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{{Short description|Pseudoscientific attempts to change sexual orientation or gender identity}} | |||
'''Conversion therapy''', sometimes called '''reparative therapy''', involves methods intended to convert gay and lesbian people to heterosexuality, which have been a source of intense political controversy in the United States and numerous other countries.<ref name="DrescherandZucker" /> The American Psychological Association states that political and moral debates over the integration of gays and lesbians into the mainstream of American society have obscured scientific data about changing sexual orientation "by calling into question the motives and even the character of individuals on both sides of the issue."<ref name="Psych" /> Conversion therapy has been criticized by many ] organizations, but is supported by some ] political and social lobbying groups and by the ] movement.<ref name="challenge">{{citation |url=http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/reports/reports/ChallengingExGay.pdf |title=Challenging the ex-gay movement |accessdate=2007-08-28 |year=1998 |publisher=], National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Equal Partners in Faith}}</ref><ref name="GLAAD" /> The most high-profile contemporary purveyors of conversion therapy tend to be religious organizations, which include ] groups.<ref name="Yoshino">{{Harvnb|Yoshino|2002}}</ref> The main organization advocating secular forms of conversion therapy is the ] (NARTH).<ref name="taskforce" /><ref name="Yoshino" /> | |||
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{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}} | |||
{{Infobox pseudoscience | |||
| claims = One's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, gender identity, or gender expression can be changed to fit ], ], and ] norms. | |||
| notableprop = ] | |||
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{{LGBT rights sidebar}} | |||
{{Alternative medicine sidebar|fringe}} | |||
'''Conversion therapy''' is the ]<!-- DO NOT remove or change to "scientific" without talk page consensus --> practice of attempting to change an individual's ], ], ], or ] to align with ] and ] norms.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Fenaughty |first1=John |last2=Tan |first2=Kyle |last3=Ker |first3=Alex |last4=Veale |first4=Jaimie |last5=Saxton |first5=Peter |last6=Alansari |first6=Mohamed |date=January 2023 |title=Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Change Efforts for Young People in New Zealand: Demographics, Types of Suggesters, and Associations with Mental Health |journal=Journal of Youth and Adolescence |language=en |volume=52 |issue=1 |pages=149–164 |doi=10.1007/s10964-022-01693-3 |pmid=36301377 |pmc=9813061 |issn=0047-2891}}</ref> Methods that have been used to this end include forms of ], ] or ], ] treatments such as electric shocks, nausea-inducing drugs, ], counseling, spiritual interventions, visualization, ], and arousal reconditioning. There is a scientific consensus that conversion therapy is ineffective at changing a person's sexual orientation or gender identity and that it frequently causes significant long-term psychological harm.<ref name=":0" /> The position of current ] and clinical guidance is that ], ], and ] are natural and healthy aspects of ].<ref name=":0" />{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=5}} An increasing number of jurisdictions around the world have passed ].<ref name="Drescher" /> | |||
The ] defines conversion therapy or reparative therapy as therapy aimed at changing ].<ref name="answers">{{citation |url=http://www.apa.org/topics/sorientation.pdf |title=Answers to Your Questions: For a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality |accessdate=2008-02-14 |year=2008 |month=February |publisher=American Psychological Association |format=PDF}}</ref> The ] states that conversion therapy or reparative therapy is a type of psychiatric treatment "based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that a patient should change his/her sexual homosexual orientation."<ref name="Psych" /> Psychologist Douglas Haldeman writes that conversion therapy comprises efforts by mental health professionals and pastoral care providers to convert lesbians and gay men to heterosexuality, and that techniques include ], ], aversive conditioning involving electric shock or nausea-inducing drugs, fantasy modification, ], reparative therapy, and involvement in ex-gay ministries such as ].<ref name="GonsiorekandWeinrich">{{Harvnb|Gonsiorek|1991}}</ref> | |||
Historically, conversion therapy was the treatment of choice for individuals who disclosed same-sex attractions or exhibited gender nonconformity, which were formerly assumed to be ] by the medical establishment.{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=5}} When performed today, conversion therapy may constitute ], and when performed on minors, a form of ]; it has been described by experts as ]; ]; and contrary to ]. | |||
Mainstream American medical and scientific organizations have expressed concern over conversion therapy and consider it potentially harmful.<ref name="apa" /><ref name="Psych">{{citation |url=http://archive.psych.org/edu/other_res/lib_archives/archives/200001.pdf |title=Position Statement on Therapies Focused on Attempts to Change Sexual Orientation (Reparative or Conversion Therapies) |accessdate=2007-08-28 | |||
|year=2000 |month=May |publisher=American Psychiatric Association |format=PDF}}</ref> The advancement of conversion therapy may cause social harm by disseminating inaccurate views about sexual orientation.<ref name="apa" /> The ethics guidelines of major mental health organizations in the United States vary from cautionary statements about the safety, effectiveness, and dangers of prejudice associated with conversion therapy (American Psychological Association), to recommendations that ethical practitioners refrain from practicing conversion therapy (American Psychiatric Association) or from referring patients to those who do (American Counseling Association).<ref name="Psych" /><ref name="answers" /><ref name="ACA News" /> | |||
==Terminology== | ==Terminology == | ||
Medical professionals and activists consider "conversion therapy" a ], as it does not constitute a legitimate form of ].{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=4}} Alternative terms include sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE){{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=4}} and gender identity change efforts (GICE){{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=4}}—together, sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts (SOGICE).<ref name="SOGICESurvivor">{{cite web | vauthors=Csabs C, Despott N, Morel B, Brodel A, Johnson R | url=http://socesurvivors.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Survivor-Statement-A4-Doc-v1-2-Digital.pdf | title=The SOGICE Survivor Statement | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405220718/https://socesurvivors.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Survivor-Statement-A4-Doc-v1-2-Digital.pdf | archive-date=2023-04-05 | date=July 2020 | url-status=dead}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=February 2023}} According to researcher ], SOCE and GICE should be considered together because both rest on the assumption "that gender-related behavior consistent with the individual's birth sex is ] and anything else is unacceptable and should be changed".{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=8}} "Reparative therapy" may refer to conversion therapy in general,{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=4}} or to ].<ref name="Drescher1998"/> | |||
The American Psychological Association has defined ''conversion therapy'' and ''reparative therapy'' as “therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation.“<ref name="answers" /> The American Psychiatric Association has stated that it considers ''conversion therapy'' and ''reparative therapy'' to be forms of "psychiatric treatment…based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that a patient should change his/her homosexual orientation."<ref name="Psych" /> ] in 2003 used the term ''reparative therapy'' to refer to "...any help from a mental health professional or an ex-gay ministry for the purpose of changing sexual orientation".<ref name="DrescherandZucker" /> The Just the Facts Coalition, consisting of numerous mainstream mental health and teaching organizations including the American Psychological Association but not the American Psychiatric Association, in 2008 released ''Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth'', a statement that defined ''sexual orientation conversion therapy'' as “counseling and psychotherapy to attempt to eliminate individuals‘ sexual desire for members of their own sex” and “counselling and psychotherapy aimed at eliminating or suppressing homosexuality”. The latter definition was also applied to ''reparative therapy.'' It distinguished therapy to change homosexuality from ''ex-gay ministries'', which were defined as "religious groups that use religion to attempt to eliminate those desires."<ref name="apa" /> There has been disagreement over the use of the term ''reparative therapy''. ] has stated that the term implies that homosexuality is a disorder and should be avoided, a view also held by some psychologists and sociologists.<ref name="DrescherandZucker">{{Harvnb|Drescher|2006|pp=126, 175}}</ref><ref name=GLAAD /> ] writes that properly speaking the term ''reparative therapy'' applies only to the approach developed by ] and ].<ref name="Drescher1998" /> | |||
Advocates of conversion therapy do not necessarily use the term either, instead using phrases such as "healing from sexual brokenness"<ref>{{cite journal |id={{Gale|A586241649}} |last1=Lee |first1=Jin |title=Diversity or a flavor of diversity? |journal=Gateway Journalism Review |date=1 January 2019 |volume=47 |issue=352 |pages=34–35 }}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis |last1=Stephens |first1=John Bryant |date=1997 |title=Conflicts over homosexuality in the United Methodist Church: Testing theories of conflict analysis and resolution |id={{ProQuest|304408101}} |oclc=41964052 }}</ref> and "struggling with same-sex attraction".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Creek |first1=S. J. |last2=Dunn |first2=Jennifer L. |title='Be Ye Transformed': The Sexual Storytelling of Ex-gay Participants |journal=Sociological Focus |date=2012 |volume=45 |issue=4 |pages=306–319 |doi=10.1080/00380237.2012.712863 |jstor=41633922 |s2cid=144699323 }}</ref> | |||
==History== | ==History== | ||
{{main|History of conversion therapy}} | |||
=== Sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) === | |||
===Austria and Hungary=== | |||
The term '']'' was coined by German-speaking Hungarian writer ] and was in circulation by the 1880s.{{sfn|Whisnant|2016|p=20}}<ref name=Drescher>{{cite journal |last1=Drescher |first1=Jack |last2=Schwartz |first2=Alan |last3=Casoy |first3=Flávio |last4=McIntosh |first4=Christopher A. |last5=Hurley |first5=Brian |last6=Ashley |first6=Kenneth |last7=Barber |first7=Mary |last8=Goldenberg |first8=David |last9=Herbert |first9=Sarah E. |last10=Lothwell |first10=Lorraine E. |last11=Mattson |first11=Marlin R. |last12=McAfee |first12=Scot G. |last13=Pula |first13=Jack |last14=Rosario |first14=Vernon |last15=Tompkins |first15=D. Andrew |title=The Growing Regulation of Conversion Therapy |journal=Journal of Medical Regulation |date=2016 |volume=102 |issue=2 |pages=7–12 |doi=10.30770/2572-1852-102.2.7 |pmid=27754500 |pmc=5040471 }}</ref> Into the middle of the twentieth century, competing views of homosexuality were advanced by ] versus academic ]. ], the founder of psychoanalysis, viewed homosexuality as a form of ]. Later psychoanalysts followed ], who argued that homosexuality was a "phobic avoidance of heterosexuality caused by inadequate early parenting".<ref name=Drescher/> This line of thinking was popular in psychiatric models of homosexuality based on the prison population or homosexuals seeking treatment. In contrast, sexology researchers such as ] argued that homosexuality was a normal variation in human development. In 1970, gay activists confronted the ], persuading the association to reconsider whether homosexuality should be listed as a disorder. The APA delisted homosexuality in 1973, which contributed to shifts in public opinion on homosexuality.<ref name=Drescher/> | |||
Austrian writers who advocated treatment for homosexuality included Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Sigmund Freud, Eugen Steinach, Isidor Sadger, Wilhelm Stekel, and Helene Deutsch. The Hungarian Sandor Ferenczi wrote several of his papers on homosexuality during a period when ] was part of the ]. Melanie Klein wrote about therapy for homosexuality after moving to the United Kingdom in the 1920s to pursue her analytic work with children. Anna Freud and Edmund Bergler also advocated therapy to treat homosexuality. Many of their contributions were made after they were forced to leave Austria in the late 1930s by the rise of Nazism.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lewes|1988|pp=48-68}}</ref><ref name="OconnorandRyan" /><ref name="LeVay1996">{{Harvnb|LeVay|1996}}</ref> | |||
Despite their lack of scientific backing, some ] or ] activists continued to argue that if one person's sexuality could be changed, homosexuality was not a fixed class such as ]. Borrowing from discredited psychoanalytic ideas about the cause of homosexuality, some of these individuals offered conversion therapy.<ref name=Drescher/> In 2001, conversion therapy attracted attention when ] published a non-] study asserting that some homosexuals could change their sexual orientation. Many researchers made ] criticisms of the study, which Spitzer later repudiated.<ref name=Drescher/> | |||
====Sigmund Freud==== | |||
] | |||
=== Gender identity change efforts (GICE) === | |||
] was a physician and the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud used the word ''psychoanalysis'' for the first time in his 1896 paper “Heredity and the Aetiology of the Neuroses“.<ref name="Pgay">{{Harvnb|Gay|1995|p=xxxvi}}</ref> Freud's most important articles on homosexuality were written between 1905, when he published ''Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality'', and 1922, when he published “Certain Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia, and Homosexuality“.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lewes|1988|p=28}}</ref> Freud believed that all humans were bisexual, by which he primarily meant that everyone incorporates aspects of both sexes. In his view, this was true anatomically and therefore also mentally and psychologically. Heterosexuality and homosexuality both developed from this original bisexual disposition.<ref name="Ruse">{{Harvnb|Ruse|1988|p=22}}</ref> | |||
Gender Identity Change Efforts (GICE) refer to practices of healthcare providers and religious counselors with the goal of attempting to alter a person's gender identity or expression to conform to social norms. Examples include ], ], and ] and talk therapies.{{sfn|Rivera|Pardo|2022|p=52}} Western medical-model narratives have historically institutionalized ]: systemically favoring a binary gender model and pathologizing gender diversity and non-conformity.{{sfn|Rivera|Pardo|2022|p=53}} This aided the development and proliferation of GICE.{{sfn|Rivera|Pardo|2022|p=56}} | |||
Early ] were rooted in psychoanalytic hypotheses.{{sfn|Rivera|Pardo|2022|p=58}} ] advanced the theory that ] behavior and expression in children assigned male at birth (AMAB) was caused by being overly close to their mother. ] continued his research; his methods for altering behavior included having the father spend more time with the child and mother less, expecting both to exhibit stereotypical ], and having them praise their child's masculine behaviors, and shame their feminine and gender-nonconforming ones. These interventions resulted in depression in the children and feelings of betrayal from parents that the treatments failed.{{sfn|Rivera|Pardo|2022|p=58}} | |||
Freud suggested that homosexuality could be caused by numerous different biological and psychological factors, but saw all of them as inhibitions of normal sexual development. Freud stated that homosexuality could sometimes be removed through hypnotic suggestion, but did not consider this a convincing argument against the theory that it could be biologically innate in some cases. Freud appears to have been undecided whether or how homosexuality was pathological, expressing different views on this issue at different times and places in his work. Freud frequently called homosexuality an "inversion", something which in his view was distinct from the necessarily pathological perversions, and suggested that several distinct kinds might exist, cautioning that his conclusions about it were based on a small and not necessarily representative sample of patients.<ref name="Lewes">{{Harvnb|Lewes|1988}}</ref><ref name="SigmundFreudOnSexuality" /> | |||
In the 1970s, ] psychologist Richard Green recruited ] to adapt the techniques of ] (ABA) therapy to attempt to prevent children from becoming ].<ref name="silberman_2016_319">{{Cite book |last1=Silberman |first1=Steve |title=Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity |date=2016 |publisher=Avery |location=New York City, NY |pages=319–321 |isbn=978-0399185618}}</ref> Deemed the "Feminine Boy Project", the treatments used ] to reward gender-conforming behaviors, and punish gender non-conforming behaviors.<ref name="silberman_2016_319"/> | |||
Freud derived much of his information on homosexuality from psychiatrists and sexologists such as ] and ], and was also influenced by ], a ] endocrinologist who transplanted ] from straight men into gay men in attempts to change their sexual orientation. Freud stated that Steinach's research had “thrown a strong light on the organic determinants of homo-eroticism”“<ref name="SigmundFreudOnSexualityP58">{{Harvnb|Lewes|1988|p=58}}</ref> but cautioned that it was premature to expect that the operations he performed would make possible a therapy that could be generally applied. In his view, such transplant operations would be effective in changing sexual orientation only in cases in which homosexuality was strongly associated with physical characteristics typical of the opposite sex, and probably no similar therapy could be applied to lesbianism.<ref name="SigmundFreudOnSexuality">{{Harvnb|Freud|1991|p=58-59}}</ref><ref name="SigmundFreudCaseHistoriesII" /><ref name="LeVay1996" /> In fact Steinach’s method was doomed to failure because the ] of his patients rejected the transplanted glands, and was eventually exposed as ineffective and often harmful.<ref name="LeVay1996">{{Harvnb|LeVay|1996|p=32}}</ref> | |||
{{Anchor|Living in your own skin model}} | |||
Freud‘s main discussion of female homosexuality was the 1920 paper “The Psychogenesis of a Case of Homosexuality in a Woman“, which described his analysis of a young woman who had entered therapy because her parents were concerned that she was a ]. Her father hoped that psychoanalysis would cure her lesbianism, but in Freud‘s view, the prognosis was unfavourable because of the circumstances under which the woman entered therapy, and because homosexuality was not an illness or neurotic conflict. Freud wrote that changing homosexuality was difficult and therefore possible only under unusually favourable conditions, observing that “in general to undertake to convert a fully developed homosexual into a heterosexual does not offer much more prospect of success than the reverse.”<ref name="SigmundFreudCaseHistoriesIIP376">{{Harvnb|Freud|1991|p=376}}</ref> Success meant making heterosexual feeling possible rather than eliminating homosexual feelings.<ref name="SigmundFreudCaseHistoriesII">{{Harvnb|Freud|1991|p=375}}</ref> | |||
