{"id":19277,"date":"2012-05-28T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=19277"},"modified":"2012-05-25T17:12:09","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T16:12:09","slug":"dr-robert-spitzer-apologizes-to-gay-community-for-infamous-ex-gay-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/05\/dr-robert-spitzer-apologizes-to-gay-community-for-infamous-ex-gay-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Robert Spitzer Apologizes to Gay Community for Infamous \u2018Ex-Gay\u2019 Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today [25 Apr 2012], in a letter to Dr. Ken Zucker obtained exclusively by Truth Wins Out,\u00a0Dr. Robert Spitzer made an unprecedented apology to the gay community \u2014 and victims of reparative therapy in particular \u2014 for his infamous<\/a>, now-repudiated<\/a> 2001 study\u00a0that claimed some \u201chighly motivated\u201d homosexuals could go from gay to straight:<\/p>\n

Several months ago I told you that because of my revised view of my 2001 study of reparative therapy changing sexual orientation, I was considering writing something that would acknowledge that I now judged the major critiques of the study as largely correct. After discussing my revised view of the study with Gabriel Arana, a reporter for American Prospect, and with Malcolm Ritter, an Associated Press science writer, I decided that I\u00a0had to make public my current thinking about the study.\u00a0Here it is.<\/em><\/p>\n

Basic Research Question.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>From the beginning it was: \u201ccan some version of reparative therapy enable individuals to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual?\u201d Realizing that the study design made it impossible to answer this question, I suggested that the study could be viewed as answering the question, \u201chow do individuals undergoing reparative therapy describe changes in sexual orientation?\u201d \u2013 a not very interesting question.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Fatal Flaw in the Study \u2013 There was no way to judge the credibility of subject reports of change in sexual orientation.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>I offered several (unconvincing) reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the subject\u2019s reports of change were credible and not self-deception or outright lying. But the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the subject\u2019s accounts of change were valid.<\/em><\/p>\n

I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy. I also apologize to any gay person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative therapy works with some \u201chighly motivated\u201d individuals.<\/em><\/p>\n

Robert Spitzer. M.D.
\nEmeritus Professor of Psychiatry,
\nColumbia University<\/em><\/p>\n

Zucker, to whom Spitzer\u2019s letter is addressed, is the editor\u00a0of the\u00a0Archives of Sexual Behavior<\/em>,\u00a0the journal in which Spitzer\u2019s study was originally published in 2001. At that time, the\u00a0study was a surprise that created a\u00a0media firestorm<\/a>\u00a0which captured the nation\u2019s attention. Dr. Spitzer was the last person in America one would have expected to produce a study bolstering the claims of \u2018ex-gay\u2019 activists \u2014 after all, he\u00a0had previously led the charge in 1972-73 to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association. Earlier this month, Dr. Spitzer dealt \u201cex-gay\u201d programs a fatal blow by officially renouncing his study in the\u00a0American Prospect<\/em>\u00a0article he mentions in his letter above. That renunciation\u00a0kicked out the final leg from the stool on which the proponents of \u2018ex-gay\u2019 therapy based their already shaky claims of success, or as Arana put it, removed from the ex-gay \u201cfringe movement. . .\u00a0its only shred of scientific support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Spitzer\u2019s apology to the victims of \u201cpray away the gay\u201d therapy and the greater LGBT community marks a watershed moment in the fight against the \u201cex-gay\u201d myth. We commend him\u00a0for it, because not only will it solidify his legacy as a respected doctor and significant historical figure, but it will help to greatly hasten the day when the scourge that is reparative therapy is eradicated forever and\u00a0LGBT people can live\u00a0openly,\u00a0honestly, and true to themselves.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 truthwinsout.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today [25 Apr 2012], in a letter to Dr. Ken Zucker obtained exclusively by Truth Wins Out, Dr. Robert Spitzer made an unprecedented apology to the gay community \u2014 and victims of reparative therapy in particular \u2014 for his infamous, now-repudiated 2001 study that claimed some \u201chighly motivated\u201d homosexuals could go from gay to straight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sexualities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}