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from What do clinical studies say?
Archives of General Psychiatry Article
Asks, Could Homosexuality be a
"Developmental Error"?
Two recent studies reported in the same issue of Archives of General
Psychiatry (October 1999, vol. 56, no. 10) have found significantly higher
levels of mental-health problems in the gay population than the heterosexual
population.
One researcher, J. Michael Bailey, responded in the same issue of the Archives
with some thoughts about those findings. In "Commentary: Homosexuality and
Mental Illness," Dr. Bailey says,
"These studies contain arguably the best published data on the association
between homosexuality and psychopathology, and both converge on the same unhappy
conclusion: homosexual people are at substantially higher risk for some forms of
emotional problems, including suicidality, major depression, and anxiety
disorder...
"Subjects whom they classified as gay, lesbian or bisexual were at an
increased lifetime risk for suicidal ideation and behavior, major depression,
generalized anxiety disorder, conduct disorder, and nicotene dependence (odds
ratios, 2.8-6.2 compared with the heterosexual sample).
Dr. Bailey predicted these findings would be interpreted in different ways:
- by sexual-reorientation therapists, as vindication that homosexuality should
not have been removed from the diagnostic manual in 1973 because of its
association with psychopathology;
- by social conservatives, as evidence of the consequences of promiscuity and an
unhealthy lifestyle;
- by gay activists as proof of the stresses of society's homophobia.
"Commitment to any of these positions would be premature," he cautioned.
Dr. Bailey proposed several possible interpretations of the findings. Social
oppression is a very likely stressor, but not demonstrated to be a single source
of the problem.
A second possibility, he says, is that since evolution naturally selects for
heterosexuality, "homosexuality may represent developmental error." While he
does not fully elaborate on this suggestion, he says some research links
homosexuality to "developmental instability," as well as some minor physical
anomalies.
A third possibility concerns the gender-atypicality of homosexuals as a group;
gay men, being as a group more feminine, he says, may be exhibiting more
female-like types of neuroticism.
Another possibility is that the psychopathology is due to "lifestyle
differences" (particularly promiscuity and fear of sexually transmitted
diseases). Lifestyle differences (including the gay community's great stress on
physical attractiveness and thinness) might also explain the vastly higher rate
of gay men with eating disorders.
To understand why homosexuality is linked with psychopathology, the author
calls for more research--particularly, research that is free of politicization
and that does not avoid exploring unpopular hypotheses.
Updated: 8 February 2008
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