] at the ] adopted Richard Green's methods, but narrowed the scope to attempting to prevent the child from identifying as transgender by modifying gender behavior and presentation to conform to the expectations of the assigned gender at birth, which he dubbed the "living in your own skin" model. His model used the same interventions as Green with the addition of ].{{sfn|Rivera|Pardo|2022|p=58}}<ref name="forcier_2020_177">{{Cite book |last1=Chung |first1=Kathleen |last2=Rhoads |first2=Sarah |last3=Rolin |first3=Alicia |last4=Sackett-Taylor |first4=Andrew C. |last5=Forcier |first5=Michelle |editor-last1=Forcier |editor-first1=Michelle |editor-last2=Van Schalkwyk |editor-first2=Gerrit |editor-last3=Turban |editor-first3=Jack L. |date=2020 |title=Pediatric Gender Identity: Gender-affirming Care for Transgender & Gender Diverse Youth |publisher=Springer |chapter=Treatment Paradigms for Prepubertal Children |page=177 |isbn=978-3030389086}}</ref><ref name="Hart">{{Cite book |title=Banning 'conversion therapy': legal and policy perspectives |date=2023 |publisher=Hart |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-5099-6117-7 |editor-last=Trispiotis |editor-first=Ilias |location=Oxford London New York New Delhi Sydney |pages=134 |editor-last2=Purshouse |editor-first2=Craig}}</ref><ref name="ashley_2022_4">{{Cite book |last1=Ashley |first1=Florence |title=Banning Transgender Conversion Practices: A Legal and Policy Analysis |date=2022 |publisher=University of British Columbia Press |isbn=978-0774866958 |location=Vancouver, BC |pages=4–6}}</ref> | |||
==Motivations== | |||
Gay people could seldom be convinced that sex with someone of the opposite sex would provide them with the same pleasure they derived from sex with someone of the same sex. Patients often had only superficial reasons to want to become heterosexual, pursuing treatment due to social disapproval, which was not a strong enough motive for change. Some patients might have no real desire to become heterosexual, seeking treatment only so that they could convince themselves that they had done everything possible to change, leaving them free to return to homosexuality afterwards. Freud therefore told the parents only that he was prepared to study their daughter to determine what effects therapy might have. Freud concluded that he was probably dealing with a case of biologically innate homosexuality, and eventually broke off the treatment because of what he saw as his patient's hostility to men.<ref name="OconnorandRyan">{{Harvnb|O’Connor|Ryan|1993|p=30-47}}</ref><ref name="SigmundFreudCaseHistoriesII">{{Harvnb|Freud|1991|p=371-400}}</ref><ref name="Lewes" /> | |||
A frequent motivation for adults who pursue conversion therapy is their religious beliefs, especially ] and ], that disapprove of same-sex relations. These adults prioritize maintaining a good relationship with their family and religious community.{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=9}} Adolescents who are pressured by their families into undergoing conversion therapy also typically come from a conservative religious background.{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=9}} Youth from families with low ] are also more likely to undergo conversion therapy.{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=11}} | |||
==Theories and techniques== | |||
In 1935, Freud wrote a mother who had asked him to treat her son a letter that later became famous<ref name="Lewes" />: | |||
As ] have become more tolerant over time, the most harsh conversion therapy methods such as aversion have been reduced. Secular conversion therapy is offered less often due to reduced medical pathologization of homosexuality, and religious practitioners have become more dominant.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Andrade |first1=G. |last2=Campo Redondo |first2=M. |title=Is conversion therapy ethical? A renewed discussion in the context of legal efforts to ban it |journal=Ethics, Medicine and Public Health |date=2022 |volume=20 |pages=100732 |doi=10.1016/j.jemep.2021.100732 }}</ref> | |||
===Aversion therapy=== | |||
{{quote|I gather from your letter that your son is a homosexual. I am most impressed by the fact that you do not mention this term yourself in your information about him. May I question you why you avoid it? Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them. (], ], ], etc). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime –and a cruelty, too. If you do not believe me, read the books of ]. | |||
{{see also|Behavior modification}} | |||
By asking me if I can help , you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The answer is, in a general way we cannot promise to achieve it. In a certain number of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs of heterosexual tendencies, which are present in every homosexual; in the majority of cases it is no more possible. It is a question of the quality and the age of the individual. The result of treatment cannot be predicted. | |||
] used on homosexuals included electric shock and nausea-inducing drugs during presentation of same-sex erotic images. Cessation of the aversive stimuli was typically accompanied by the presentation of opposite-sex erotic images, with the objective of strengthening heterosexual feelings.<ref>{{Harvnb|Haldeman|1991|p=152}}</ref> Another method used was the covert sensitization method, which involves instructing patients to imagine vomiting or receiving electric shocks, writing that only single case studies have been conducted, and that their results cannot be generalized. Haldeman writes that behavioral conditioning studies tend to decrease homosexual feelings, but do not increase heterosexual feelings, citing Rangaswami's "Difficulties in arousing and increasing heterosexual responsiveness in a homosexual: A case report", published in 1982, as typical in this respect.<ref>{{Harvnb|Haldeman|1991|pp=152–153}}</ref> | |||
What analysis can do for your son runs in a different line. If he is unhappy, neurotic, torn by conflicts, inhibited in his social life, analysis may bring him harmony, peace of mind, full efficiency, whether he remains homosexual or gets changed.<ref name="ErnstLFreud">{{Harvnb|Freud|1992|p=423-424}}</ref>}} | |||
Other methods of aversion therapy in addition to electric shock included ice baths, freezing, burning via metal coils, and hard labor. The intent was for the subject to associate homosexual feelings with pain and thus result in them being reduced. These methods have been concluded to be ineffective.<ref>{{Cite web |date=April 11, 2022 |title=Summary of Findings: A Review of Scientific Evidence of Conversion Therapy |url=https://www.health.state.mn.us/people/conversiontherapy.pdf |access-date=November 9, 2023 |website=Minnesota Department of Health}}</ref> | |||
====Isidor Sadger==== | |||
] published “Fragment der Psychoanalyse eines Homosexuellen” in the ''Jahrbuch fuer sexuellen Zwischenstufen'' in 1908. It described his analysis of a melancholy Danish count who was homosexual. The analysis lasted for only thirteen days before being terminated by the patient, whose sexual orientation was not changed. Later in 1908, Sadger published “Ist der Kontraere sexual Empfindung heilbar?”, which assessed the value of psychoanalysis as a treatment for “contrary sexual feeling“, in the ''Zeitschrift fuer Sexualwissenschaft''. He answered the question of whether it could be cured in patients who were moral and determined “''mit einem runden Ja!''“ (“''with a round Yes!''“).<ref name=LewesP51>{{Harvnb|Lewes|1988|p=51}}</ref> Sadger believed that it was not enough to establish a spurious kind of heterosexual functioning or “''masturbatio per vaginam''”, wanting instead to change a patient’s “''Sexualideal''”, the internal image of his sexual object.“<ref name=LewesP68>{{Harvnb|Lewes|1998|p=68}}</ref> | |||
Aversion therapy was developed in ] between 1950 and 1962 and in the British Commonwealth from 1961 into the mid-1970s. In the context of the Cold War, Western psychologists ignored the poor results of their Czechoslovak counterparts, who had concluded that aversion therapy was not effective by 1961 and recommended ] instead.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Davison |first1=Kate |title=Cold War Pavlov: Homosexual aversion therapy in the 1960s |journal=History of the Human Sciences |date=2021 |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=89–119 |doi=10.1177/0952695120911593|s2cid=218922981 }}</ref> Some men in the United Kingdom were offered the choice between prison and undergoing aversion therapy. It was also offered to a few British women, but was never the standard treatment for either homosexual men or women.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Spandler |first1=Helen |last2=Carr |first2=Sarah |title=Lesbian and bisexual women's experiences of aversion therapy in England |journal=History of the Human Sciences |date=2022 |volume=35 |issue=3–4 |pages=218–236 |doi=10.1177/09526951211059422|pmid=36090521 |pmc=9449443 |s2cid=245753251 }}</ref> | |||
Sadger supported his claim that homosexuality could be cured entirely by describing a four month analysis of a patient whose crucial memories “had been wholly unconscious and first had to be unearthed very laboriously through a month-long analysis.“<ref name=LewesP62>{{Harvnb|Lewes|1988|p=62}}</ref> Making striking claims about homosexuality on the basis of brief analyses appears to have been typical for psychoanalysts in the early 20th century. The material Sadger’s patients produced appears to have been influenced by his expectations. Sadger claimed that a homosexual orientation was a displacement of a prior heterosexual nature, offering as proof a patient who was apparently entirely homosexual but who started having heterosexual masturbation fantasies in the tenth day of analysis. Sadger permitted his patients to engage in homosexual activity during treatment because of his belief that "behind it, a heterosexual can again be found."<ref name=LewesP51 /> | |||
In the 1970s, behaviorist ] was one of the main advocates of counterconditioning with malaise-inducing drugs and ] for homosexuals. He wrote that this type of therapy was successful in nearly 50% of cases. However, his studies were disputed.{{sfn|Rolls|2019|p={{page needed|date=June 2023}}}} | |||
Freud stated in a note in his revised 1910 edition of “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” that his conclusions about homosexuality were partly based on information obtained from Sadger.<ref name="SigmundFreudOnSexuality" /> Sadger’s main work, ''Die Lehre von den Geschlechtsverwirrugen . . . auf psychoanalytischer Grundlage'' was published in 1921. Sadger usually argued that homosexuality was due to accidental family events, but for unclear reasons he frequently reported family histories of sexual inversion. Sadger followed Freud’s idea that gay men unconsciously desire to castrate their fathers by rendering their male partners flaccid through ] so that they can ] incorporate their ] and finally obtain access to the mother.<ref name="Lewes" /><ref name="ErnestJonesVol2">{{Harvnb|Jones|1955|p=}}</ref> | |||
Behavior therapists, including Eysenck, used ] methods. This led to a protest against Eysenck by gay activist ] in a London Medical Group Symposium in 1972. Tatchell said that the therapy promoted by Eysenck was a form of ].{{sfn|Rolls|2019|p={{page needed|date=June 2023}}}} | |||
Tatchell denounced Eysenck's form of behavioral therapy as inducing ] and ] among gay men who were subjected to it.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Spandler |first1=Helen |last2=Carr |first2=Sarah |title=Lesbian and bisexual women's experiences of aversion therapy in England |journal=History of the Human Sciences |date=2022 |volume=35 |issue=3–4 |pages=218–236 |doi=10.1177/09526951211059422 |pmid=36090521 |pmc=9449443 }}</ref> | |||
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===Brain surgery=== | ||
] was an influential psychoanalyst. Native to Hungary, he wrote many of his works in ]. | |||
In the 1940s and 1950s, U.S. neurologist ] popularized the ] as a treatment for homosexuality. He personally performed as many as 3,439<ref>{{cite news |last1=Day |first1=Elizabeth |title=He was bad, so they put an ice pick in his brain... |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/jan/13/neuroscience.medicalscience |work=The Observer |date=13 January 2008 |access-date=16 November 2017 |archive-date=20 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020075415/http://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/jan/13/neuroscience.medicalscience |url-status=live }}</ref> lobotomy surgeries in 23 states, of which 2,500 used his ice-pick procedure,<ref>{{cite web|title=Top 10 Fascinating And Notable Lobotomies|url=http://listverse.com/2009/06/24/top-10-fascinating-and-notable-lobotomies/|date=24 June 2009|website=listverse.com|access-date=26 December 2013|archive-date=27 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131227024430/http://listverse.com/2009/06/24/top-10-fascinating-and-notable-lobotomies/|url-status=live}}</ref> despite the fact that he had no formal surgical training.<ref name="rowland">{{cite journal|last=Rowland|first=Lewis|date=April 2005|title=Walter Freeman's Psychosurgery and Biological Psychiatry: A Cautionary Tale|journal=Neurology Today|volume=5|issue=4|pages=70–72|doi=10.1097/00132985-200504000-00020}}</ref> | |||
Ferenczi denied the importance of inherited factors on homosexuality, claiming that it was caused by “excessively powerful heterosexuality (intolerable to the ego)“. Ferenczi tried to distinguish between several different types of homosexuality, basing his distinctions on an unspecified number of patients whose analyses had sometimes lasted for a short period and sometimes “a whole year and even longer.” Ferenczi hoped to cure some kinds of homosexuality completely, but was content in practice with reducing what he considered gay men‘s hostility to women, along with the urgency of their homosexual desires, and with helping them to become attracted to and potent with women. In his view, a gay man who was confused about his sexual identity and felt himself to be “a woman with the wish to be loved by a man” was not a promising candidate for cure. Ferenczi believed that complete cures of homosexuality might become possible in the future when psychoanalytic technique had been improved. Sandor Rado and Melanie Klein were pupils of Ferenczi.<ref name="Lewes" /><ref name="ErnestJonesVol2" /><ref name="MartinStanton">{{Harvnb|Stanton|1991|p=}}</ref> | |||
In West Germany, a type of brain surgery usually involving destruction of the ] was done to some homosexual men during the 1960s and 1970s. The practice was criticized by sexologist ].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rieber |first1=Inge |last2=Sigusch |first2=Volkmar |date=1979 |title=Psychosurgery on sex offenders and sexual "deviants" in West Germany |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01541419 |journal=Archives of Sexual Behavior |language=en |volume=8 |issue=6 |pages=526 |doi=10.1007/BF01541419 |issn=1573-2800 |pmid=391177 |s2cid=41463669 |access-date=20 June 2023 |archive-date=24 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240924070658/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01541419 |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
====Edmund Bergler==== | |||
]’s first contribution to the psychoanalytic theory of homosexuality was “Der Mammakomplex des Mannes“, an article co-authored with L. Eidelberg and published in the ''Internationale Zeitschrift fuer Psychoanalyse'' in 1933. It described a “breast complex“ found in both normal and pathological conditions, among which Eidelberg and Bergler included “a type of homosexuality.” The male child reacts violently to weaning, making unsuccessful attempts to inhibit his frustrated aggression that only heighten it. This causes ambivalent identifications, object choices, and narcissistic compensations. Cathexes are displaced from the breast onto the penis, and the infant substitutes urine for milk, attempting to make active what was once passive. He unsuccessfully tries to transfer hatred of the mother onto the father, but the Oedipus complex does not reach normal intensity because of the unresolved ambivalence of the oral period. The unstable organization achieve at the Oedipal period regresses to an earlier stage involving fixation on the oral mother, whose vagina is conflated with the infant‘s own cannibalistic mouth, transmuting it into the ''vagina dentata''. This oral fixation lead to character traits such as spite and libido charged with aggression.<ref name="Lewes" /> | |||
===Castration and transplantation=== | |||
===France=== | |||
{{see also|Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany}} | |||
], a French neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology, attempted in the 19th century to cure homosexuality through hypnosis. The failure of his attempts convinced him that homosexuality was inherited.<ref name="RonaldBayer" /> J. Vinchon and Sacha Nacht in 1929 published "Considerations sur la cure psychoanalytique d’une nevrose homosexuelle" in ''Revue francaise de psychoanalyse''. This article divided gay people into three categories: those with glandular abnormalities, sexual perverts, and neurotics. Vinchon and Nacht believed that gay people in the second category (who were "comfortably settled in vice") were incurable. Daniel Lagache in 1950 published “Homosexuality and Jealousy” in the ''International Journal of Psychoanalysis''. It described the analysis of a gay man, illustrating the relation of active and passive forms of homosexuality and the defensive maneuvers that mediate between them. The patient shifted from homosexual to heterosexual interests, and experienced a stage of intense jealousy that Lagache regarded as both a sign of progress and a resistance. The heterosexual interest was a new defense against passive homosexuality, while active homosexuality had been his old defense. Passive homosexuality was intolerable to the patient because it was associated with castration, but it was deeply rooted in his psychology because “submission and obedience to the father as their aim the right to take his place.”<ref name="Lewes" /> | |||
] (1908–2006) was spared from a concentration camp after agreeing to castration under pressure in 1938.]] | |||
In the early twentieth century Germany experiments were carried out in which homosexual men were subjected to ] and testicles of heterosexual men were transplanted. These operations were a complete failure.{{sfn|Schmidt|1985|pp=133–134}} | |||
] of homosexual men was widespread in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lehring |first1=Gary |title=Officially Gay: The Political Construction Of Sexuality |date=2010 |publisher=Temple University Press |isbn=978-1-4399-0399-5 |page=63 |language=en}}</ref> SS leader ] ordered homosexual men to be ] because he did not consider a time-limited prison sentence was sufficient to eliminate homosexuality.{{sfn|Zinn|2020b|pp=11–12}} Although theoretically voluntary, some homosexuals were subject to severe pressure and coercion to agree to castration. There was no age limit; some boys as young as 16 were castrated. Those who agreed to castration after a ] conviction were exempted from being transferred to a concentration camp after completing their legal sentence.{{sfn|Wachsmann|2015|p=147}} Some concentration camp prisoners were also subjected to castration.{{sfn|Weindling|2015|p=30}} An estimated 400 to 800 men were castrated.{{sfn|Schwartz|2021|p=383}} | |||
Many gay people chose ] as an analyst because he did not attempt to convert them to heterosexuality.<ref name="Roudinesco">{{Harvnb|Roudinesco|1997|p=224}}</ref> | |||
Endocrinologist ] attempted to change homosexual concentration camp prisoners' sexual orientations by implanting a pellet that released ]. Most of the victims, non-consenting prisoners at ], died shortly thereafter.{{sfn|Whisnant|2016|p=223}}{{sfn|Weindling|2015|pp=183–184}} | |||
===Germany=== | |||
====Albert von Schrenck-Notzing==== | |||
Baron Albert von Schrenck-Notzing was a German physician and ]ist. Historian Jonathan Katz writes that Schrenck-Notzing was the first person to attempt to treat homosexuality with hypnosis. His book ''Therapeutic Suggestion in Psychopathia Sexualis'' appeared in an American edition in English in 1895.<ref name="Katz">{{Harvnb|Katz|1976}}</ref> | |||
An unknown number of men were castrated in ] and ] was used in other Western countries, notably against ] in the United Kingdom.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Huneke |first1=Samuel Clowes |title=States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany |date=2022 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-1-4875-4213-9 |pages=53–54 |language=en}}</ref> | |||
