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.

Erik, did you miss our deliberate use of “apparently”? Apparently, yes.

Perhaps you yourself might like to start with Sandfort. You know the one. Good enough for the goose and the gander?

And we’re more than familiar with your site. Actually, both sites. But let’s leave that other one for another day.

This is what you do:

1) here’s a study I selected
2) here’s a study I selected
3) here’s a study I selected
4) wild assumption by Erik
5) here’s a study I selected
6) here’s a study I selected
7) my conclusion based on those studies and the wild assumption.

That is straight out of the Paul Cameron school of research. Whether you two would argue over conclusions doesn’t alter the identical methodology.

And just like him, you’re very quick to point to the studies from genuine researchers as a defence, but also just like him also neglect to mention the wild assumption from yourself that is embedded in the conclusion.

Have you corresponded with Meyer, as example, on this subject? What did he say?

Where is your evidence that women are overall more mentally ill than men? Do not cite studies where only some mental disorders such as mood, anxiety and substance use disorders are evaluated, especially those based on people who seek mental treatment on their own initiative. If you pick up DMS-IV-TR, you will encounter several mental disorders that are more prevalent among men.

I have not misrepresented Meyer’s find. The find in Meyer’s paper is the result of the meta-analysis, which I have summarized above. Meyer proposed a minority stress hypothesis to account for the increase in psychiatric morbidity, but it remains a mere proposition, and his paper does not prove it. For instance, here is Meyer in his own words:

The conclusion I propose—that LGB individuals are exposed to excess stress due to their minority position and that this stress causes an excess in mental disorders—is inconsistent with research and theoretical writings that can be described as a minority resilience hypothesis, which claims that stigma does not negatively affect self-esteem (Crocker et al., 1998; Gray-Little & Hafdahl, 2000; Twenge & Crocker, 2002). As such, my conclusion is also inconsistent with studies that showed that Blacks do not have higher prevalences of mental disorders than Whites, as is expected by minority stress formulations (Kessler et al., 1994; Robins & Regier, 1991). Further research must address this apparent contradiction.

Meyer speculates that since LGB individuals acquire their sexual orientation identity later than African-Americans acquire their ethnic identity, and are not born into a supposedly self-enhancing social environment, perhaps this explains their greater sensitivity to minority stress, but then this is speculation, not something that is proven.

You wanted the full citation of Meyer’s paper; here it is:

Meyer, I. H. (2003). “Prejudice, social stress, and mental health in lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations: conceptual issues and research evidence.” Psychol Bull 129(5): 674-97.

Regarding the italicized passage you have quoted from the APA’s webpage, the statement is misleading since it is not specified to what extent greater experiences with stigma, discrimination and concealment accounted for the increase in reported mental health concerns, which is something that Meyer did not statistically analyze in his paper, but then a number of studies in this regard are new and were published after Meyer’s paper. These studies have attempted to statistically control for a variety of factors that are expected to contribute to worsened mental health, but in several cases the increase in psychiatric morbidity either does not diminish or diminishes only slightly, and I have summarized a number of such studies here. Therefore, the belief that the increase in psychiatric morbidity among LGB individuals is entirely accounted for in terms of minority stress is unsupported; stigma, prejudice, discrimination and victimization are only accounting for a minority of the variance in the increase in psychiatric morbidity.

Besides, my argument is not that homosexuality per se is the cause of the greater psychiatric morbidity among homosexual and bisexual individuals, but that developmental factors leading to nonheterosexuality are also largely behind the increased psychiatric morbidity observed among nonheterosexuals, as summed up in the diagram on this page. Additionally, I do not belong to the Paul Cameron School of research; Cameron would strongly disagree with many of my assertions.

Given the different stressors on men and women one can expect differences on any individual measures. What we asked is why the overall mental health of women is apparently worse than men — and what that is meant to indicate.

Now, and this we have waited on — back to your own orginal claim, and why you best belong to the Paul Cameron school of research. You are being deceptive.

Proof? Perhaps you’d be good enough to give the full title of Meyer’s paper — and also add what he found. You know as well as we do that it is completely at odds with what you are attempting to push.

Given they published it, here it is from the horse’s mouth:

Meyer also provided evidence that within lesbian, gay, and bisexual populations, those who more frequently felt stigmatized or discriminated against because of their sexual orientation, who had to conceal their homosexuality, or who were prevented from affiliating with other lesbian, gay, or bisexual individuals tended to report more frequent mental health concerns.

Did you get that everyone?

Erik — who’s view elsewhere is far harsher that he lets on here — promotes the view that homosexuality per se is the cause of higher rates of depression etc.

Erik, the paper you provided as reference in fact says something very different. It’s identifying an anti-gay environment. Now, you’re free to make your own wild guesses about anything, or have your own prejudices. But don’t misrepresent others.

What do you take us all for?

Whereas women do have a higher prevalence of some specific mental disorders than men, the reverse is true for other mental disorders. For instance, the prevalence of depression, anxiety disorders and borderline personality disorder is higher among women, but men have a higher prevalence of substance use disorders, paraphilias, antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenias, etc. Therefore, it is not maladaptive to be a woman from a mental health standpoint.

Following your logic… what does this say about the maladaptiveness of being female?

“As to developement of opposite sex attractions”, perhaps you might be honest enough to at least admit that at best the minority are able to do this. At worst, none do.

Perhaps you’d also be good enough to detail what happens to those who fail. That is, the majority.

Oh, that’d be right. You don’t deal with them, do you? Instead, it’s other therapists who pick up the wreckage left in “your” wake.

———————–

And you’ve really got to wonder about anyone who claims to be an expert about gay men and women, but who also deliberately refuses to have anything to do with them.

Now that’s what I’d call a false self image…