A college psychology professor's observations about public policy, mental health, sexual identity, and religious issues
Here is a story about a young man who may have entered an ex-gay program. I am not going to comment much at this point as the details are still fuzzy.
One side, a former boyfriend and activist looking to make a name for himself, say the young man was forced into a program. The other side, including the fellow’s parents say he chose to enter.
Eventually, we will find out.
According to Exodus President, Alan Chambers, you won’t be able to find this reference to PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-gays and Gays) on the Exodus website much longer.
Within the last couple of weeks, PFOX gave up affiliation with Exodus. While Chambers declined to give reasons for the PFOX move, he indicated that Exodus would not seek any future relationship. He noted that PFOX is a public policy organization and their activities do not fit in with the mission and direction of Exodus. I have asked Regina Griggs, Executive Director at PFOX, for comment and will report the reason for their decision if disclosed.
PFOX seems to be alone among conservative groups in advocating for ex-gays using civil rights language. I recall thinking this was a strange framework for a group that really doesn’t believe homosexual orientation exists. In any event, PFOX and Exodus has not been a good fit on many levels so this separation is a good move.
Several new twin studies have been published over the past several months. A new one, just published on the Archives of Sexual Behavior website, deals with sexual orientation and neuroticism and psychoticism (more about that study in a future post). One of the co-authors of this new paper is J. Michael Bailey. Dr. Bailey is among the world’s top sexuality researchers and author of numerous publications involving twins and sexual orientation. Here he comments on the limitations of twin studies and sexual orientation change. This conversation was triggered in part by the recent NARTH report which stated that “homosexuality is not innate” without research supporting the statement.
In an email, I asked Michael to discuss how both the right and left misunderstand twin studies and their relationship to questions of innateness. His answers are indented and presented in full with some comments from me.
Both the left and the right conflate “genetic” with “inborn.” The debate over sexual orientation (and other traits) is more about inborn than genetic. As an example of the difference, it is common for identical twins to be discordant for homosexuality (i.e., given a gay identical twin, his twin is usually straight). It is a terrible mistake, though, to assume that this reflects the kind of social environment that can be manipulated. As you know, childhood gender nonconformity is very highly predictive of adult homosexual outcome. I’ve spoken to several mothers of identical twins discordant for
extreme childhood gender nonconformity (where one male twin wants to be a girl and the other is a typical boy). In each and every case, the mothers insist they did nothing–nothing–to differentiate the twins until well after the behavioral/emotional differences emerged. I
believe them.
On this point, some observers might not be quite as believing as Dr. Bailey. However, I lean in his direction on this, especially with extreme gender nonconformity. On this blog, we had an extensive conversation with a mother of twins, one quite non-conforming and the other not. In this context, it might be good to review those posts. (part 1, part 2). At the same time, I am aware of some parents who do indeed raise kids to prefer gender nonconformity. Extremes in childrearing may in some cases influence the trait of gender nonconformity in kids, but one does not need such parenting to get the same result.
The left often assumes some genetic influence means that social environment plays no role at the individual level. If some genetic factors operate for some, then they must operate for all. However, this cannot be assumed from twin studies. Neither can it be assumed that the differences between twins all relate to environmental factors which are alterable. On this point, Bailey says:
The main issue is nature-nurture. Heritability (which can be estimated from twin studies) generally is consistent with nature. But environmentality (the complement of heritability) DOES NOT MEAN nurture as it is typically assumed (i.e., social and reversible causation). MZ twins [monozygotic or identical] can differ (and I expect usually do) for biological reasons. At this point neither hypothesis (biological or social causation of MZ twin differences) has strong evidence to for it.
Note the last statement. We simply don’t know as yet. This is another reason why I think why I believe the NARTH paper is misleading. The paper uses weak therapy research to make a statement about innateness and immutability of sexual orientation. First we do not know whether twin differences occur for social or biological reasons. And then we do not know if any of the factors in any given case are alterable. Francis Collins made this same point when reacting to how Dean Byrd at NARTH quoted his book The Language of God:
The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.
The recent NARTH paper implies that studies demonstrating some shifts in sexual behavior disconfirm the view that homosexuality is innate. As Bailey notes above, we do not know. However, Bailey indicates a situation which provides a problem for environmental hypotheses.
Studies of the rare conditions of penile ablation and cloacal exstrophy (in which hormonally normal males are reassigned and reared as females from a very early age) show that such males grow up to be attracted to females, as per their biological, but not their social sex. To repeat something I’ve said many many times (and have never had a good answer), if you can’t make a male attracted to other males by cutting off his penis and rearing him as a female, how likely is any social hypothesis?