====Magnus Hirschfeld==== | |||
The leader of the gay rights movement in Germany in the early 20th century was the physician ]. In 1896, Hirschfeld moved to Berlin and published ''Sappho and Socrates'', a pamphlet that explained the development of sexual orientation in terms of the bisexual nature of the fetus. Hirschfeld was influenced by the earlier work of ], but mentioned him only briefly. He argued that the brain contained centers governing attraction to men and women. In most male foetuses, the center governing attraction to women developed, while in most female foetuses, the center governing attraction to men developed. When the opposite processes occurred, the outcome was homosexuality. Hirschfeld displayed an ambivalent attitude to homosexuality, believing that it might be caused by biological degeneracy (owing to ] or ]) in some cases. He repeatedly compared homosexuality to deformities such as having a ], regarding the main difference between these conditions as being that the former could not be corrected, while the latter could.<ref name="LeVay1996" /> | |||
===Ex-gay/ex-trans ministries=== | |||
Hirschfeld in 1903 published ''Der Urnische Mensch'', which presented his mature views on homosexuality. Hirschfeld argued that the purpose of therapy should be to permit clients to accept their homosexuality, but accepted that gay men had the right to attempt to change their sexual orientation if they wished and recommended them to practitioners who claimed that they could accomplish this. These practitioners included Isidor Sadger and Eugen Steinach. James D. Steakley states that Hirschfeld directed a gay man to Steinach on only one occasion, while ] states that he did this on numerous occasions. Hirschfeld believed that the failure of attempts to change homosexuality through psychoanalysis proved that it was biologically innate. Hirschfeld founded and edited the ''Jahrbuch fur sexuelle Zwischenstufen'', a sexological journal which was published annually between 1899 and 1923.<ref name="LeVay1996" />.<ref name=Rosario>{{Harvnb|Rosario|1997}}</ref> | |||
] booth at a ] conference]] | |||
{{Main|Ex-gay}} | |||
Ex-gay ministries are religious groups that attempt to use religion to eliminate or change somebody's sexual orientation.<ref name="APA">{{citation |url=http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/just-the-facts.pdf |title=Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation & Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel |access-date=14 May 2010 |year=1999 |publisher=Just the Facts Coalition |archive-date=22 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180422101943/http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/just-the-facts.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="DrescherandZucker">{{Harvnb|Drescher|Zucker|2006|pp=126, 175}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Haldeman|1991|pp=149,156–159}}</ref><ref name="JonesandYarhouse">{{Harvnb|Jones|Yarhouse|2007|p=374}}</ref> The ex-gay umbrella organization ] in the United States ceased activities in June 2013, and the three member board issued a statement which repudiated its aims and apologized for the harm their pursuit has caused to ] people.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Burnett |first=John |date=20 June 2013 |title=Group That Claimed To 'Cure' Gays Disbands, Leader Apologizes |url=https://www.npr.org/2013/06/20/193965227/group-that-claimed-to-cure-gays-disbands-leader-apologizes |website=NPR |access-date=27 January 2024 |archive-date=24 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240924070613/https://www.npr.org/2013/06/20/193965227/group-that-claimed-to-cure-gays-disbands-leader-apologizes |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Change">{{citation |url=http://exodusinternational.org/2013/06/i-am-sorry |first=Alan |last=Chambers |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130623013409/http://exodusinternational.org/2013/06/i-am-sorry |archive-date=23 June 2013 |title=I Am Sorry |access-date=22 June 2013 |publisher=Exodus International}}</ref> Ex-trans organizations often overlap and portray being trans as inherently sinful or against God's design, or pathologize gender variance as due to trauma, social contagion, or "]."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Robinson |first1=Christine M. |last2=Spivey |first2=Sue E. |title=Ungodly Genders: Deconstructing Ex-Gay Movement Discourses of 'Transgenderism' in the US |journal=Social Sciences |date=17 June 2019 |volume=8 |issue=6 |pages=191 |doi=10.3390/socsci8060191 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Jones |first1=Tiffany |last2=Jones |first2=Timothy W. |last3=Power |first3=Jennifer |last4=Pallotta-Chiarolli |first4=Maria |last5=Despott |first5=Nathan |title=Mis-education of Australian Youth: exposure to LGBTQA+ conversion ideology and practises |journal=Sex Education |date=3 September 2022 |volume=22 |issue=5 |pages=595–610 |doi=10.1080/14681811.2021.1978964 |s2cid=241018465 |doi-access=free |hdl=10536/DRO/DU:30156953 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> | |||
====Felix Boehm==== | |||
German psychoanalysts who wrote about homosexuality included Felix Boehm. He accepted Freud’s earlier theory of homosexuality involving boys’ identification with their mothers and consequent narcissistic object choice. His major work was a four-part series on homosexuality published in the ''Internationale Zeitschrift fuer Psychoanalyse'' between 1920 and 1933. It attempted to present and illustrate the most up to date psychoanalytic thinking on homosexuality. In Boehm’s view, curing homosexuality meant making enjoyable heterosexual functioning possible rather than eliminating homosexual behavior. Boehm claimed to have cured gay people in the fourth part of his series on homosexuality, but presented as proof a case in which “the homosexuality never became conscious for the patient and had never expressed itself in manifest activity.” This patient does not appear to have been homosexual. Boehm claimed that manifest homosexuals regularly abandoned treatment out of hatred for their analysts just at the point when they were close to achieving heterosexual functioning. Boehm criticised Sadger’s ''Die Lehre von den Geschlechtsverwirrugen ... auf psychoanalytischer Grundlage'' for its brief analyses, many of which lasted only weeks or months.<ref name="Lewes" /> | |||
=== |
=== Hypnosis === | ||
Hypnosis was used in conversion therapy since the 19th century by ] and ]. In 1967, Canadian psychiatrist Peter Roper published a case study of treating 15 homosexual (some of which would probably be considered bisexual by modern standards) people with hypnosis. Allegedly, 8 showed "marked improvement" (they reportedly lost sexual attraction towards the same sex altogether), 4 mild improvements (decrease of "homosexual tendencies"), and 3 no improvement after hypnotic treatment; he concluded that "hypnosis may well produce more satisfactory results than those obtainable by other means", depending on the ] of the subjects.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Roper |first1=P. |title=The effects of hypnotherapy on homosexuality |journal=Canadian Medical Association Journal |date=11 February 1967 |volume=96 |issue=6 |pages=319–327 |pmid=6017544 |pmc=1935956 }}</ref>{{better source needed|date=February 2023}} | |||
In the 1930s, the rise to power of Nazism in Germany destroyed the ]. Hirschfeld was unable to return to Germany from a world tour because of growing political disorder in 1931 and 1932. He was obliged to move to France, where he made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a new sexological institute. Approximately fifty thousand people were convicted of homosexuality during Nazi rule, and roughly five thousand were sent to concentration camps, where most of them died. In 1944, the Danish endocrinologist ] carried out medical experiments on gay men at ]. He implanted “artifical sex glands“ designed to release testosterone into at least ten gay men to attempt to change their sexual orientation. The experiments caused at least one man to die, but Vaernet claimed that some of them had been successful. These apparent changes in sexual orientation were probably the result of prisoners lying in attempts to be discharged from the camp. In 1945, Vaernet was arrested, but he managed to escape to ].<ref name="LeVay1996" /> | |||
=== |
===Psychoanalysis=== | ||
{{Main|Psychoanalysis}} | |||
During the 1960s and 1970s, the endocrinologist Gunter Dorner, who was influenced by Eugen Steinach through his teacher Walter Hohlweg, performed experiments on rats designed to alter their sexual behavior. He reported that the destruction of the ventromedial nucleus in apparently homosexual rats caused them to become heterosexual. Dorner suggested that homosexuality in humans was caused by hormonal factors and should be cured or prevented. In 1962, Fritz Roeder, a neurosurgeon at the University of Gottingen, destroyed the ventromedial nucleus of of a 52 year old man who was in prison for having sex with numerous boys between the ages of 12 and 14. He volunteered for the operation as an alternative to castration. It reduced his homosexual feelings but did not cause him to develop heterosexual feelings. Nearly forty other men were later subjected to the same operation. The men the operations were performed on were all in prison or hospitals for the criminally insane. Some of them were heterosexual rapists, while others were labelled homosexual pedophiles, although most of their offences were committed with post-pubertal youths. The operations usually caused reduction in sexual desire, with obesity as a common side-effect. Some of the operations were performed by Roeder and others by a different group of German scientists lead by Gert Dieckmann and R. Hassler. The Dieckmann and Hassler group acknowledged that Dorner’s work had provided scientific background for their surgery. Roeder claimed in 1970 that he had changed the sexual orientation of his patients from pedophilic to heterosexual.<ref name="LeVay1996" /> | |||
Haldeman writes that psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality is exemplified by the work of Irving Bieber ''et al.'' in ''Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals''. They advocated long-term therapy aimed at resolving the unconscious childhood conflicts that they considered responsible for homosexuality. Haldeman notes that Bieber's methodology has been criticized because it relied upon a clinical sample, the description of the outcomes was based upon subjective therapist impression, and follow-up data were poorly presented. Bieber reported a 27% success rate from long-term therapy, but only 18% of the patients in whom Bieber considered the treatment successful had been exclusively homosexual to begin with, while 50% had been bisexual. In Haldeman's view, this makes even Bieber's unimpressive claims of success misleading.<ref>{{Harvnb|Haldeman|1991|pp=150–151}}</ref> | |||
Dorner suggested in his 1976 book ''Hormones and Brain Differentiation'' that homosexuality might be cured through brain surgery. He criticised the use of castration and steroids to change human sexual orientation, stating that they could only alter the strength of sexual attraction, not its direction.<ref name="Dorner">{{Harvnb|Dorner|1976|p=}}</ref> | |||
Haldeman discusses other psychoanalytic studies of attempts to change homosexuality. Curran and Parr's "Homosexuality: An analysis of 100 male cases", published in 1957, reported no significant increase in heterosexual behavior. Mayerson and Lief's "Psychotherapy of homosexuals: A follow-up study of nineteen cases", published in 1965, reported that half of its 19 subjects were exclusively heterosexual in behavior four and a half years after treatment, but its outcomes were based on patient self-report and had no external validation. In Haldeman's view, those participants in the study who reported change were bisexual at the outset, and its authors wrongly interpreted capacity for heterosexual sex as change of sexual orientation.<ref>{{Harvnb|Haldeman|1991|pp=151, 256}}</ref> | |||
The German Society for Sex Research criticised Dorner‘s research on scientific and moral grounds in 1982.<ref name="LeVay1996" /> | |||
=== |
===Reparative therapy=== | ||
Following the increased visibility of the gay community during the ] of the late 1980s and the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder in the ICD-10, non-pathological models of homosexuality became mainstream.<ref>{{Harvnb|Stakelbeck|Udo|2003|pp=23–46}}</ref> Nevertheless, Robert L. Spitzer‘s study of sexual orientation change, conducted in 2001, quickly attracted attention in Germany. German opponents of civil unions used the study to support their view that the relationships of gay men and lesbians should not be legally recognized. The ''Suddeutsche Zeitung'' on May 15, 2001 published an interview with Hartmut Bosinski, the Head of the Department of Sexual Medicine at the University of Kiel and a supporter of civil unions. Bosinski criticised the Spitzer study. Civil unions were passed into law on July 17, 2002 despite the controversy.<ref name="DrescherandZucker" /> In 2008, ], the parliament of Germany, ruled that homosexuality does not require therapy and cannot be changed through therapy. It also stated that conversion therapy has harmed gay people and is dangerous.<ref>{{citation |url=http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/16/080/1608022.pdf |title=German Bundestag: Antihomosexuelle Seminare und pseudowissenschaftliche Therapieangebote religiöser Fundamentalisten (German)}}</ref> | |||
The term "reparative therapy" has been used as a synonym for conversion therapy generally, but according to ] it properly refers to a specific kind of therapy{{clarify|date=July 2022}} associated with the psychologists ] and ].<ref name="Drescher1998">{{Harvnb|Drescher|2000|p=152}}</ref> | |||
===United Kingdom=== | |||
For example, he wrote: | |||
:. . . the pursuit of fulfillment through same-sex eroticism is spurred by the fearful anticipation that their masculine self-assertion will inevitably fail and result in humiliation.<ref>{{cite web |last=Nicolosi |first=Joseph |title=The Traumatic Foundation of Male Homosexuality| | |||
url=https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/traumatic-foundation-male-homosexuality}}</ref> | |||
The term ''reparative'' refers to Nicolosi's postulate that same-sex attraction is a person's unconscious attempt to "self-repair" feelings of inferiority.<ref name="Hicks_1999">{{cite journal |last1=Hicks |first1=Karolyn A. |title='Reparative' Therapy: Whether Parental Attempts to Change a Child's Sexual Orientation Can Legally Constitute Child Abuse |journal=American University Law Review |volume=49 |issue=2 |date=December 1999 |pages=505–547 |url=https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr/vol49/iss2/4/ |access-date=10 June 2023 |archive-date=24 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240924070611/https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/aulr/vol49/iss2/4/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Bright">{{Harvnb|Bright|2004|pp=471–481}}</ref> | |||
====19th century==== | |||
The ''Journal of Mental Science'' in 1896 published an article by sexologist Havelock Ellis and Dr E. S. Talbot about the attempted treatment of homosexuality in an American patient named Guy Olmstead through castration. Following the operation, which did not change his sexual orientation, Olmstead attempted to murder a man he had had a relationship with and was sent to an insane asylum. Ellis and Talbot suggested that the moral of the case was that, “The removal of the testicles, the apparently depressing effect of the operation, and the speedy occurrence of the crime after it, should suggest caution to the surgical psychiatrists who advocate the castration of inverts and sexual perverts generally“.<ref name="Katz" /> | |||
After California banned conversion practices, Nicolosi argued that "reparative therapy" didn't attempt to directly change sexual orientation but instead encourage exploration into its underlying causes, which he believed was often childhood trauma.<ref name="ashley_202209" /> | |||
====Melanie Klein==== | |||
The Austrian-born psychoanalyst ] moved to London in 1926. Her seminal book ''The Psycho-Analysis of Children'', based on lectures given to the British Psychoanalytic Society in the 1920s, was published in 1932. Klein claimed that entry into the Oedipus Complex is based on mastery of primitive anxiety from the oral and anal stages. If these tasks are not performed properly, developments in the Oedipal stage will be unstable. Complete analysis of patients with such unstable developments would require uncovering these early concerns. The analysis of homosexuality required dealing with paranoid trends based on the oral stage. ''The Psycho-Analysis of Children'' ends with the analysis of Mr. B., a gay man. Klein claimed that he illustrated pathologies that enter into all forms of homosexuality: a gay man idealizes “the good penis” of his partner to ally the fear of attack he feels due to having projected his paranoid hatred onto the imagined “bad penis“ of his mother as an infant. She stated that Mr. B.’s homosexual behaviour diminished after he overcame his need to adore the “good penis” of an idealized man. This was made possible by his recovering his belief in the good mother and his ability to sexually gratify her with his good penis and plentiful ].<ref name="Lewes" /> | |||
=== |
===Marriage therapy=== | ||
{{See also|Relationship counseling}} | |||
Daughter of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud became an influential psychoanalytic theorist in the UK after she left Austria in 1938 to escape the Nazis.<ref name="Young-Bruehl" /> | |||
Previous editions of the ]'s ICD included "]", in which a person's sexual orientation or gender identity makes it difficult to form or maintain a relationship with a sexual partner. The belief that their sexual orientation has caused problems in their relationship may lead some people to turn to a marriage therapist for help to change their sexual orientation.<ref name="Rosik-2003">{{cite journal |last=Rosik |first=Christopher H |title=Motivational, ethical, and epistemological foundations in the treatment of unwanted homoerotic attraction |journal=Journal of Marital and Family Therapy |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=13–28 |date=January 2003 |pmid=12616795 |doi=10.1111/j.1752-0606.2003.tb00379.x |oclc=5154888155 }}</ref> Sexual orientation disorder was removed from the most recent ICD, ], after the Working Group on Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health determined that its inclusion was unjustified.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Reed |first1=Geoffrey M. |last2=Drescher |first2=Jack |last3=Krueger |first3=Richard B. |last4=Atalla |first4=Elham |last5=Cochran |first5=Susan D. |last6=First |first6=Michael B. |last7=Cohen-Kettenis |first7=Peggy T. |last8=Arango-de Montis |first8=Iván |last9=Parish |first9=Sharon J. |last10=Cottler |first10=Sara |last11=Briken |first11=Peer |date=2016 |title=Disorders related to sexuality and gender identity in the ICD-11: revising the ICD-10 classification based on current scientific evidence, best clinical practices, and human rights considerations |journal=World Psychiatry |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=205–221 |doi=10.1002/wps.20354 |pmc=5032510 |pmid=27717275 }}</ref> | |||
=== Gender exploratory therapy === | |||
] reported the successful treatment of homosexuals as neurotics in a series of unpublished lectures. In 1949 she published “Some Clinical Remarks Concerning the Treatment of Cases of Male Homosexuality” in the ''International Journal of Psychoanalysis.'' In her view, it was important to pay attention to the interaction of passive and active homosexual fantasies and strivings, the original interplay of which prevented adequate identification with the father. The patient should be told that his choice of a passive partner allows him to enjoy a passive or receptive mode, while his choice of an active partner allows him to recapture his lost masculinity. She claimed that these interpretations would reactive repressed castration anxieties, and childhood narcissistic grandiosity and its complementary fear of dissolving into nothing during heterosexual intercourse would come with the renewal of heterosexual potency.<ref name="Lewes" /> | |||
