The papers documenting increased psychiatric morbidity among the heterosexual relatives of GLB individuals will reveal an increase in disorders other than mere depression, and also that this increase predates the outing of the GLB individuals. One forthcoming study will also be documenting a higher prevalence of atopy among both GLB individuals and their relatives; atopy is some combination of allergies, asthma, eczema and related anomalies associated with the disruption of the autonomic nervous system. All this is explicable in terms of minority stress, right?

Your claim that I have assumed “that all individuals and all groups that are persecuted are similarly situated and will behave, react, and internalise their persecution in the same way” is patently absurd. Nobody would assume this. It is not me who is directly comparing “a lone gay teen who only has a therapist to talk to with a black child who is and always was surrounded by their supportive black family;” in fact, nobody is. Meyer and some others have though it pertinent to see the GLB issue in light of the consequences of being an ethnic minority, to see if some parallels can be drawn, but the ethnicity situation does not lend support to the minority stress hypothesis for explaining the worsened mental health of GLB individuals. Besides, you have ignored studies that have shown no or little reduction in psychiatric morbidity after statistically adjusting for level of family support.

Regarding the “experts” not wishing to converse with me, this indeed says something about them, namely their inability to defend some of their cherished ideas. You are incorrect that I have not tried running my “nonsense” through someone who is gay; I have named some “experts” in a previous comment; other “experts” know about my work, and plenty of gays have gone through my site.

Regarding the concept of “internalized homophobia,” it is of course reasonable to assume that if most others find one’s orientation displeasing, then one may be uncomfortable with one’s orientation, but it is a stretch to assume that any discomfort with one’s orientation is solely or largely a function of the internalization of societal prejudice, something that has not been proven, and it is for this reason that this concept lacks construct validity.

Lastly, I did not lift my gay slang page off of Reisman; I don’t recall Reisman extensively documenting gay slang. Look at the citations; many of them are from gay sources, and even the Christian sources have obtained them from gay literature. I have also cited gay historian Rictor Norton, who has documented that the bulk of gay slang comes from within the gay community, and is used for the purposes of “cultural solidarity,” but not a desire to cope with or undermine straight culture or to convey secret messages.

But…

None of them are homosexuality.

And I’ll ignore for the time being your use of “sexual abuse” knowing that others may describe it as something else, depending on what the survey actually asked.

At what age can girls get married in Pennsylvania? With their parents permission. To an adult man. Is that sexual abuse?

Easy. Anti-gay parent/brother/etc suddenly finds out son/brother/etc is gay. Major depression sets in.

Don’t you read your Exodus newsletters?

And we’re well aware of what “inference” means when the person is talking about a subject they only know (at best) third-hand: “wild guess”.

i.e.#1 In the case of all your pages on this particular subject you assume — without any reason given — that all individuals and all groups that are persecuted are similarly situated and will behave, react, and internalise their persecution in the same way. Your entire “logic” is based on that gross and false assumption.

That’s why you think you can directly compare a lone gay teen who only has a therapist to talk to with a black child who is and always was surrounded by their supportive black family.

When was the last time you heard of black parents kicking their child out of home for being black?

Your base assumption is dead wrong. Back to Psych 101. No, start with History 101.

As for none of the experts wishing to communicate with you: perhaps that says more than enough. Unless, of course, you are inferring that you know more than they do.

You’ve never bothered first running any of this nonsense past someone gay, have you? That much seems perfectly obvious — the dismissal of internalised homophobia as but a perfect example. Your “gay vocabularly” page — ripped right off Reisman — near had me in tears from laughing.

Why do it Erik?

What you refer to as a wild assumption, namely that developmental factors leading to nonheterosexuality are also largely behind the increased psychiatric morbidity observed among nonheterosexuals, is an inference based on an extensive literature review, only part of which I have presented online. Your description of my methodology easily sums up the methodology of many activist gay academics whom you would certainly not classify as part of the Cameron School of research. For instance, the notion of internalized homophobia has no construct validity, yet is widely used in even top journals.

I did contact Meyer, but he did not respond. I also contacted Charlotte Patterson, whose work you are probably familiar with, but she did not respond either. Jack Drescher, the Chair of APA’s Committe on GLB issues, wrote an article similar to the APA article in support of same-sex marriage that you linked to. I responded to his assertions about the reasons for the worsened mental health among GLB individuals, but he did not argue against the evidence. The fact is that academics are ignoring what the newer studies are increasingly documenting, which is what you call my wild assumption, and this will continue till it will be embarrassing for the APA to pretend otherwise.

There is cool new research coming up. For instance, some academics will be publishing the results from several studies showing increased psychiatric morbidity among the heterosexual relatives of GLB individuals compared to those of heterosexual individuals. Try explaining this and other cool upcoming research in terms of minority stress.