Bailey adds a bit of a challenge to his comments:
The folks who insist that (male) sexual orientation can be changed should put their money where their mouths are and fund you and me (and the researcher of their choice) to do a study with objective (i.e., penile and neural) pre-post measures.
We have discussed a study like this since 2006. I am aware of people who would participate but funding is an issue. Bailey and I both have sought such funding but no one has provided encouragement.
Anyone interested?
I will have more on the NARTH paper in future posts. Thanks to Michael for his comments and expertise.
David Virtue posted what might be perhaps one of the worst articles I have ever read on why some people are gay.
Titled, Why are some people gay?, the article by Mike McManus begins by telling some of the sad story of someone I happen to like, Michael Reagan.
I just read Michael Reagan’s book, “Twice Adopted,” which reports the terrifying evidence of why many become homosexual. The adopted son of Ronald Reagan and Academy Award winner Jane Wyman – lived through their divorce and found himself in a boarding school at age five, crying himself to sleep.
Michael wondered why some kids in his school went home every night, while he did not. “What’s wrong with me?” he wondered. “Why don’t my parents like me.”
His mother was making two or three movies a year, like his dad, who was also President of the Screen Actors Guild. They had little time for him, though each saw him every other weekend.
In his book, Reagan told of his tragic abuse perpetrated by Don Havlik, the camp director. And just when you think McManus is going to tell you that Michael Reagan is gay, he writes:
What was most horrifying about his secret is that he was afraid he would be labeled. Though he had never heard the word “homosexual,” at age 7, he knew he had been touched by a man, which did not sound normal. Fortunately, Reagan did become heterosexual and married happily.
Talk about adventures in not making your point…
Then he quotes Arthur Goldberg’s new book, Light in the Closet linking sexual abuse and homosexuality.
Many studies estimate that 40 percent to two-thirds of homosexuals – are victims of child molesters, according to Dr. Arthur Goldberg, President of PATH (Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality.) He adds that even higher percentages of lesbians were victims of child molestation.
I have never seen these stunning figures in the secular press before.
There is a reason why you haven’t seen these stunning figures in the secular press. They are misleading numbers. The higher numbers come from non-representative and skewed samples, if they come from studies at all. The real numbers for gays are intolerably high but so the percentages for heterosexuals, especially women. See this post and this one for some sanity on the topic of sexual abuse and homosexuality.
The for good (bad) measure, the article ends with a reference to gay marriage, improperly conflating homosexuality with pedophilia.
This issue goes far beyond same-sex marriage. Every step which normalizes homosexuality will attract more people into this perverted lifestyle, endangering children.
About the only redeeming value in this article comes via the warning signs provided by Michael Reagan to parents regarding how to protect children from actual pedophiles. Otherwise, this is a confusing (why is straight man Michael Reagan’s story described in an article trying to advance the notion that homosexuality derives from molestation?), and harmful article. If being untruthful is harmful in itself, then we have that kind of harm to start with. However, there is another kind of pain that can be caused with this kind of article. I have direct experience with families where children and grandchildren have been kept away from same-sex attracted (not even gay identified) relatives because of the fears whipped up by this contrived link between same-sex attraction and child molestation.
The Southern Voice has an article regarding the recent breathless, echo-chamber enhanced series of articles from some conservative blogs and news services about changes in the American Psychological Association statement regarding sexual orientation.
As I noted here awhile back, the recent flurry was not new news. My first blog about it was when NARTH’s Dean Byrd produced an article for the NARTH website.
In the Sovo article, the APA’s Clinton Anderson seems bemused by the far right response to something they did over a year ago.
Clinton Anderson, director of the APA’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender concerns office, said the change was so subtle that “from our perspective, there really hasn’t been any change.”
But some conservative groups have hailed the wording change as apparent affirmation that sexual orientation is not genetically defined.
Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, said the reason “so many people in the pro-family movement are delighted by this is that it seems to confirm our doubts that there’s a gay gene, that homosexuality is inborn.”
“A lot of gay activists have used the idea of genetic homosexuality as a convenient argument to further their case,” he said. “This makes it harder for them to do that, because they can chastise the religious right, but it’s harder for them to chastise the APA.”
I still wait for NARTH to issue a similar position statement regarding the nature of homosexuality – multiple factors, multiple pathways, we don’t know how any of this works very well, etc.
Instead NARTH trumpets a paper saying that research leads to a conclusion that homosexuality is not innate – despite the absence of any evidence to support the “conclusion” in the paper.