Gender exploratory therapy (GET) is a form of conversion therapy<ref name="WPATH-NHS">{{Cite web |date=November 25, 2022 |title=WPATH, ASIAPATH, EPATH, PATHA, and USPATH Response to NHS England in the United Kingdom (UK) |url=https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/Public%20Policies/2022/25.11.22%20AUSPATH%20Statement%20reworked%20for%20WPATH%20Final%20ASIAPATH.EPATH.PATHA.USPATH.pdf?_t=1669428978 |website=] |access-date=2 January 2024 |archive-date=30 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221130183416/https://www.wpath.org/media/cms/Documents/Public%20Policies/2022/25.11.22%20AUSPATH%20Statement%20reworked%20for%20WPATH%20Final%20ASIAPATH.EPATH.PATHA.USPATH.pdf?_t=1669428978 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Bharat">{{Cite journal |last1=Bharat |first1=Bharat |last2=Dopp |first2=Alex |last3=Last |first3=Briana |last4=Howell |first4=Gary |last5=Nadeem |first5=Erum |last6=Johnson |first6=Clara |last7=Stirman |first7=Shannon Wiltsey |title=OSF |url=https://osf.io/gz5mk/ |journal=The Behavior Therapist |publisher=Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies |publication-date=October 2023 |volume=46 |issue=7 |doi=10.31234/osf.io/gz5mk |access-date=1 January 2024 |archive-date=24 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240924070611/https://osf.io/gz5mk/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Lawson">{{Cite journal |last1=Lawson |first1=Zazie |last2=Davies |first2=Skye |last3=Harmon |first3=Shae |last4=Williams |first4=Matthew |last5=Billawa |first5=Shradha |last6=Holmes |first6=Ryan |last7=Huckridge |first7=Jaymie |last8=Kelly |first8=Phillip |last9=MacIntyre-Harrison |first9=Jess |last10=Neill |first10=Stewart |last11=Song-Chase |first11=Angela |last12=Ward |first12=Hannah |last13=Yates |first13=Michael |date=October 2023 |title=A human rights based approach to transgender and gender expansive health |url=https://explore.bps.org.uk/lookup/doi/10.53841/bpscpf.2023.1.369.91 |journal=Clinical Psychology Forum |language=en |volume=1 |issue=369 |pages=91–106 |doi=10.53841/bpscpf.2023.1.369.91 |issn=1747-5732 |s2cid=265086908 |access-date=1 January 2024 |archive-date=24 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240924070719/https://explore.bps.org.uk/content/bpscpf/1/369/91 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Amery">{{Cite journal |last=Amery |first=Fran |date=2023-12-11 |title=Protecting Children in 'Gender Critical' Rhetoric and Strategy: Regulating Childhood for Cisgender Outcomes |url=https://www.digest.ugent.be/article/id/85309/ |journal=DiGeSt - Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies |volume=10 |issue=2 |doi=10.21825/digest.85309 |issn=2593-0281 |doi-access=free |access-date=1 January 2024 |archive-date=24 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240924070616/https://www.digest.ugent.be/article/id/85309/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Caraballo">{{Cite journal |last=Caraballo |first=Alejandra |date=December 2022 |title=The Anti-Transgender Medical Expert Industry |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-law-medicine-and-ethics/article/antitransgender-medical-expert-industry/25EFFECB8F71CA9A37F9F089E13BC41E |journal=Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics |language=en |volume=50 |issue=4 |pages=687–692 |doi=10.1017/jme.2023.9 |issn=1073-1105 |pmid=36883410 |access-date=1 January 2024 |archive-date=1 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240301135428/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-law-medicine-and-ethics/article/antitransgender-medical-expert-industry/25EFFECB8F71CA9A37F9F089E13BC41E |url-status=live }}</ref> characterized by requiring mandatory extended talk therapy attempting to find pathological roots for gender dysphoria while simultaneously delaying social and medical transition and viewing it as a last resort.<ref name="WPATH-NHS" /><ref name="Lawson" /><ref name="Amery" /><ref name="ashley_202209">{{Cite journal |last=Ashley |first=Florence |date=6 September 2022 |title=Interrogating Gender-Exploratory Therapy |journal=Perspectives on Psychological Science |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=472–481 |doi=10.1177/17456916221102325 |pmc=10018052 |pmid=36068009 |s2cid=252108965}}</ref><ref name="MacKinnon">{{Cite journal |last1=MacKinnon |first1=Kinnon R. |last2=Gould |first2=Wren Ariel |last3=Enxuga |first3=Gabriel |last4=Kia |first4=Hannah |last5=Abramovich |first5=Alex |last6=Lam |first6=June S. H. |last7=Ross |first7=Lori E. |date=2023-11-29 |title=Exploring the gender care experiences and perspectives of individuals who discontinued their transition or detransitioned in Canada |journal=PLOS ONE |language=en |volume=18 |issue=11 |pages=e0293868 |bibcode=2023PLoSO..1893868M |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0293868 |issn=1932-6203 |pmc=10686467 |pmid=38019738 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Practitioners of GET often view medical transition as a last resort and propose their patient's dysphoria is caused by factors such as homophobia, social contagion, sexual trauma, and autism.<ref name="Lawson" /><ref name="Caraballo" /> Some practitioners of GET avoid using their patients' chosen names and pronouns while questioning their identification.<ref name="MacKinnon" /> Commenting on gender exploratory therapy in 2022, bioethicist ] argued that its framing as an undirected exploration of underlying psychological issues bore similarities to gay conversion practices such as "]" therapy.<ref name="ashley_202209" /> States that have banned gender-affirming care for minors in the United States have called expert witnesses to argue that exploratory therapy should be the alternative treatment.<ref name="Pauly">{{Cite news |last=Pauly |first=Madison |last2=Carnell |first2=Henry |date=July 2024 |title=First they tried to "cure" gayness. Now they're fixated on "healing" trans people. |url=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/05/conversion-therapy-lgbtq-anti-trans-gay-gender-affirming-care/ |access-date=2024-06-05 |work=Mother Jones |language=en-US}}</ref> | |||
There are no known empirical studies examining psychosocial or medical outcomes following GET.<ref name="MacKinnon" /><ref name="Leising">{{Cite journal |last=Leising |first=Julie |date=September 2022 |title=Gender-affirming care for youth—separating evidence from controversy |url=https://bcmj.org/sites/default/files/BCMJ_Vol64_No7-premise-corrected%20%28ID%202375120%29.pdf |journal=Bc Medic al Journal |volume=64 |issue=7}}</ref> Concerns have been raised that by not providing an estimated length of time for the therapy, the delays in medical interventions may compound mental suffering in trans youth,<ref name="Lawson" /><ref name="MacKinnon" /> while ] already promotes gender identity exploration without favoring any particular identity, and individualized care.<ref name="MacKinnon" /> GET proponents deny this.<ref name="Santoro">{{Cite news |last=Santoro |first=Helen |date=2023-05-02 |title=How Therapists Are Trying to Convince Children That They're Not Actually Trans |url=https://slate.com/technology/2023/05/gender-exploratory-therapy-trans-kids-what-is-it.html |access-date=2024-01-01 |work=Slate |language=en-US |issn=1091-2339 |archive-date=21 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240121062936/https://slate.com/technology/2023/05/gender-exploratory-therapy-trans-kids-what-is-it.html |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
Anna Freud in 1951 published “Clinical Observations on the Treatment of Male Homosexuality” in ''Psychoanalytic Quarterly'' and “Homosexuality” in the ''American Psychoanalytic Association Bulletin.'' These articles insisted on the attainment of full object-love of the opposite sex as a requirement for cure of homosexuality. In 1951 she gave a lecture about treatment of homosexuality which was criticised by Edmund Bergler, who emphasised the oral fears of patients and minimized the importance of the phallic castration fears she had discussed.<ref name="Lewes" /> | |||
In 2017, ] published a legal strategy which called for circumventing bans on conversion therapy by labelling the practice "gender identity exploration or development".<ref name="Eckert">{{Cite news |last=Eckert |first=A. J. |date=2022-10-22 |title=Cutting through the Lies and Misinterpretations about the Updated Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People |url=https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/cutting-through-the-lies-and-misinterpretations-about-the-updated-standards-of-care-for-the-health-of-transgender-and-gender-diverse-people/ |access-date=2024-12-22 |language=en-US |publisher=Science-Based Medicine}}</ref><ref name="Green-2017">{{Cite journal |last=Green |first=Richard |year=2017 |title=Banning Therapy to Change Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity in Patients Under 18 |url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28270456 |journal=The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=7–11 |issn=1943-3662 |pmid=28270456}}</ref> Multiple groups now exist worldwide to promote GET and have been successful in influencing legal discussions and clinical guidance in some regions.<ref name="Amery" /> The ] (GETA) asserts that "psychological approaches should be the first-line treatment for all cases of gender dysphoria", that medical interventions for transgender youth are "experimental and should be avoided if possible", and that ] is "risky".<ref name="Santoro" /> All of GETA's leaders are members of ], a "]" group that promotes GET and argues that gender-affirming care should not be available to those under 25.<ref name="Santoro" /> In late 2023, GETA changed their name to "Therapy First".<ref name="Pauly" /> | |||
Anna Freud recommended in 1956 to a journalist who was preparing an article about psychoanalysis for the London ''Observer'' that she not quote Freud‘s letter to the American mother, on the grounds that “…nowadays we can cure many more homosexuals than was thought possible in the beginning. The other reason is that readers may take this as a confirmation that all analysis can do is to convice patients that their defects or ‘immoralities‘ do not matter and that they should be happy with them. That would be unfortunate.”<ref name="Young-Bruehl">{{Harvnb|Young-Bruehl|1988|p=327}}</ref> | |||
GETA also shares a large overlap with the ] (SEGM), which promotes GET as first-line treatment for those under 25.<ref name="splc-defining-pseudoscience">{{Cite web |title=Group dynamics and division of labor within the anti-LGBTQ+ pseudoscience network |url=https://www.splcenter.org/captain/defining-pseudoscience-network |access-date=2024-01-01 |website=Southern Poverty Law Center |language=en}}</ref> GETA co-founder Lisa Marchiano stated U.S. President Joe Biden's executive order safeguarding trans youth from conversion therapy would have a "chilling effect" on GET practices.<ref name="Santoro" /><ref name="Reed">{{Cite news |last=Reed |first=Erin |date=2023-01-13 |title=Unpacking 'gender exploratory therapy,' a new form of conversion therapy |url=https://xtramagazine.com/health/gender-exploratory-therapy-243833 |access-date=2024-01-01 |work=Xtra Magazine |language=en-CA}}</ref> GETA also opposed Biden's Title IX changes protecting trans students from discrimination, stating allowing trans youth in restrooms would harm the mental health of their peers.<ref name="Reed" /> The ], a small group aligned with the Christian Right,<ref group="Note">not to be confused with the ]</ref> has cited numerous studies from SEGM to claim GET is necessary to restore transgender people's "biological integrity".<ref name="splc-defining-pseudoscience" /> In November 2023, Michelle Cretella, a board member of the pro conversion therapy group ] (ATCSI, formerly NARTH), gave a speech at an ATCSI conference which endorsed GET and argued it "truly is very similar to how the Alliance has always approached unwanted same-sex attraction".<ref name="Pauly" /> | |||
====Alan Turing==== | |||
The British government in 1952 subjected ] to hormonal treatment after he was arrested on a charge of gross indecency. The treatments took the form of oestrogen injections, which were effectively chemical castration. Turing became overweight and developed breasts as a side-effect of the treatment, then became depressed and eventually killed himself.<ref name="DavidLeavitt">{{Harvnb|Leavitt|2006|p=268}}</ref> | |||
==Effects== | |||
====Hans Eysenck==== | |||
{{expand section|date=June 2022}} | |||
] was born in Berlin, Germany, but moved to England as a young man in the 1930s because of his opposition to the Nazi party. | |||
There is a scientific consensus that conversion therapy is ineffective at changing a person's sexual orientation.<ref name=":0"/> Advocates of conversion therapy rely heavily on testimonials and retrospective self-reports as evidence of effectiveness. Studies purporting to validate the effectiveness of efforts to change sexual orientation or gender identity have been criticized for methodological flaws.{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=7}} After conversion therapy has failed to change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity, participants often feel increased shame that they already felt over their sexual orientation or gender identity.{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=9}} | |||
Conversion therapy can cause significant, long-term psychological harm.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |last1=Higbee |first1=Madison |last2=Wright |first2=Eric R. |last3=Roemerman |first3=Ryan M. |title=Conversion Therapy in the Southern United States: Prevalence and Experiences of the Survivors |journal=Journal of Homosexuality |date=2022 |volume=69 |issue=4 |pages=612–631 |doi=10.1080/00918369.2020.1840213|pmid=33206024 |s2cid=227039714 }}</ref> This includes significantly higher rates of ], ], and other mental health issues in individuals who have undergone conversion therapy than their peers who did not,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Christensen |first=Jen |date=2022-03-08 |title=Conversion therapy is harmful to LGBTQ people and costs society as a whole, study says |url=https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/07/health/conversion-therapy-personal-and-financial-harm/index.html |access-date=2022-11-05 |website=CNN |language=en |archive-date=1 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221201070406/https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/07/health/conversion-therapy-personal-and-financial-harm/index.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":1" /> including a suicide attempt rate nearly twice that of those who did not.<ref>{{Cite web |last=thisisloyal.com |first=Loyal {{!}} |title=LGB people who have undergone conversion therapy almost twice as likely to attempt suicide |url=https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/lgb-suicide-ct-press-release/ |access-date=2022-11-05 |website=Williams Institute |language=en-US}}</ref> Modern-day practitioners of conversion therapy—primarily from a conservative religious viewpoint—disagree with current ] and clinical guidance that does not view ] and ] as unnatural or unhealthy.<ref name=":0" />{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=5}} | |||
He was notable as being one of the three most influential psychiatrists of the 20th Century and helped develop behavioural therapy. He advocated using ] to treat homosexuals, as well as aversion therapy, and claimed half were cured. On November 2nd 1972 ] of the UK ] invaded a closed meeting where Eysenck was speaking,<ref name="Tatchind">{{citation |Peter Tatchell: Out and about |last=Vallely |first=Paul |newspaper=Independent |date=28 Jan 2006}}</ref> Tatchell disputed that 50% of those treated were cured, questioned whether what happened was cure, and asked about the other 50%.<ref name="Gaynews">{{citation |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |publisher=Gay News |issue=11 |year=1972 |url=http://www.petertatchell.net/psychiatry/dentist.htm}}</ref> Eysenk conceded that the success rate was not high, but "dismissed concerns about the pain and danger involved as a fuss over nothing. 'Aversion therapy is', he said, 'just like a visit to the dentist'".<ref name="Eysobit">{{citation |OBITUARY - Professor Hans Eysenck |last=Tatchell |first=Peter |newspaper=Guardian |date=13 Sept 1997}}</ref> | |||
In 2020, ] published a world survey and report '']'' listing consequences and life-threatening effects by associating specific public testimonies with different types of methods used to practice conversion therapies.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ilga.org/resources/conversion-therapy-global-research-ilga-world-curbing-deception-february-2020/|title=Curbing deception – A world survey of legal restrictions of so-called 'conversion therapies'|first=Lucas Ramón |last=Mendos|website=ILGA World}}</ref> | |||
====Recent developments==== | |||
Peel, Clarke and Drescher wrote in 2007 that only one organisation in the UK could be identified with conversion therapy, a religious organisation called The Freedom Trust (part of the US-based Exodus International): "whereas a number of organisations in the US (both religious and scientific/psychological) promote conversion therapy, there is only one in the UK of which we are aware". The paper reported that practitioners who did provide these sorts of treatments between the 1950s and 1970's now view homosexuality as healthy, and the evidence suggests that 'conversion therapy' is a historical rather than a contemporary phenomenon in the UK, where treatment for homosexuality has always been less common than in the USA.<ref name="Exuk">{{Harvnb|Peel|2007|pp=18-19}}</ref> | |||
A 2022 study estimated that conversion therapy of youth in the United States cost $650.16 million annually with an additional $9.5 billion in associated costs such as increased suicide and substance abuse.<ref name=":1">{{cite journal |last1=Forsythe |first1=Anna |last2=Pick |first2=Casey |last3=Tremblay |first3=Gabriel |last4=Malaviya |first4=Shreena |last5=Green |first5=Amy |last6=Sandman |first6=Karen |title=Humanistic and Economic Burden of Conversion Therapy Among LGBTQ Youths in the United States |journal=JAMA Pediatrics |date=2022 |volume=176 |issue=5 |pages=493–501 |doi=10.1001/jamapediatrics.2022.0042|pmid=35254391 |pmc=8902682 |s2cid=247252995 }}</ref> Youth who undergo conversion therapy from a religious provider have more negative mental health outcomes than those who had consulted a licensed healthcare provider.{{sfn|Haldeman|2022|p=9}} | |||
In 2007, the ], the main professional organization of psychiatrists in the United Kingdom, issued a report stating that: "Evidence shows that LGB people are open to seeking help for mental health problems. However, they may be misunderstood by therapists who regard their homosexuality as the root cause of any presenting problem such as depression or anxiety. Unfortunately, therapists who behave in this way are likely to cause considerable distress. A small minority of therapists will even go so far as to attempt to change their client's sexual orientation. This can be deeply damaging. Although there is now a number of therapists and organisation in the USA and in the UK that claim that therapy can help homosexuals to become heterosexual, there is no evidence that such change is possible."<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/uploads/rcp.html |title=''Thinking Anglicans'' |date=13 September 2008}}</ref> | |||
==Public opinion== | |||
