Teallaura]

Spitzer's initial study:
Spitzer, R. L. (2003). Can some gay men and lesbians change their sexual orientation? Two hundred participants reporting a change from homosexual to heterosexual orientation. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32, 403-417.

Masters and Johnson:
Masters, W. H., & Johnson, V. E. (1979). Homosexuality in perspective. Boston: Little, Brown.

Bieber, I., Dain, H. J., Dince, P. R., Drellich, M. G., Grand, H. G., Gundlach, R. H., et al. (1962). Homosexuality: A psychoanalytic study. New York: Basic Books.

Okay, fair enough since Sparky's request was broad. A word to the wise, NEVER cite anything more than ten years old unless it is the only thing in existence. It's exceedingly bad form, bad science and bad debate technique.

Heh, '03? I remember a conference back then where the speakers, both experts and one PhD, contended that orientation was known to be fluid...

Anyway, I won't hammer the lack of links here - I'll check the cites and get back to you.

Even if I didn't, does the testimony of Exodus International's co-founders, who admitted that they didn't actually see any "healed" patient and that the failed therapy drove people to suicidal thoughts not mean anything?

It means they changed their minds - it doesn't tell us when they were correct, though, and it certainly doesn't invalidate those who do claim to have changed. No, it isn't proof - it's just more evidence and shaky evidence at that (double mindedness is not a great indicator that a source knows what the heck its talking about, is it?).

Also, no reparative therapy claims healing - there are no cures in psychiatry. That includes alcoholism and every other such therapy. You can get an alcoholic to sobriety - you can't get him to where he can safely drink sociably.

[Epoetker]

Thugs, no. Willing drones who mostly care more about their paycheck and their ability to prescribe drugs rather then describing reality, yes, yes, a thousand times yes:

In the case of American asylum seeking-- and everything else-- the grift is at the top and it lacks a human face. This story is in The New Yorker, right? So it's hardly news, hardly investigative journalism. So at minimum, everyone in the business knows the score. Novick knows that, in general, much of what he hears is a lie, even if he isn't sure/ignores that he is being lied to right now. Unless you piss him off personally, or flaunt your lying, he doesn't care about the veracity of your claim exactly, just the internal validity of it.

That's the system. The system favors narratives over truth to avoid the terrible reality of reflexive human corruption.

Caroline is fabricating a rape narrative. Novick wants proof. How does she prove it? What is the mechanism by which the American system converts words-- truths or lies, either way-- into physical evidence? What does the system give her-- indeed, demand of her-- as a means of manufacturing the necessary proof of her rape?

'To buttress her asylum claim... she had been attending group and individual psychotherapy sessions, as part of a program for survivors of torture.... She has individual sessions with a psychiatrist, who prescribes antidepressants: Zoloft, Wellbutrin, trazodone.... "I throw it away."'


Note that she didn't really have any symptoms; the system required her to go as evidence that she was raped. i.e. psychiatry is not the unintended collateral damage of a terrible system, it is the necessary part of the dialectical workings of (American) society, it is the specific way in which theory/lies/abstractions are physically manifested.

By "required" I don't mean codified. There's no rule that says she has to see a shrink. But she still has to. It will look weird if she goes before the judge without a PTSD diagnosis. Nor does a person actually need to go to a psychiatrist, but they must at minimum employ the language of psychiatry: traumatic, depressed, flashbacks...

I do not use the requirement of psychiatry lightly. I mean exactly what I say: psychiatry makes words manifest into tangible reality.

Remember Castro who was not gay unless he appeared gay-- the reality was irrelevant, what mattered was the narrative? Even he was in it:

'He shared a letter from his psychiatrist confirming that he took antidepressants for the post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his abuse.'


How much did it cost the system to help Caroline game it? 2 therapy visits/month at $60/visit + 1 "med check"/month @ $50/visit + medications @ $150/month (assuming generics) = $320/month. However, and this is the point, it made a profit on its investment, not just in taxes but in "blast radius:" she'll be a positive influence on others, her kids, who will grow up educated, employable, etc. This is the same force that gives you $700/month in SSI because that is just enough to prevent you from robbing a Dunkin Donuts or chasing a dragon, not to mention way cheaper than incarcerating you or turning the Bronx back into a police state.

Like most corrupt systems, this works right up until the point where you actually start poking at it.

[Jedidiah]

I admit "thugs" was a bit of an exaggeration intended to get across the point. There was thuggery going on in the late 60s and early 70s that brought about the change from pathology to normal. I have mentioned this before. I was aware of this at the time - it was in the news (I was a psych major) then but I can find no links to in now.

[Epoetker]

I admit "thugs" was a bit of an exaggeration intended to get across the point. There was thuggery going on in the late 60s and early 70s that brought about the change from pathology to normal. I have mentioned this before. I was aware of this at the time - it was in the news (I was a psych major) then but I can find no links to in now.

Undoubtedly many previous links have been sanitized for their convenience. There was a whole lot of that going on at the time, of course.

[Tassman]

Thugs, no. Willing drones who mostly care more about their paycheck and their ability to prescribe drugs rather then describing reality,



Like most corrupt systems, this works right up until the point where you actually start poking at it.

[Tassman]

I admit "thugs" was a bit of an exaggeration intended to get across the point. There was thuggery going on in the late 60s and early 70s that brought about the change from pathology to normal. I have mentioned this before. I was aware of this at the time - it was in the news (I was a psych major) then but I can find no links to in now.

Indeed and there were good reasons for that change.

Initially the clinical view of homosexuality was based upon untested cultural assumptions and social norms and viewed as a mental pathology. This was largely because of the unrepresentative sample of homosexual patients seen by health professionals. They consisted largely of self-presenting individuals who were mentally disturbed or unhappy - or were anti-social misfits referred from the judicial system. In short their homosexual clients consisted of people with problems of one sort or another and not representative of the majority of well-adjusted homosexuals in the community.

