Why I Support NARTH

By Dr. Gerald Schoenewolf

I first heard about NARTH when I came across Joe Nicolosi's book, Healing Homosexuality.

It was published by Aronson where most of my books had found a home. I was impressed with the book and also with the fact that here was somebody who was willing to stand up to the madness of activists. I had been trying to stand up to the forces of political correctness for some time and had felt as though I were the only person in the world who saw what was happening. Feeling all alone in my views made me doubt their validity.

When I tried to talk to anybody about my views, even educated people who I assumed would be open-minded, a glazed, hardened expression would come into their eyes. Before long they made it clear that what I was saying was heresy. If I persisted in these views their eyes would begin to gleam and they would throw the usual labels at me -- sexist, homophobe, bigot, racist. When I attempted to assert my views in my writings, my papers and books were either trashed (a typical reviewer dismissed my book, Sexual Animosity Between Men and Women, as the work of a "sexist") or, even worse, ignored.

Upon coming across Joe Nicolosi's book, I wrote him a letter congratulating him on his courage and telling him something about myself. He asked me to send him a paper I had just written, "Gender Narcissism." Upon reading the paper, he invited me to present the paper at the next NARTH conference in Los Angeles. The NARTH Conference was a memorable weekend. I had many things in common with Joe and others at NARTH including a passionate need to stand up against the irrationality and activism of those groups who were forcing their misguided values down the throats of America.

I am very glad that NARTH exists and that there is still a place where one can express views such as those I'm expressing here. But I wish NARTH were not just a one-issue organization. At one point I even suggested that NARTH change its philosophy and name. Instead of being the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, I suggested that it should be broaden its base and name itself, the National Organization for the Study of Sexual and Gender Disorders. A broadened philosophy would enable not only research on homosexuality but of all sexual and gender disorders -- transvestism, fetishism, sadomasochism, etc. -- and on issues pertaining to gender and healthy heterosexual functioning, which activists have all but appropriated.

However, be that as it may, I'm grateful to NARTH for providing a haven of sanity in an insane world.

Dr. Gerald Schoenewolf is Director of the Living Center in New York City. He is a licensed psychoanalyst and the author of 13 books. He is a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, a member of the American Psychological Association, and is a NARTH Advisory Board member.