In 2009, a research survey into mental health practitioners in the UK concluded "A significant minority of mental health professionals are attempting to help lesbian, gay and bisexual clients to become heterosexual. Given lack of evidence for the efficacy of such treatments, this is likely to be unwise or even harmful."<ref name="BMC">{{Harvnb|Bartlett|Smith|King|2009}}</ref> Scientific American reported on this: "One in 25 British psychiatrists and psychologists say they would be willing to help homosexual and bisexual patients try to convert to heterosexuality, even though there is no compelling scientific evidence a person can willfully become straight", and explained that 17% of those surveyed said they had tried to help reduce or suppress homosexual feelings, and 4% said they would try to help homosexual people convert to heterosexuality in the future.<ref name="Ballantyne">{{Harvnb|Ballantyne|2009}}</ref> | |||
A 2020 survey carried out on US adults found majority support for banning conversion therapy for minors.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Flores |first1=Andrew R. |last2=Mallory |first2=Christy |last3=Conron |first3=Kerith J. |title=Public attitudes about emergent issues in LGBTQ rights: Conversion therapy and religious refusals |journal=Research & Politics |date=2020 |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=205316802096687 |doi=10.1177/2053168020966874|s2cid=229001894 |doi-access=free }}</ref> | |||
A 2022 ] poll found majority support in England, Scotland, and Wales for a conversion therapy ban for both sexual orientation and gender identity, with opposition ranging from 13 to 15 percent.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kirk |first=Isabelle |date=3 May 2022 |title=The majority of Welsh people support a ban on trans conversion therapy in Wales |url=https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/05/03/majority-welsh-people-support-ban-trans-conversion |access-date=30 June 2022 |website=] |language=en-gb |archive-date=30 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220630035322/https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/05/03/majority-welsh-people-support-ban-trans-conversion |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
===United States=== | |||
] | |||
== |
==Legal status== | ||
{{main|Legality of conversion therapy}} | |||
Methods used to treat homosexuality in the 19th century included "anaphrodisiac measures", surgical removal of the ovaries, castration, and hypnosis. Descriptions of such treatments were published in medical journals. In 1884 Dr. James G. Kiernan surveyed early writings on homosexuality, from America, Germany, and other countries. He described his treatment of a lesbian patient, stating that removing her homosexuality was out of the question, but that he had been able to help her keep it under control. F. E. Daniel proposed castration of gay men in 1893, while Dr. Henry Hulst proposed hypnosis as an alternative method, becoming the first American known to have supported this form of conversion therapy. Dr. John C. Quackenbos in 1899 reported on the use of hypnosis as a treatment for sexual perversion to the New Hampshire Medical Society. He stated that its success depended on the patient's desire to be cured. Quackenbos received publicity when the ''New York Times'' reported on his work.<ref name="Katz" /> | |||
[[File:Countries banning conversion therapy.svg|thumb|upright=1.3|Map of jurisdictions that have bans on sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts with minors. | |||
{{legend|Navy|Criminal prohibition against conversion therapy on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity}} | |||
{{legend|#0000ff|Only medical professionals are banned from performing conversion therapy}} | |||
{{legend|LightGrey|No ban on conversion therapy}}]] | |||
Some jurisdictions have criminal bans on the practice of conversion therapy, including Canada, Ecuador, France,<ref>{{Cite web |date=3 February 2022 |title=France Passed Law To Protect LGBTQ People From 'Conversion Therapy' |url=https://lqioo.com/europe-news/france-passed-law-to-protect-lgbtq-people-from-conversion-therapy |access-date=2023-02-24 |website=LQIOO |language=en-US}}</ref> Germany, Malta, Mexico and Spain.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Legislative Services Branch |date=2022-01-10 |title=Consolidated federal laws of canada, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy) |url=https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/annualstatutes/2021_24/page-1.html |access-date=2022-07-06 |website=laws.justice.gc.ca |archive-date=11 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230211034855/https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/annualstatutes/2021_24/page-1.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In other countries, including Albania, Brazil, Chile, Vietnam and Taiwan, medical professionals are barred from practicing conversion therapy.<ref name=Trispiotis/> | |||
In some states, lawsuits against conversion therapy providers for ] have succeeded, but in other jurisdictions those claiming fraud must prove that the perpetrator was intentionally dishonest. Thus, a provider who genuinely believes conversion therapy is effective could not be convicted.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Purshouse |first1=Craig |last2=Trispiotis |first2=Ilias |title=Is 'conversion therapy' tortious? |journal=Legal Studies |date=2022 |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=23–41 |doi=10.1017/lst.2021.28 |s2cid=236227920 |doi-access=free }}</ref> | |||
====20th century==== | |||
Surgical methods of treating homosexuality continued to be used in the 20th century.<ref name="Katz" /> Psychoanalysis started to receive recognition in the United States in 1909, when Sigmund Freud delivered a series of lectures at Clark University in Massachusetts at the invitation of G. Stanley Hall.<ref name="PGay1998">{{Harvnb|Gay|2006|p=}}</ref> | |||
Conversion therapy on minors may amount to ].<ref name=irct/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Canady |first1=Valerie |title=New report calls for an end to 'conversion therapy' for youth |journal=The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter |date=2015 |volume=31 |issue=12 |pages=3–4 |doi=10.1002/cbl.30088}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lee |first1=Cory |title=A Failed Experiment: Conversion Therapy as Child Abuse |journal=Roger Williams University Law Review |date=2022 |volume=27 |issue=1 |url=https://docs.rwu.edu/rwu_LR/vol27/iss1/3/ |access-date=4 July 2022 |archive-date=24 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240924072750/https://docs.rwu.edu/rwu_LR/vol27/iss1/3/ |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
Abraham Brill in 1913 wrote “The Conception of Homosexuality”, which he published in the ''Journal of the American Medical Association'' and read before the American Medical Association’s annual meeting, where it was criticised by several doctors. Brill declared that after long study he had slowly overcome his disgust for homosexuality. He denied that homosexuality was influenced by inherited factors or necessarily related to emotional disturbance. Brill observed that it was impossibile to use the term ''homosexuality'' diagnostically, since it could refer to several different entities. Brill asserted that the development of sexual attraction to the same sex was always related to narcissism, which he incorrectly defined as love for one‘s self. Brill criticised physical treatments for homosexuality such as ] washing, ] massage, and castration, along with hypnosis, but referred approvingly to Freud and Sadger's use of psychoanalysis, calling its results “very gratifying.“<ref name=KatzP149>{{Harvnb|Katz|1976|p=149}}</ref> Since Brill understood cure of homosexuality to mean restoring heterosexual potency, he claimed that he had cured his patients in several cases, even though many remained homosexual.<ref name="Lewes" /><ref name="Katz" /> | |||
===Human rights=== | |||
Dr. ], an Austrian, published his views on treatment of homosexuality, which he considered a disease, in the American ''Psychoanalytic Review'' in 1930. Stekel believed that “success was fairly certain“ in changing homosexuality through psychoanalysis provided that it was performed correctly and the patient wanted to be treated. In 1932, the ''Psychoanalytic Quarterly'' published a translation of Dr. ]'s paper “On Female Homosexuality“. Deutsch reported her analysis of a lesbian, who did not become heterosexual as a result of treatment, but who managed to achieve a "positive libidinal relationship" with another woman. Deutsch indicated that she would have considered heterosexuality a better outcome.<ref name="Katz" /> | |||
In 2020, the ] released an official statement that conversion therapy is torture.<ref name=irct>{{cite web |title=Conversion Therapy is Torture |url=https://irct.org/media-and-resources/latest-news/article/1027 |website=International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims |access-date=31 May 2021 |language=en |archive-date=7 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210107053543/https://irct.org/media-and-resources/latest-news/article/1027 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The same year, UN Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, ], said that conversion therapy practices are "inherently discriminatory, that they are ], and that depending on the severity or physical or mental pain and suffering inflicted to the victim, they may amount to torture". He recommended that it should be banned across the world.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/ConversionTherapy_and_HR.aspx |title='Conversion therapy' Can Amount to Torture and Should be Banned says UN Expert |date=July 13, 2020 |website=United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner |access-date=July 20, 2021}}</ref> In 2021, Ilias Trispiotis and Craig Purshouse argue that conversion therapy violates the prohibition against degrading treatment under ], leading to a state obligation to prohibit it.<ref name=Trispiotis>{{cite journal |last1=Trispiotis |first1=Ilias |last2=Purshouse |first2=Craig |title='Conversion Therapy' As Degrading Treatment |journal=Oxford Journal of Legal Studies |date=2021 |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=104–132 |doi=10.1093/ojls/gqab024|pmid=35264896 |pmc=8902017 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nugraha |first1=Ignatius Yordan |title=The compatibility of sexual orientation change efforts with international human rights law |journal=Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights |date=2017 |volume=35 |issue=3 |pages=176–192 |doi=10.1177/0924051917724654|s2cid=220052834 |doi-access=free }}</ref> In February 2023 ], ], qualified those practices as “irreconcilable with several guarantees under the European Convention on Human Rights" and having no place in a human rights-based society urging the Member States of the Council of Europe to ban them for both adults and minors,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nothing to cure: putting an end to so-called "conversion therapies" for LGBTI people - Commissioner for Human Rights - www.coe.int |url=https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/nothing-to-cure-putting-an-end-to-so-called-conversion-therapies-for-lgbti-people |access-date=2023-07-22 |website=Commissioner for Human Rights |language=en-GB}}</ref> later in July 2023 she advocated for clear actions during a public hearing at the ] studying different approaches to legally ban "conversion therapies" in the ].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-07-17 |title='Conversion therapies' in the EU: MEPs discuss potential ban with experts {{!}} News {{!}} European Parliament |url=https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20230717IPR03013/conversion-therapies-in-the-eu-meps-discuss-potential-ban-with-experts |access-date=2023-07-22 |website=www.europarl.europa.eu |language=en |archive-date=22 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230722140351/https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20230717IPR03013/conversion-therapies-in-the-eu-meps-discuss-potential-ban-with-experts |url-status=live }}</ref> In September 2024 it was reported that the European Union is considering banning "conversion therapies" across its Member States,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ramsay |first=Max |date=2024-09-17 |title=EU to Pursue Ban on Conversion Therapy in New LGBTQ Strategy |url=https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/politics/2024/09/17/eu-to-pursue-ban-on-conversion-therapy-in-new-lgbtq-strategy/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email |access-date=2024-10-05 |website=BNN Bloomberg |language=en}}</ref> while a ] that started collecting signatures in May 2024 is also calling on the ] to outlaw such practices.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Initiative detail {{!}} European Citizens' Initiative |url=https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000001_en |access-date=2024-10-05 |website=citizens-initiative.europa.eu}}</ref> | |||
==In media== | |||
Dr. La Forest Potter of New York City published ''Strange Loves: A Study in Sexual Abnormalities'', which focused on homosexuality, in 1933, probably to exploit the interest in the subject generated by the American publication of ]’s '']'' and Blair Niles’s ''Strange Brother.'' He believed that homosexuality was caused by psychological and hormonal disturbances, and that it could be cured if the patient wanted to change. Potter advocated a mixture of psychoanalysis and hormone treatment. He believed that marriage might help to alter lesbianism in cases in which it was not hereditary. Potter described his treatment of two lesbians, stating that it was unsuccessful in one case but successful in the other. He stated that he had successfully cured a young man of homosexuality.<ref name="Katz" /> | |||
Efforts to change sexual orientation have been depicted and discussed in popular culture and various media. More recent examples include: '']'', '']'', ], '']'', and documentary features ''], Homotherapy: A Religious Sickness.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=MEDIAWAN - HOMOTHERAPY, A RELIGIOUS SICKNESS (2019) |url=https://rights.mediawan.com/world-catalogue/documentary/program/4397 |access-date=2023-07-22 |website=rights.mediawan.com |archive-date=22 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230722140353/https://rights.mediawan.com/world-catalogue/documentary/program/4397 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2019-11-26 |title=" Homothérapies " sur Arte : le scandale des " conversions " sexuelles forcées |language=fr |work=Le Monde.fr |url=https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2019/11/26/homotherapies-sur-arte-le-scandale-des-conversions-sexuelles-forcees_6020634_3246.html |access-date=2023-07-22 |archive-date=22 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230722140350/https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2019/11/26/homotherapies-sur-arte-le-scandale-des-conversions-sexuelles-forcees_6020634_3246.html |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
Dr. Louis W. Max reported to the American Psychological Association on September 6, 1935 that he had used electric shocks administered over several months to diminish what he called a homosexual fixation in a patient. This was the first documented attempt to use aversion therapy to alter homosexuality. He stated that low intensity shocks had no effect, but that higher intensities "definitely diminished the emotional value of the stimulus for days after each experimental period."<ref name="Katz" /> | |||
==Medical views== | |||
Edmund Bergler moved to the USA after vacating his post as psychoanalyst in Vienna in 1937.<ref name="Terry">{{Harvnb|Terry|1999|pp=308-314}}</ref> He published “Preliminary Phases of the Masculine Beating Fantasy“, a response to Freud‘s “A Child Is Being Beaten“, in ''Psychoanalytic Quarterly'' in 1938. Bergler claimed to have detected the early phase of a beating fantasy in boys. This phase began with the weaning shock, which mobilizes enormous sadistic rage against the breasts of the depriving phallic mother, which is an attempt at narcissistic restitution for the lost breasts of the mother. Due to guilt, this rage is transmuted into a masochistic fantasy of being beaten by the father, substituting the boy’s own buttocks for the mother’s breasts and idealizing the father out of hatred of the mother, thereby substituting a homosexual for a heterosexual bond. The paper shifted the important stage in the development of homosexual perversion back from the Oedipus complex to the oral stage, minimized the importance of object libido and emphasised more primitive narcissistic oral rage, and established that homosexual perversion could not be based on a primary homosexual attachment to the father, since there was always an earlier heterosexual attachment to the mother. The implication was that all outcomes of the Oedipus complex involving a passive homosexual stance toward the father are perverse.<ref name="Lewes" /><ref name="ErnestJonesVol2" /> | |||
{{main|Medical views of conversion therapy}} | |||
National health organizations around the world have uniformly denounced and criticized sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts.<ref name="Lambda">{{cite news|title=Health and Medical Organization Statements on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity/Expression and 'Reparative Therapy'|url=https://www.lambdalegal.org/publications/health-and-med-orgs-stmts-on-sex-orientation-and-gender-identity|newspaper=Lambda Legal|access-date=16 December 2017|archive-date=15 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170615154255/https://www.lambdalegal.org/publications/health-and-med-orgs-stmts-on-sex-orientation-and-gender-identity|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="HRC">{{cite web|title=Policy and Position Statements on Conversion Therapy|url=http://www.hrc.org/resources/policy-and-position-statements-on-conversion-therapy|website=Human Rights Campaign|access-date=12 April 2017|archive-date=27 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170427021742/http://www.hrc.org/resources/policy-and-position-statements-on-conversion-therapy|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=December 2021 |title=Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy in the UK |url=https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/media/cptnc5qm/mou2.pdf |publisher=] |access-date=31 May 2023 |archive-date=24 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240924072651/https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/media/cptnc5qm/mou2.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> They state that there has been no scientific demonstration of "conversion therapy's" efficacy.<ref name="APA"/><ref name="APA-Answers">{{cite web | url=http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/orientation.aspx | title=Answers to Your Questions: For a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality | publisher=American Psychological Association | date=2008 | access-date=31 January 2015 | archive-date=20 January 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190120024548/https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/orientation.aspx | url-status=live }}</ref><ref name =APA_Position/><ref name="PsychNews">{{citation |title=APA Maintains Reparative Therapy Not Effective |url=http://www.psychiatricnews.org/pnews/99-01-15/therapy.html |publisher=Psychiatric News (news division of the American Psychiatric Association) |date=15 January 1999 |access-date=28 August 2007 |archive-date=20 August 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080820042149/http://www.psychiatricnews.org/pnews/99-01-15/therapy.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> They find that conversion therapy is ineffective, risky and can be harmful. Anecdotal claims of cures are counterbalanced by assertions of harm, and the American Psychiatric Association, for example, cautions ethical practitioners under the ] to do no harm and to refrain from attempts at conversion therapy.<ref name=APA_Position>{{cite web|url=http://www.psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionStatements/200001a.aspx |title=Therapies Focused on Attempts to Change Sexual Orientation |publisher=Psych.org |access-date=18 July 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080910045820/http://www.psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionStatements/200001a.aspx |archive-date=10 September 2008 }}</ref> Furthermore, they state that conversion therapy is harmful and that it often exploits individual's guilt and anxiety, thereby damaging self-esteem and leading to depression and even suicide.<ref name="nytconversion">{{citation |last=Luo |first=Michael |title=Some Tormented by Homosexuality Look to a Controversial Therapy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/nyregion/12group.html |work=The New York Times |page=1 |date=12 February 2007 |access-date=28 August 2007 |archive-date=20 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190420120908/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/nyregion/12group.html |url-status=live }}</ref> There is also concern in the mental health community that the advancement of conversion therapy can cause social harm by disseminating inaccurate views about gender identity, sexual orientation, and the ability of LGBT people to lead happy, healthy lives.<ref name="HRC" /> Various medical bodies prohibit their members from practicing conversion therapy.<ref>{{cite news |title=Albania becomes third European country to ban gay 'conversion therapy' |url=https://www.france24.com/en/20200516-albania-becomes-third-european-country-to-ban-gay-conversion-therapy |access-date=30 June 2022 |work=France 24 |date=16 May 2020 |language=en |archive-date=24 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200524174458/https://www.france24.com/en/20200516-albania-becomes-third-european-country-to-ban-gay-conversion-therapy |url-status=live }}</ref> | |||