But once these untested cultural assumptions were actually subjected to critical scrutiny by health professionals they consistently failed to produce any empirical or scientific evidence that homosexuality was a disorder or abnormality. In short, classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder was culturally biased not clinically based and therefore inaccurate. Thus virtually ALL health professions worldwide now concede that homosexuality is not a pathological disorder and consequently does not require treatment.

[Epoetker]

It’s nonsense to besmirch entire professions such as Psychology and their related disciplines such as psychiatry, social work, pediatrics and medicine just because worldwide they are of the view that homosexuality is not an illness or disorder and therefore not in need of a cure”. Who are you to judge otherwise – especially in such hysterical and unsubstantiated language as: “willing drones that mostly care more about their paycheck and their ability to prescribe drugs rather than describing reality”?

A sensible individual who likes to draw attention to other sensible individuals within those professions. Careerism and managerialism corrupts any profession that succumbs to it, which is why the people whom I quote on the state of their professions are usually willing outcasts, those who've made enough money and influence in their career to be immune to the usual leftist campaigns, or pseudonymous. I couldn't care less for the public opinions of anyone subject to the Eye of Human Resources, Public Funding, and University Approval, since slaves will only say what their masters tell them to say. And eventually, think.

It's almost like their whole mental life goes by a sort of dream logic, though judging by how you frantically attack any questioning of that logic, you must enjoy it well enough (living in 99% white/Asian neighborhoods in First World countries enables an entire life within the bubble, but some people have to actually deal with the non-abstract consequences of your cheerily upside-down philosophy.)

[NotSoHumblePie]

Neither of those syllogisms actually work - mostly because you get the first one wrong in both cases. Then you get the factuals wrong.

1) Morality is not an issue of public health - disease is not proof or disproof of morality.

Precisely the point I was trying to make

In fact, you can take your #1 and combine it with my #9 or #7, and present as such:

1) Disease is not proof or disproof of morality
2) Therefore, homosexuality (within the context of the AIDS discussion) is not "wrong".

Thanks. That surely was much easier than everything I typed out (the majority of which was ignored by yourself, in favor of attempting to play a little logic game).

Wanna try again?

Do you?

[Tassman]

A sensible individual who likes to draw attention to other sensible individuals within those professions. Careerism and managerialism corrupts any profession that succumbs to it, which is why the people whom I quote on the state of their professions are usually willing outcasts, those who've made enough money and influence in their career to be immune to the usual leftist campaigns, or pseudonymous. I couldn't care less for the public opinions of anyone subject to the Eye of Human Resources, Public Funding, and University Approval, since slaves will only say what their masters tell them to say. And eventually, think.

You surely don’t expect your gross generalizations denigrating many thousands of qualified health-care professionals of all disciplines throughout the world, to be taken seriously merely because they don’t say what you want them to say about homosexuality. That’s just self-serving petulance.

It's almost like their whole mental life goes by a sort of dream logic, though judging by how you frantically attack any questioning of that logic, you must enjoy it well enough (living in 99% white/Asian neighborhoods in First World countries enables an entire life within the bubble, but some people have to actually deal with the non-abstract consequences of your cheerily upside-down philosophy.)

Get a grip.

What evidence do you have that the “whole mental life” of the many thousands of members of the APA, or the AMA or the NASW or the APA and the rest of the professional associations in the USA, let alone their equivalents worldwide, “goes by a sort of dream logic”? How are you privy to such personal information on such a massive scale?

Or are you merely trying to blacken the reputation of these many thousands of health care workers, because they authoritively state that your views about homosexuality being a 'disorder' requiring a 'cure' are wrong? I suspect the latter.

[Sparko]

Back in my mid-teenage years, when I was ensnared in the mire of fundamentalism, I briefly did think that sexual orientation could be changed by volition, so my current belief is not a preconception.

They selected a sample of people who had participated in conversion therapy and asked them about the results. That's a known procedure called surveying. Even if you think the sample is too small to be representative, the study at least shows that harm can be associated with the therapy.

The title says it all "A Consumer's Report" - it is not a study. It is not scientific. It is not evidence. It is marketing. basically a poll. You can't come to a factual conclusion based on 200 interviews.

Those figures are merely the percentages of people who were exclusively heterosexual afterwards. You have to keep in mind that less than half of the people in the sample were exclusively homosexual before the therapy, so the percentage of people who possibly made a genuine change is even smaller.


Again, it's technically more that they can't find any conclusive evidence that it works (because the studies saying that it does have been shown to be flawed), and many of the people who initially reported success later recanted, giving reason to believe that even the cases that might've been genuine change weren't actually genuine. Then you have the many people who say that it didn't work even initially. As for whether it's harmful? Technically it doesn't have to be if a therapist helps the patient cope with same-sex attractions and perhaps even reduces their frequency, but when you claim that you can remove and replace same-sex attractions with opposite-attractions, that's when the lie becomes damaging.


The earlier articles I posted explain how the studies claiming that the therapy works are flawed and can't be taken as evidence. I already listed many of the "ex-gay" leaders who admitted that they didn't truly change and recanted their previous claims. Beckstead and Morrow document some of the effects of therapy.

You really need to work on your googling skills. It is obvious that you are digging through a search engine to find anything to support your claim, rather than just admit it was hyperbole.

Your credibility is gone.

[fm93]

I think you just have a computer program enter pre-generated responses rather than reading and posting anything yourself.

[Sparko]

I think you just have a computer program enter pre-generated responses rather than reading and posting anything yourself.

Ah, the old "I know you are but what am I?" response. good one. For a third grader.