By Philip M. Sutton, Ph.D.
1. The Report is an arbitrary dismissal of the importance of evidence about sexual-orientation change efforts (SOCE) provided prior to the past 50 years.
In drafting its list of criteria for acceptable research designs for evaluating the effectiveness of sexual-orientation change efforts (SOCE), the American Psychological Association Task Force (subsequently referred to as APA unless otherwise noted) applies post hoc criteria to discount the credibility of older studies and clinical reports of SOCE. These older studies were case and qualitative studies, many with multiple subjects/clients/patients, which were reported in the professional and scientific literature.
APA begins its evaluation of the most recent fifty years (i.e., the latter half of the 20th century) of scientific efforts to document SOCE's effectiveness, while ignoring the prior 75 years of reports (admittedly sparse in the latter 19th and earlier 20th century).
2. Misrepresentation of the basis for originally removing homosexuality from the DSM II (cf no. 3 below).
Prior to the 1973 and 1974 actions by the APA's, treatment of same-sex attraction (SSA) was considered normative, effective for some, and -- like all psychotherapeutic approaches-- not generally harmful. No research showed it to be otherwise. What has changed is the perceived and ascribed acceptability of diagnosing and treating homosexuality.
The 1973 and 1974 decisions to normalize homosexuality were based on politics- not science, and certainly not on any new science which had refuted these old studies, or which had refuted existing psychotherapeutic practice. Those who have written about this history, including pro-gay activists, admit that no new research showing that homosexuality was healthier than previously thought, or actually could not be changed, was used to justify the decision. Yet, these decisions by both APA are cited now as if they were proof for what they asserted.
3. The Report makes undocumented and I think erroneous (even fraudulent) claims to a scientific basis for the normality of homosexuality.
* "Same-sex attractions, behavior, and orientations per se se are normal and positive variants of human sexuality-- in other words, they do not indicate either mental or developmental disorders" (p. 2, cf. pg. 54).
*** The first Resolution reads similarly that the APA "affirms that same-sex sexual and romantic attractions, feelings, and behaviors are normal and positive variations of human sexuality regardless of sexual orientation identity"; while the second Resolution adds that APA "reaffirms its position that homosexuality per se is not a mental disorder and opposes portrayals of sexual minority youths and adults as mentally ill due to their sexual orientation" (p. 121).
* Gay men, lesbians, and bisexual individuals form stable, committed relationships and families that are equivalent to heterosexual relationships and families in essential respects (p. 2).
* "Affirmative approaches [to treating]...the distress surrounding sexual orientation...are based on the evidence that homosexuality is not a mental illness or disorder, which has significant empirical foundation (APA, 2000: Gonsiorek, 1991).
* "There are no empirical studies or peer-reviewed research that support theories attributing same-sex sexual orientation to family dysfunction or trauma [long list of authors cited as evidence]" (pg. 54-55). In fact, such evidence does exist in significant amount of clinical reports and case studies.
The Introduction to the main document of the Task Force Report opens with reference to "the basis of emerging scientific evidence" and "on the growing scientific evidence" (citing Gonsiorek, 1991) as rationales for removal of homosexuality from the DSM-II, "that homosexuality per se is not a mental disorder" and that diagnosing and treating it as such has perpetuated a "stigma of mental illness that the medical and mental-health professions had previously placed on sexual minorities" This "emerging [and]...growing scientific evidence" also led to the acceptance by "licensed mental health providers of all professions ...that homosexuality per se is a normal variant of human sexuality and that lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people deserve to be affirmed and supported in their sexual orientation" (pg. 11).
***There is no "empirical foundation," or "emerging or growing scientific evidence" for these assertions of which I am aware, other than the fact that gay-activist mental-health professionals and researchers have asserted that they are true. The 1973 & 1974 decisions (i.e., political votes) by the APAs seem to provide self-serving proof, i.e. a circular argument: the APAs would not have said so if they were not true, and they are true because the APAs have said so.
4. The criteria for empirical acceptability are inconsistently applied. None of the studies cited in support of the Task Forces "scientific facts" (pg. 2) meet their own stringent criteria (summarized on pg. 6; cf. pg. 21-22; 26-34; 42-43; 90-91) for scientific research. Also, as they apply and require them, the criteria regarding sampling and control groups should not and could not ever be met in a clinically responsible way.
5. Two resolutions appear to accuse the likes of NARTH and religiously-mediated ministries for the very practices which the Task Force and others of their ilk themselves practice.
6. Spurious, novel, and non-empirically-supported distinctions obscure rather than clarify the lived realities of clients with homosexual attractions and behaviors.
7. The discussion fails to acknowledge the current research documenting the greater prevalence of medical, psychological and relational disorders among practicing homosexuals. Its simplistic "stigma model" (pg. 15-17) fails to account for these findings (cf. Section 3, Volume 1 (2009), Journal of Human Sexuality).
8. The Report engages in misdirection and inconsistent criticism. It emphasizes the importance for current outcome research to meet modern criteria for evidenced-based psychotherapy and declares that attempts to document SOCE do not meet these criteria. But it does not acknowledge that its own preferred model (gay-affirmative therapy) is also in need of empirical validation.
9. APA is unjustifiably mischaracterizing a process with which many client-consumers are satisfied and for which they are grateful, and thereby stigmatizes the practice of therapists who provide such care. APA claimed in its press release: "INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE THAT SEXUAL-ORIENTATION CHANGE EFFORTS WORK, SAYS APA" and says that "Practitioners Should Avoid Telling Clients They Can Change from Gay to Straight" (APA, 2009, http://www.apa.org/releases/therapeutic.html).