During the three decades between Freud's death in 1939 and the Stonewall riots in 1969, conversion therapy received approval from most of the psychiatric establishment in the United States.<ref name="Drescher">{{Harvnb|Drescher|1998|pp=19-42}}</ref> Sandor Rado in 1940 criticized Freud's theory of innate bisexuality in his article "A Critical Examination of the Concept of Bisexuality". Rado concluded that pursuing the genital organs of the opposite sex is the standard form of achieving genital stimulation and that the main cause of homosexuality is anxiety, although he granted that "constitutional factors may have an influence on morbid sex developments."<ref name="JuddMarmor1965">{{Harvnb|Marmor|1965|pp=175–189}}</ref> Rado‘s article appears to have been partly motivated by the desire to combat homosexuality.<ref name="Lewes" /><ref name="PGay1998" /> | |||
== See also == | |||
Bergler was the most important psychoanalytic theorist of homosexuality in the 1950s.<ref name="Lewes" /> He was vociferous in his opposition to ], who argued that homosexuality was normal human variation. Bergler argued that Kinsey's statistical research overestimated the incidence of homosexuality because it was conducted in cities where perversion thrived. Bergler based his theories partly on analysis of the novels of literary figures known to be gay. Kinsey's work, and its reception, led Bergler to develop his own theories for treatment, which were essentially to 'blame the victim'.<ref name="Terry"/> | |||
* ] | |||
Bergler claimed that if gay people wanted to change, and the right therapeutic approach was taken, then they could be cured in 90% of cases.<ref name="BerglerTime">{{Harvnb|Bergler|1956}}</ref> Bergler used confrontational therapy in which gay people were punished in order to make them aware of their masochism. Bergler openly violated professional ethics to achieve this, breaking patient confidentiality in discussing the cases of patients with other patients, bullying them, calling them liars and telling them they were worthless.<ref name= "Terry"/> He insisted that gay people could be cured, and that if they believed they should be accepted, they were asking for punishment, which confirmed their pathological immaturity. Bergler initially blamed those who mistreated gay people, because it provided a rationale for the masochistic view of the world; but, from the 1950s, and following the emergence of gay rights organisations, he began to blame homosexuals for their own oppression. Bergler confronted Kinsey because Kinsey thwarted the possibility of cure by presenting homosexuality as an acceptable way of life, which was the basis of the homosexual rights activism of the time.<ref name="Terry"/> Bergler popularised his views on homosexuality and its cure in the USA in the 1950's using magazine articles and books aimed at non-specialists.<ref name="Terry" /><ref name="Bergler">{{Harvnb|Bergler|1962}}</ref> | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
== Notes == | |||
In 1951, the mother who wrote to Freud asking him to treat her son sent Freud's response to the ''American Journal of Psychiatry'', in which it was published.<ref name="Lewes" /> The 1952 first edition of the American Psychiatric Association's ] (DSM-I) classified homosexuality as a mental disorder.<ref name="RonaldBayer" /> | |||
{{Reflist|group=Note}} | |||
==References== | |||
The practice of aversion therapy was influenced by "Treatment of Male Homosexuality through Conditioning", an article published by the Czech doctors J. Srnec and ] in the ''International Journal of Sexology'' in 1953. Srnec and Freund‘s procedure, conducted in ], involved giving patients ] or ] mixed with emetine, then subcutaneous injections with a mixture of substances, before showing them pictures of nude men while the drugs made them vomit. Patients were next shown pictures of women after being injected with ]. This was repeated between five to ten times per patient. Srnec and Freund stated that of twenty five men who were subjected to this procedure, ten “achieved predominant heterosexuality at practically full sexual activity.” They expressed the hope that the method they described could eventually be replaced by something more effective.<ref name="Katz" /> | |||
{{Reflist}} | |||
The homosexuality as sickness theory started to come under criticism in the 1950s. ] in 1957 pulished “The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual”, which found that "homosexuals were not inherently abnormal and that there was no difference between homosexual and heterosexual men in terms of pathology."<ref name="EHooker">{{Harvnb|Hooker|1957|pp=18-31}}</ref> This paper subsequently became influential.<ref name="MKirby">{{Harvnb|Kirby|1957|pp=674–677}}</ref> Irving Bieber and his colleagues in 1962 published ''Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals'', which concluded that "although this change may be more easily accomplished by some than by others, in our judgment a heterosexual shift is a possibility for all homosexuals who are strongly motivated to change."<ref>{{Harvnb|Bieber|1962|p=}}</ref> The same year, Albert Ellis published ''Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy'', which claimed that "fixed homosexuals in our society are almost invariably neurotic or psychotic:... therefore, no so-called ''normal'' group of homosexuals is to be found anywhere."<ref name="AlbertEllis1962">{{Harvnb|Ellis|1962|p=242}}</ref> Ellis published his main work on homosexuality, ''Homosexuality: Its Causes and Cure'', in 1965."<ref name="AlbertEllis1965">{{Harvnb|Ellis|1965|p=}}</ref> | |||
Psychologist ] reported in 1966 that using ] to change sexual orientation "worked surprisingly well," with up to 50% of men subjected to such therapy not acting on their homosexual urges. These results produced "a great burst of enthusiasm about changing homosexuality swept over the therapeutic community". The findings were later shown to be flawed: most of the treated men who stopped having sex with men were actually ]. Among men who were primarily gay, aversion therapy was far less successful.<ref name="seligman">{{Harvnb|Seligman|1994|pp=156-157}}</ref> | |||
Charles Socarides’s first book, ''The Overt Homosexual'', was published in 1968. Socarides regarded homosexuality as an illness arising from a conflict between the ] usually arising from an early age in "a female-dominated environment wherein the father was absent, weak, detached or sadistic". He credited the earlier work of Irving Bieber with clarifying progress in therapeutic knowledge and effectivenes.<ref name="Socarides">{{Harvnb|Socarides|1968|p=}}</ref> | |||
]]] | |||
There was a ] in 1969 at the Stonewall Bar in New York after a police raid. The Stonewall riot acquired symbolic significance for the gay rights movement and came to be seen as the opening of a new phase in the struggle for gay liberation. Following these events, conversion therapy came under increasing attack. Activism against conversion therapy increasingly focused on the DSM's designation of homosexuality as a psychopathology.<ref name="RonaldBayer" /> | |||
] in 1970 published ''Changing Homosexuality in the Male'', which advocated a therapy based on simplified psychoanalytic ideas and behavior modification techniques.<ref name="Lewes" /> 1970 also saw the publication of ]'s '']'', which claimed that homosexuality was a neurosis that could be cured by a ] that used screaming and other methods in attempts to release repressed pain.<ref name="Janov">{{Harvnb|Janov|1977|p=308}}</ref> The Gay Liberation Front invaded Janov's office in ], and had a "scream-in" to protest his anti-gay writings.<ref name="Loughery">{{Harvnb|Loughery|1998|p=325}}</ref> Janov's therapy later became widely influential.<ref name="Kovel">{{Harvnb|Kovel|1991|pp=188-198}}</ref><ref name="Rosen">{{Harvnb|Rosen|1977|pp=154-217}}</ref><ref name="Pendergrast">{{Harvnb|Pendergrast|1995|pp=442-443}}</ref> | |||
In 1973, after years of criticism from gay activists and bitter dispute among psychiatrists, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental disorder from the ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders''. Supporters of the change used evidence from researchers such as Alfred Kinsey and Evelyn Hooker. Psychiatrst Robert Spitzer, a member of the APA's Committee on Nomenclature, played an important role in the events that lead to this decision. Critics argued that it was a result of pressure from gay activists, and demanded a referendum among voting members of the Association. The referendum was held in 1974 and the APA’s decision was upheld by a 58% majority.<ref name="RonaldBayer">{{Harvnb|Bayer|1987|p=}}</ref> | |||
], a Christian organization that promotes "the message of freedom from homosexuality through the power of ]", was founded in 1976.<ref name="ExodusInternationalWhoWeAre">{{citation |url=http://exodus.to/content/category/6/24/57/ |title=Exodus International Who We Are |accessdate=2009-05-25 |year=2005 |publisher=Exodus International}}</ref> It does not conduct clincal treatment but does provide referrals to professional therapists.<ref name="ExodusInternationalPolicyStatements">{{citation |url=http://exodus.to/content/view/34/118/ |title=Exodus International Policy Statements |accessdate=2009-05-25 |year=2005 |publisher=Exodus International}}</ref> | |||
Robert Kronemeyer in 1980 published ''Overcoming Homosexuality''. Influenced by the work of ], Kronemeyer claimed that homosexuality could be cured by a method he called "Syntonic Therapy." Kronemeyer criticised some earlier methods of changing homosexuality, including lobotomy, electroshock treatment, and ].<ref name="Kronemeyer">{{Harvnb|Kronemeyer|1980|p=87}}</ref> | |||
Research psychologist ] in 1983 published ''Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic'', which tried to understand homosexuality through a combination of psychological theory and theology. It used the term ''reparative drive'' to refer to male homosexuality, interpreting men's sexual desires for other men as attempts to compensate for a lacked connection between father and son during childhood. Moberly denied the importance of over-dominant mothers as a cause of homosexuality and encouraged same-sex bonding with both mentors and peers as a way of stopping same-sex attraction.<ref name="Moberly1983a">{{Harvnb|Moberly|1983|p=}}</ref><ref name="Moberly1983b">{{Harvnb|Moberly|1983|p=}}</ref> | |||
The APA removed ego-dystonic homosexuality from the ] in 1987 and opposes the diagnosis of either homosexuality or ego-dystonic homosexuality as any type of disorder.<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/policy/diagnoses.html |title=APA Policy Statement: Use of Diagnoses "Homosexuality" & "Ego-Dystonic Homosexuality" |accessdate=2007-08-28 |author=APA Council of Representatives |date=1987-08-30 |publisher=American Psychological Association}}</ref> | |||
Joseph Nicolosi began playing an important role in the development of conversion therapy in the early 1990s, publishing his first book ''Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality'' in 1991.<ref name = "Nicolosi1991" /> In 1992, Joseph Nicolosi, Charles Socarides, and Benjamin Kaufman founded the ] (NARTH), a mental health organization that opposes the mainstream medical view of homosexuality and aims to "make effective psychological therapy available to all homosexual men and women who seek change."<ref name="NARTH">{{citation |url=http://narth.com/menus/goals.html |title=NARTH What We Offer |accessdate=2009-05-25 |publisher=NARTH}}</ref> | |||
====21st century==== | |||
] ] in 2001 issued a report stating that "there is no valid scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed".<ref name="SurgeonGeneral">{{citation |url=http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/sexualhealth/call.htm#III |title="The Surgeon General's call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior", A Letter from the Surgeon General U.S. Department of Health and Human Services |accessdate=2007-03-29 |publisher=U. S. Department of Health and Human Services}}</ref> The same year, Robert Spitzer's study on sexual orientation change caused controversy and attracted media attention.<ref name="DrescherandZucker" /> | |||
The American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) spoke against NARTH in 2004, stating "that organization does not adhere to our policy of nondiscrimination and ... their activities are demeaning to our members who are gay and lesbian."<ref>{{citation |last=Crow |first=C. |date=2004-11-20 |title=Irate reader's expert on gays has drawn fire from his peers |publisher=]}}</ref> In 2006, Focus on the Family and several other organizations announced that they would protest the American Psychological Association's convention in New Orleans. Mike Haley, the director of gender issues for Focus on the Family, commented that, "The APA's views on issues such as the immutability of homosexuality have caused real harm to real people and patients."<ref>{{citation |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5554/is_200608/ai_n21879692 |title=APA Convention Targeted for Protest; APA Focused More on Political Correctness Than Helping Patients, Group Says |publisher=U.S. Newswire |date=August 2006}}</ref> The same year, a survey of members of the ] rated reparative therapy as "certainly discredited", though the authors warn that the results should be interpreted carefully as an initial step, not a final word.<ref name="NorcrossKoocherandGarofalo">{{Harvnb|Norcross|Koocher|Garofalo|2006|pp=512–522}}</ref> | |||
The ] in 2007 convened a task force to evaluate its policies regarding reparative therapy; ex-gay organizations expressed concerns about the lack of representation of pro-reparative-therapy perspectives on the task force, while alleging that anti-reparative-therapy perspectives were amply represented.<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jul/11/gay-reparative-therapy-under-scrutiny/ |title=Gay reparative therapy under scrutiny |publisher=Washington Times |location=New York |date=July 11, 2007 |accessdate=2009-02-15}}</ref> | |||
In 2008, the organizers of an APA panel on the relationship between religion and homosexuality canceled the event after gay activists objected that "conversion therapists and their supporters on the religious right use these appearances as a public relations event to try and legitimize what they do."<ref name="Plowman">{{Harvnb|Plowman|2008}}</ref><ref name="Johnson">{{Harvnb|Johnson|2008}}</ref> | |||
==Contemporary theories and techniques== | |||
{{wikinews|Dr. Joseph Merlino on sexuality, insanity, Freud, fetishes and apathy}} | |||
===Behavioral modification=== | |||
Practitioners who view homosexuality as learned behavior may adopt behavioral modification techniques. These may include ] reconditioning, visualization, and social skills training.<ref name="haldeman">{{Harvnb|Haldeman|2002|pp=260–264}}</ref> The most radical involve ], a form of ].<ref>{{Harvnb|Smith|Bartlett|King|2004|pp=427}}</ref> | |||
===Joseph Nicolosi's reparative therapy=== | |||
] in 1991 published ''Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach''.<ref name="Nicolosi1991">{{Harvnb|Nicolosi|1991|p=}}</ref> This book introduced ''reparative therapy'' as a term for psychotherapeutic attempts to convert gay people to heterosexuality.<ref name="GLAAD">{{citation |url=http://216.235.201.198/Page.aspx?pid=373|title=GLAAD Media Reference Guide |author=GLAAD |accessdate=September 2006|format=PDF}}</ref> Nicolosi was influenced by numerous sources, including Moberly's earlier work on the development of male gender-identity.<ref name="Nicolosi1991" /> | |||
Douglas C. Haldeman has identified Nicolosi as the leading representative of the theory that same-sex desires are a form of arrested psychosexual development, resulting from "an incomplete bond and resultant identification with the same-sex parent, which is then symbolically repaired in psychotherapy".<ref name="haldeman" /> Nicolosi’s intervention plans involve conditioning a man to a traditional masculine gender role. He should "(1) participate in sports activities, (2) avoid activities considered of interest to homosexuals, such art museums, opera, symphonies, (3) avoid women unless it is for romantic contact, (4) increase time spent with heterosexual men in order to learn to mimic heterosexual male ways of walking, talking, and interacting with other heterosexual men, (5) Attend church and join a men’s church group, (6) attend reparative therapy group to discuss progress, or slips back into homosexuality, (7) become more assertive with women through flirting and dating, (8) begin heterosexual dating, (9) engage in heterosexual intercourse, (10) enter into heterosexual marriage, and (11) father children".<ref name="Bright">{{Harvnb|Bright|2004|pp=471-481}}</ref> | |||
Most mental health professionals consider reparative therapy discredited, but it is still practiced by some professionals.<ref name="Yoshino" /> Psychoanalysts critical of Nicolosi's theories have offered gay-affirmative approaches as an alternative to reparative therapy.<ref name="Drescher1998">{{Harvnb|Drescher|1998|p=152}}</ref><ref name="DomeniciandLesser">{{Harvnb|Domenici|1995|p=119}}</ref> ] regards reparative therapy as a useful tool to eliminate "unwanted same-sex attraction."<ref>{{citation |url=http://exodus.to/content/view/34/117/ |title=Exodus International Policy Statements |accessdate=2007-08-28 |publisher=Exodus International}}</ref> | |||
===Richard Cohen's bioenergetics=== | |||
] has been called one of America's leading practitioners of conversion therapy.<ref>, ] Foreign Correspondent, 08-22-2006. Retrieved 04-07-2007.</ref> Cohen holds male patients in his lap with the patient curled into the fetal position, and also advocates ] methods influenced by ] and John Pierrakos, who were students of ]. These methods can involve shouting or slamming a pillow with a tennis racket.<ref name="Cohen">{{Harvnb|Cohen|2000|p=}}</ref> | |||
==Studies of conversion therapy== | |||
===Shidlo and Schroeder study=== | |||
Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder found in "Changing Sexual Orientation: A Consumer's Report", a peer-reviewed study published in 2002, that 88% of participants failed to achieve a sustained change in their sexual behavior and 3% reported changing their orientation to heterosexual. The remainder reported either losing all sexual drive or attempting to remain celibate, with no change in attraction. Some of the participants who failed felt a sense of shame and had gone through conversion therapy programs for many years. Others who failed believed that therapy was worthwhile and valuable. Shidlo and Schroeder also reported that many respondents were harmed by the attempt to change. Of the 8 respondents (out of a sample of 202) who reported a change in sexual orientation, 7 worked as ex-gay counselors or group leaders.<ref name="ShidloandSchroeder" /> | |||
===Spitzer study=== | |||
{{Seealso|LGBT rights in Finland}} | |||
In May 2001, Dr. Robert Spitzer presented "Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation? 200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation", a study of attempts to change homosexual orientation through ex-gay ministries and conversion therapy, at the American Psychiatric Association's convention in New Orleans. The study was partly a response to the APA's 2000 statement cautioning against clinical attempts at changing homosexuality, and was aimed at determining whether such attempts were ever successful rather than how likely it was that change would occur for any given individual. Spitzer wrote that some earlier studies provided evidence for the effectiveness of therapy in changing sexual orientation, but that all of them suffered from methodological problems.<ref name="DrescherandZucker" /> | |||
He reported that after intervention, 66% of the men and 44% of the women had achieved "Good Heterosexual Functioning", which he defined as requiring five criteria (being in a loving heterosexual relationship during the last year, overall satisfacition in emotional relationship with a partner, having heterosexual sex with the partner at least a few times a month, achieving physical satisfaction through heterosexual sex, and not thinking about having homosexual sex more than 15% of the time while having heterosexual sex). He found that the most common reasons for seeking change were lack of emotional satisfaction from gay life, conflict between same-sex feelings and behavior and religious beliefs, and desire to marry or remain married.<ref name="DrescherandZucker" /><ref name="SpitzerStudy">{{Harvnb|Spitzer|2004|pp=403–417}}</ref> This paper was widely reported in the international media and taken up by politicians in the United States, Germany, and Finland, as well as by conversion therapists.<ref name="DrescherandZucker" /> | |||
In 2003, Spitzer published the paper in the ]. Spitzer's study has been criticized on numerous ethical and methodological grounds. Gay activists argued that the study would be used by conservatives to undermine gay rights. Researchers observed that the study sample consisted of people who sought treatment primarily because of their religious beliefs, and who may therefore have been motivated to claim that they had changed even if they had not, or to overstate the extent to which they might have changed. That participants had to rely upon their memories of what their feelings were before treatment may have distorted the findings. It was impossible to determine whether any change that occurred was due to the treatment because it was not clear what it involved and there was no control group. Claims of change may have reflected a change in self-labelling rather than of underlying orientation or attractions, and particpants may have been bisexual before treatment. Follow-up studies were not conducted.<ref name="DrescherandZucker" /> Spitzer stressed the limitations of his study. Spitzer said that the number of gay people who could successfully become heterosexual was likely to be "pretty low". He also conceded that the study's participants were "unusually religious."<ref name="ucdavis">{{citation |url=http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_changing.html |title=Attempts To Change Sexual Orientation |accessdate=2007-08-28 |publisher=] Department of Psychology}}</ref> | |||
===Yarhouse and Throckmorton study=== | |||
Mark Yarhouse and ], of the private Christian school ], argue in "Ethical Issues in Attempts to Ban Reorientation Therapies" that conversion therapy should be available out of respect for a patient’s values system and because there is evidence that it can be effective. They state that studies from the 1950s–1980s generally reported rates of positive outcomes at about 30%, with more recent survey research generally consistent with the extant data. Yarhouse and Throckmorton's 2002 paper was partly a response to Jack Drescher's 2001 paper, "Ethical issues surrounding attempts to change sexual orientation", which used the principle of "Do no harm" to argue against conversion therapy.<ref name="EthicalIssues">{{Harvnb|Yarhouse|Throckmorton|2002|pp=66-75}}</ref> | |||
==Medical, scientific and legal views== | |||
{{Further|], ], ] and ]}} | |||
===American medical consensus=== | |||
The medical and scientific consensus in the United States is that conversion therapy is potentially harmful, but that there is no scientifically adequate research demonstrating either its effectiveness or harmfulness.<ref name="answers"/><ref name="apa" /><ref name="PsychNews">{{citation |last=H. |first=K |title=APA Maintains Reparative Therapy Not Effective |url=http://www.psychiatricnews.org/pnews/99-01-15/therapy.html |publisher=Psychiatric News (news division of the American Psychiatric Association) |date=] |accessdate=2007-08-28}}</ref> Mainstream medical bodies state that conversion therapy can be harmful because it may exploit guilt and anxiety, thereby damaging self-esteem and leading to depression and even suicide.<ref name="nytconversion">{{citation |last=Luo |first=Michael |title=Some Tormented by Homosexuality Look to a Controversial Therapy |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/nyregion/12group.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin |publisher=''The New York Times'' |page=1 |date=2007-02-12 |accessdate=2007-08-28}}</ref> Participants are at increased risk for guilt, depression, anxiety, confusion, self-blame, suicidal gestures, unprotected anal intercourse with untested partners, and heavy substance abuse.<ref name="ShidloandSchroeder">{{Harvnb|Shidlo|Schroeder|2002|pp=249–259}}</ref> Beyond harms caused to individual people, there is a broad concern in the mental health community that the advancement of conversion therapy itself causes social harm by disseminating inaccurate views about sexual orientation and the ability of gay and bisexual people to lead happy, healthy lives.<ref name="apa" /> | |||
Mainstream health organizations critical of conversion therapy include the ],<ref name="AmericanMedicalAssociation">{{citation |url=http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-people/member-groups-sections/glbt-advisory-committee/ama-policy-regarding-sexual-orientation.shtml |title=American Medical Association policy regarding sexual orientation |accessdate=2007-07-30 |date=2007-07-11 |publisher=American Medical Association}}</ref> ], the ], the ], the ], the ], the American Association of School Administrators, the ], the ], the American Academy of Physician Assistants, and the ].<ref name="apa" /><ref name="aap">{{citation |first=Committee on Adolescence |title=Homosexuality and Adolesence |year=1993 |journal=Pediatrics, Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics |volume=92 |pages=631–634 |url=http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/92/4/631.pdf |accessdate=2007-08-28 |format=PDF}}</ref><ref>{{citation |url=http://www.spiritindia.com/health-care-news-articles-10085.html |title=Physician Assistants vote on retail clinics, reparative therapy |accessdate=2007-08-28 |publisher=SpiritIndia.com}}</ref> | |||
Mainstream medical organizations do not accept the anecdotal evidence offered by conversion therapists for several reasons. These include the fact that the results are not published in peer-reviewed journals, but tend to be released to the ] and the ], that random samples of subjects are not used and results are reliant upon the subjects' own self-reported outcomes or on evaluations by therapists which may be subject to ], that the evidence is gathered over short periods of time and there is little follow-up data to determine whether the therapy was effective over the long-term, that the evidence does not demonstrate a change in sexual orientation but merely a reduction in same-sex behavior, that the interpreters of the evidence do not take into consideration that subjects may be bisexual and have simply been convinced to restrict their sexual activity to the opposite sex, that conversion therapists falsely assume that homosexuality is a mental disorder, and that their research focuses almost exclusively on gay men and rarely includes lesbians.<ref name="apa">{{citation |url=http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/justthefacts.html |title=Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation & Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel |accessdate=2007-08-28 |year=1999 |publisher=Just the Facts Coalition}}</ref><ref name="haldeman" /><ref name="Bright" /><ref name="ucdavis" /><ref>{{citation |last=Haldeman |first=Douglas |title=The Pseudo-science of Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy |year=1999 |month=December |journal=The Policy Journal of the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=1–4 |url=http://www.iglss.org/media/files/Angles_41.pdf |accessdate=2007-08-28 |format=PDF}}</ref> | |||
===Ethics guidelines=== | |||
In 1998, the ] issued a statement opposing any treatment which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality is a mental disorder or that a person should change their orientation, but did not have a formal position on other treatments that attempt to change a person's sexual orientation. In 2000, they augmented that statement by saying that as a general principle, a therapist should not determine the goal of treatment, but recommends that ethical practitioners refrain from attempts to change clients' sexual orientation until more research is available.<ref name="Psych" /> | |||
The ] has stated that they do not offer or condone any training to educate and prepare a counselor to practice conversion therapy. They strongly suggest counselors do not refer clients to a conversion therapist or to proceed cautiously once they know the counselor fully informs clients of the unproven nature of the treatment and the potential risks and takes steps to minimize harm to clients. However, "it is of primary importance to respect a client's autonomy to request a referral for a service not offered by a counselor." A counselor performing conversion therapy "must define the techniques/procedures as 'unproven' or 'developing' and explain the potential risks and ethical considerations of using such techniques/procedures and take steps to protect clients from possible harm." The counselor must also provide complete information about the treatment, offer referrals to gay-affirmative counselors, discuss the right of clients, understand the client's request within a cultural context, and only practice within their level of expertise.<ref name="ACA News">{{citation |url=http://www.counseling.org/PressRoom/NewsReleases.aspx?AGuid=b68aba97-2f08-40c2-a400-0630765f72f4 | |||
|last1=Whitman |first1=Joy S. |last2=Glosoff |first2=Harriet L. |last3=Kocet |first3=Michael M. |last4=Tarvydas |first4=Vilia |title=Ethical issues related to conversion or reparative therapy |accessdate=2007-08-28 |date=2006-05-22 |publisher=American Counseling Association}}</ref> | |||
The ] "is concerned about therapies and their potential harm to patients ... Any person who enters into therapy to deal with issues of sexual orientation has a right to expect that such therapy would take place in a professionally neutral environment absent of any social bias."<ref name="APAHelpCenter">{{citation |url=http://www.apahelpcenter.org/articles/article.php?id=31 |title=Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality | |||
|publisher=American Psychological Association |accessdate=2009-05-27}}</ref> The APA stated, with regard to conversion therapy, | |||
{{quote|... that psychologists do not knowingly participate in or condone unfair discriminatory practices ... do not engage in unfair discrimination based on sexual orientation ... respect the rights of individuals to privacy, confidentiality, self-determination and autonomy ... , try to eliminate the effect on their work of biases based on the American Psychological Association urges all mental health professionals to take the lead in removing the stigma of mental illness that has long been associated with homosexual orientation." (internal quotes, brackets, and ellipses omitted).<ref name="APA Techniques">{{citation |url=http://www.apa.org/pi/sexual.html |title=Resolution on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation |accessdate=2007-08-28 |date=1997-08-14 |publisher=American Psychological Association}}</ref> | |||
===International medical views=== | |||
The development of theoretical models of sexual orientation in countries outside the United States that have established mental health professions often follows the history within the U.S. (although often at a slower pace), shifting from pathological to non-pathological conceptions of homosexuality.<ref>{{citation |title=Special Issue on the Mental Health Professions and Homosexuality |year=2003 |journal=Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy |volume=7 |issue=1/2 |publisher= Haworth Medical Press}}</ref> The ]'s ], which along with the DSM-IV is widely used internationally, states that "sexual orientation by itself is not to be regarded as a disorder". It lists ] as a disorder instead, which it defines as occurring where "the gender identity or sexual preference (heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or prepubertal) is not in doubt, but the individual wishes it were different because of associated psychological and behavioural disorders, and may seek treatment in order to change it."<ref name="icd">{{citation |url=http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/?gf60.htm+f661 |title=ICD-10, Chapter V: Mental and behavioural disorders: Disorders of adult personality and behaviour |year=2007 |accessdate=2007-08-28 |publisher=World Health Organization}}</ref> | |||
===Legal issues=== | |||
In 2005, ], an ex-gay ministry based in Memphis, was investigated by the Tennessee Department of Health and the Tennesee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities for providing counselling and mental health care without a licence, and for treating adolescents without their consent. There have been reports that teenagers have been forcibly treated with conversion therapy on other occasions.<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/anti/exgay/exgay.ministries.txt |title=About Ex-Gay Ministries |author=David Williams |accessdate=2008-09-14}}</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Melzer |first=Eartha |title=Tenn. opens new probe of ‘ex-gay’ facility: Experts say children should not be forced into counseling |url=http://www.washblade.com/2005/7-1/news/national/tenopen.cfm |publisher=Washington Blade |date=2005-07-01 |accessdate=2007-08-28}}</ref><ref name="ben_20060210">{{citation |last=Popper |first=Ben |title=Love in Court: Gay-to-straight ministry and the state go to court |url=http://memphisflyer.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A12034 |publisher=] |date=2006-02-10 |accessdate=2007-08-28}}</ref> In 2006, a report by the ] outlined evidence that conversion therapy groups are increasingly focusing on children.<ref name="taskforce">{{citation |url=http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/reports/reports/YouthInTheCrosshairs.pdf |title=Youth in the crosshairs: the third wave of ex-gay activism |accessdate=2007-08-29 |last1=Cianciotto |first1=Jason |last2=Cahill |first2=Sean |year=2006 |format=PDF |publisher=National Gay and Lesbian Task Force}}</ref> Several legal researchers have responded to these events by arguing that parents who force their children into aggressive conversion therapy programs are committing ] under various state statutes.<ref>{{citation |last=Talbot |first=T. |title=Reparative therapy for homosexual teens: the choice of the teen should be the only choice discussed |journal=Journal of Juvenile Law |year=2006}}</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Cohan |first=J. |title=Parental Duties and the Right of Homosexual Minors to Refuse "Reparative" Therapy |journal=Women's Law Journal |year=2002 |issue=67}}</ref> | |||
There have been few, if any, ] lawsuits filed on the basis of conversion therapy. Laura A. Gans suggested in an article published in ''The Boston University Public Interest Law Journal'' that this is because there is an "historic reluctance of consumers of mental health services to sue their care givers" and because of "the difficulty associated with establishing the elements of... causation and harm... given the intangible nature of psychological matters." Gans also suggested that a ] cause of action for ] might be sustainable against therapists who use conversion therapy on patients who specifically say that his or her anxiety does not arise from his or her sexuality. | |||
In one of the few published U.S. cases dealing with conversion therapy, the Ninth Circuit addressed the topic in the context of an asylum application. A Russian citizen "had been apprehended by the Russian militia, registered at a clinic as a 'suspected lesbian,' and forced to undergo treatment for lesbianism, such as 'sedative drugs' and hypnosis.... The Ninth Circuit held that the conversion treatments to which Pitcherskaia had been subjected constituted mental and physical torture. The court rejected the argument that the treatments to which Pitcherskaia had been subjected did not constitute persecution because they had been intended to help her, not harm her.... The court stated that 'human rights laws cannot be sidestepped by simply couching actions that torture mentally or physically in benevolent terms such as "curing" or "treating" the victims.'" "<ref name="Gans">{{citation |last=Gans |first=Laura A. |title=Inverts, Perverts, and Converts: Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy and Liability |year=1999 |month=Winter |journal=The Boston University Public Interest Law Journal |volume=8}}</ref> | |||
==Notes== | |||
{{reflist|2}} | |||
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== |
==Further reading== | ||
*{{cite book |last1=Haldeman |first1=Douglas C. |title=Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Change Efforts: Evidence, Effects, and Ethics |date=2021 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-1-939594-36-5 |language=en}} | |||
* ("Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation.") | |||
* ("Research does not support conversion therapy as an effective treatment modality.... There is potential for harm when clients participate in conversion therapy.") | |||
* ("In the last four decades, 'reparative' therapists have not produced any rigorous scientific research to substantiate their claims of cure. Until there is such research available, APA recommends that ethical practitioners refrain from attempts to change individuals' sexual orientation, keeping in mind the medical dictum to first, do no harm.") | |||
* ("Mental health professional organizations call on their members to respect a person’s (client’s) right to self determination") | |||
* (Those with an ] "may seek treatment in order to change it".) | |||
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Latest revision as of 02:06, 11 January 2025
Pseudoscientific attempts to change sexual orientation or gender identity
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Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation, romantic orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to align with heterosexual and cisgender norms. Methods that have been used to this end include forms of brain surgery, surgical or chemical (hormonal) castration, aversion therapy treatments such as electric shocks, nausea-inducing drugs, hypnosis, counseling, spiritual interventions, visualization, psychoanalysis, and arousal reconditioning. There is a scientific consensus that conversion therapy is ineffective at changing a person's sexual orientation or gender identity and that it frequently causes significant long-term psychological harm. The position of current evidence-based medicine and clinical guidance is that homosexuality, bisexuality, and gender variance are natural and healthy aspects of human sexuality. An increasing number of jurisdictions around the world have passed laws against conversion therapy.
Historically, conversion therapy was the treatment of choice for individuals who disclosed same-sex attractions or exhibited gender nonconformity, which were formerly assumed to be pathologies by the medical establishment. When performed today, conversion therapy may constitute fraud, and when performed on minors, a form of child abuse; it has been described by experts as torture; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; and contrary to human rights.
Terminology
Medical professionals and activists consider "conversion therapy" a misnomer, as it does not constitute a legitimate form of therapy. Alternative terms include sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) and gender identity change efforts (GICE)—together, sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts (SOGICE). According to researcher Douglas C. Haldeman, SOCE and GICE should be considered together because both rest on the assumption "that gender-related behavior consistent with the individual's birth sex is normative and anything else is unacceptable and should be changed". "Reparative therapy" may refer to conversion therapy in general, or to a subset thereof.
Advocates of conversion therapy do not necessarily use the term either, instead using phrases such as "healing from sexual brokenness" and "struggling with same-sex attraction".
History
Main article: History of conversion therapySexual orientation change efforts (SOCE)
The term homosexual was coined by German-speaking Hungarian writer Karl Maria Kertbeny and was in circulation by the 1880s. Into the middle of the twentieth century, competing views of homosexuality were advanced by psychoanalysis versus academic sexology. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, viewed homosexuality as a form of arrested development. Later psychoanalysts followed Sandor Rado, who argued that homosexuality was a "phobic avoidance of heterosexuality caused by inadequate early parenting". This line of thinking was popular in psychiatric models of homosexuality based on the prison population or homosexuals seeking treatment. In contrast, sexology researchers such as Alfred Kinsey argued that homosexuality was a normal variation in human development. In 1970, gay activists confronted the American Psychiatric Association, persuading the association to reconsider whether homosexuality should be listed as a disorder. The APA delisted homosexuality in 1973, which contributed to shifts in public opinion on homosexuality.
Despite their lack of scientific backing, some socially or religiously conservative activists continued to argue that if one person's sexuality could be changed, homosexuality was not a fixed class such as race. Borrowing from discredited psychoanalytic ideas about the cause of homosexuality, some of these individuals offered conversion therapy. In 2001, conversion therapy attracted attention when Robert L. Spitzer published a non-peer-reviewed study asserting that some homosexuals could change their sexual orientation. Many researchers made methodological criticisms of the study, which Spitzer later repudiated.
Gender identity change efforts (GICE)
Gender Identity Change Efforts (GICE) refer to practices of healthcare providers and religious counselors with the goal of attempting to alter a person's gender identity or expression to conform to social norms. Examples include aversion therapy, cognitive restructuring, and psychoanalytic and talk therapies. Western medical-model narratives have historically institutionalized transphobia: systemically favoring a binary gender model and pathologizing gender diversity and non-conformity. This aided the development and proliferation of GICE.
Early interventions were rooted in psychoanalytic hypotheses. Robert Stoller advanced the theory that gender-nonconforming behavior and expression in children assigned male at birth (AMAB) was caused by being overly close to their mother. Richard Green continued his research; his methods for altering behavior included having the father spend more time with the child and mother less, expecting both to exhibit stereotypical gender roles, and having them praise their child's masculine behaviors, and shame their feminine and gender-nonconforming ones. These interventions resulted in depression in the children and feelings of betrayal from parents that the treatments failed.
In the 1970s, UCLA psychologist Richard Green recruited Ole Ivar Lovaas to adapt the techniques of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy to attempt to prevent children from becoming transsexual. Deemed the "Feminine Boy Project", the treatments used operant conditioning to reward gender-conforming behaviors, and punish gender non-conforming behaviors.
Kenneth Zucker at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health adopted Richard Green's methods, but narrowed the scope to attempting to prevent the child from identifying as transgender by modifying gender behavior and presentation to conform to the expectations of the assigned gender at birth, which he dubbed the "living in your own skin" model. His model used the same interventions as Green with the addition of psychodynamic therapy.
Motivations
A frequent motivation for adults who pursue conversion therapy is their religious beliefs, especially evangelical Christianity and Orthodox Judaism, that disapprove of same-sex relations. These adults prioritize maintaining a good relationship with their family and religious community. Adolescents who are pressured by their families into undergoing conversion therapy also typically come from a conservative religious background. Youth from families with low socioeconomic status are also more likely to undergo conversion therapy.
Theories and techniques
As societal attitudes toward homosexuality have become more tolerant over time, the most harsh conversion therapy methods such as aversion have been reduced. Secular conversion therapy is offered less often due to reduced medical pathologization of homosexuality, and religious practitioners have become more dominant.
Aversion therapy
See also: Behavior modificationAversion therapy used on homosexuals included electric shock and nausea-inducing drugs during presentation of same-sex erotic images. Cessation of the aversive stimuli was typically accompanied by the presentation of opposite-sex erotic images, with the objective of strengthening heterosexual feelings. Another method used was the covert sensitization method, which involves instructing patients to imagine vomiting or receiving electric shocks, writing that only single case studies have been conducted, and that their results cannot be generalized. Haldeman writes that behavioral conditioning studies tend to decrease homosexual feelings, but do not increase heterosexual feelings, citing Rangaswami's "Difficulties in arousing and increasing heterosexual responsiveness in a homosexual: A case report", published in 1982, as typical in this respect.
Other methods of aversion therapy in addition to electric shock included ice baths, freezing, burning via metal coils, and hard labor. The intent was for the subject to associate homosexual feelings with pain and thus result in them being reduced. These methods have been concluded to be ineffective.
Aversion therapy was developed in Czechoslovakia between 1950 and 1962 and in the British Commonwealth from 1961 into the mid-1970s. In the context of the Cold War, Western psychologists ignored the poor results of their Czechoslovak counterparts, who had concluded that aversion therapy was not effective by 1961 and recommended decriminalization of homosexuality instead. Some men in the United Kingdom were offered the choice between prison and undergoing aversion therapy. It was also offered to a few British women, but was never the standard treatment for either homosexual men or women.
In the 1970s, behaviorist Hans Eysenck was one of the main advocates of counterconditioning with malaise-inducing drugs and electric shock for homosexuals. He wrote that this type of therapy was successful in nearly 50% of cases. However, his studies were disputed. Behavior therapists, including Eysenck, used aversive methods. This led to a protest against Eysenck by gay activist Peter Tatchell in a London Medical Group Symposium in 1972. Tatchell said that the therapy promoted by Eysenck was a form of torture. Tatchell denounced Eysenck's form of behavioral therapy as inducing depression and suicide among gay men who were subjected to it.
Brain surgery
In the 1940s and 1950s, U.S. neurologist Walter Freeman popularized the ice-pick lobotomy as a treatment for homosexuality. He personally performed as many as 3,439 lobotomy surgeries in 23 states, of which 2,500 used his ice-pick procedure, despite the fact that he had no formal surgical training.
In West Germany, a type of brain surgery usually involving destruction of the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus was done to some homosexual men during the 1960s and 1970s. The practice was criticized by sexologist Volkmar Sigusch.
Castration and transplantation
See also: Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi GermanyIn the early twentieth century Germany experiments were carried out in which homosexual men were subjected to unilateral orchiectomy and testicles of heterosexual men were transplanted. These operations were a complete failure.
Surgical castration of homosexual men was widespread in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered homosexual men to be sent to concentration camps because he did not consider a time-limited prison sentence was sufficient to eliminate homosexuality. Although theoretically voluntary, some homosexuals were subject to severe pressure and coercion to agree to castration. There was no age limit; some boys as young as 16 were castrated. Those who agreed to castration after a Paragraph 175 conviction were exempted from being transferred to a concentration camp after completing their legal sentence. Some concentration camp prisoners were also subjected to castration. An estimated 400 to 800 men were castrated.
Endocrinologist Carl Vaernet attempted to change homosexual concentration camp prisoners' sexual orientations by implanting a pellet that released testosterone. Most of the victims, non-consenting prisoners at Buchenwald, died shortly thereafter.
An unknown number of men were castrated in West Germany and chemical castration was used in other Western countries, notably against Alan Turing in the United Kingdom.
Ex-gay/ex-trans ministries
Main article: Ex-gayEx-gay ministries are religious groups that attempt to use religion to eliminate or change somebody's sexual orientation. The ex-gay umbrella organization Exodus International in the United States ceased activities in June 2013, and the three member board issued a statement which repudiated its aims and apologized for the harm their pursuit has caused to LGBT people. Ex-trans organizations often overlap and portray being trans as inherently sinful or against God's design, or pathologize gender variance as due to trauma, social contagion, or "gender ideology."
Hypnosis
Hypnosis was used in conversion therapy since the 19th century by Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. In 1967, Canadian psychiatrist Peter Roper published a case study of treating 15 homosexual (some of which would probably be considered bisexual by modern standards) people with hypnosis. Allegedly, 8 showed "marked improvement" (they reportedly lost sexual attraction towards the same sex altogether), 4 mild improvements (decrease of "homosexual tendencies"), and 3 no improvement after hypnotic treatment; he concluded that "hypnosis may well produce more satisfactory results than those obtainable by other means", depending on the hypnotic susceptibility of the subjects.
Psychoanalysis
Main article: PsychoanalysisHaldeman writes that psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality is exemplified by the work of Irving Bieber et al. in Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals. They advocated long-term therapy aimed at resolving the unconscious childhood conflicts that they considered responsible for homosexuality. Haldeman notes that Bieber's methodology has been criticized because it relied upon a clinical sample, the description of the outcomes was based upon subjective therapist impression, and follow-up data were poorly presented. Bieber reported a 27% success rate from long-term therapy, but only 18% of the patients in whom Bieber considered the treatment successful had been exclusively homosexual to begin with, while 50% had been bisexual. In Haldeman's view, this makes even Bieber's unimpressive claims of success misleading.
Haldeman discusses other psychoanalytic studies of attempts to change homosexuality. Curran and Parr's "Homosexuality: An analysis of 100 male cases", published in 1957, reported no significant increase in heterosexual behavior. Mayerson and Lief's "Psychotherapy of homosexuals: A follow-up study of nineteen cases", published in 1965, reported that half of its 19 subjects were exclusively heterosexual in behavior four and a half years after treatment, but its outcomes were based on patient self-report and had no external validation. In Haldeman's view, those participants in the study who reported change were bisexual at the outset, and its authors wrongly interpreted capacity for heterosexual sex as change of sexual orientation.
Reparative therapy
The term "reparative therapy" has been used as a synonym for conversion therapy generally, but according to Jack Drescher it properly refers to a specific kind of therapy associated with the psychologists Elizabeth Moberly and Joseph Nicolosi. For example, he wrote:
- . . . the pursuit of fulfillment through same-sex eroticism is spurred by the fearful anticipation that their masculine self-assertion will inevitably fail and result in humiliation.
The term reparative refers to Nicolosi's postulate that same-sex attraction is a person's unconscious attempt to "self-repair" feelings of inferiority.
After California banned conversion practices, Nicolosi argued that "reparative therapy" didn't attempt to directly change sexual orientation but instead encourage exploration into its underlying causes, which he believed was often childhood trauma.
Marriage therapy
See also: Relationship counselingPrevious editions of the World Health Organization's ICD included "sexual relationship disorder", in which a person's sexual orientation or gender identity makes it difficult to form or maintain a relationship with a sexual partner. The belief that their sexual orientation has caused problems in their relationship may lead some people to turn to a marriage therapist for help to change their sexual orientation. Sexual orientation disorder was removed from the most recent ICD, ICD-11, after the Working Group on Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health determined that its inclusion was unjustified.
Gender exploratory therapy
Gender exploratory therapy (GET) is a form of conversion therapy characterized by requiring mandatory extended talk therapy attempting to find pathological roots for gender dysphoria while simultaneously delaying social and medical transition and viewing it as a last resort. Practitioners of GET often view medical transition as a last resort and propose their patient's dysphoria is caused by factors such as homophobia, social contagion, sexual trauma, and autism. Some practitioners of GET avoid using their patients' chosen names and pronouns while questioning their identification. Commenting on gender exploratory therapy in 2022, bioethicist Florence Ashley argued that its framing as an undirected exploration of underlying psychological issues bore similarities to gay conversion practices such as "reparative" therapy. States that have banned gender-affirming care for minors in the United States have called expert witnesses to argue that exploratory therapy should be the alternative treatment.
There are no known empirical studies examining psychosocial or medical outcomes following GET. Concerns have been raised that by not providing an estimated length of time for the therapy, the delays in medical interventions may compound mental suffering in trans youth, while gender-affirming model of care already promotes gender identity exploration without favoring any particular identity, and individualized care. GET proponents deny this.
In 2017, Richard Green published a legal strategy which called for circumventing bans on conversion therapy by labelling the practice "gender identity exploration or development". Multiple groups now exist worldwide to promote GET and have been successful in influencing legal discussions and clinical guidance in some regions. The Gender Exploratory Therapy Association (GETA) asserts that "psychological approaches should be the first-line treatment for all cases of gender dysphoria", that medical interventions for transgender youth are "experimental and should be avoided if possible", and that social transition is "risky". All of GETA's leaders are members of Genspect, a "gender-critical" group that promotes GET and argues that gender-affirming care should not be available to those under 25. In late 2023, GETA changed their name to "Therapy First".
GETA also shares a large overlap with the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM), which promotes GET as first-line treatment for those under 25. GETA co-founder Lisa Marchiano stated U.S. President Joe Biden's executive order safeguarding trans youth from conversion therapy would have a "chilling effect" on GET practices. GETA also opposed Biden's Title IX changes protecting trans students from discrimination, stating allowing trans youth in restrooms would harm the mental health of their peers. The American College of Pediatricians, a small group aligned with the Christian Right, has cited numerous studies from SEGM to claim GET is necessary to restore transgender people's "biological integrity". In November 2023, Michelle Cretella, a board member of the pro conversion therapy group Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity (ATCSI, formerly NARTH), gave a speech at an ATCSI conference which endorsed GET and argued it "truly is very similar to how the Alliance has always approached unwanted same-sex attraction".
Effects
This section needs expansion. You can help by making an edit requestadding to it . (June 2022) |
There is a scientific consensus that conversion therapy is ineffective at changing a person's sexual orientation. Advocates of conversion therapy rely heavily on testimonials and retrospective self-reports as evidence of effectiveness. Studies purporting to validate the effectiveness of efforts to change sexual orientation or gender identity have been criticized for methodological flaws. After conversion therapy has failed to change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity, participants often feel increased shame that they already felt over their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Conversion therapy can cause significant, long-term psychological harm. This includes significantly higher rates of depression, substance abuse, and other mental health issues in individuals who have undergone conversion therapy than their peers who did not, including a suicide attempt rate nearly twice that of those who did not. Modern-day practitioners of conversion therapy—primarily from a conservative religious viewpoint—disagree with current evidence-based medicine and clinical guidance that does not view homosexuality and gender variance as unnatural or unhealthy.
In 2020, ILGA World published a world survey and report Curbing Deception listing consequences and life-threatening effects by associating specific public testimonies with different types of methods used to practice conversion therapies.
A 2022 study estimated that conversion therapy of youth in the United States cost $650.16 million annually with an additional $9.5 billion in associated costs such as increased suicide and substance abuse. Youth who undergo conversion therapy from a religious provider have more negative mental health outcomes than those who had consulted a licensed healthcare provider.
Public opinion
A 2020 survey carried out on US adults found majority support for banning conversion therapy for minors.
A 2022 YouGov poll found majority support in England, Scotland, and Wales for a conversion therapy ban for both sexual orientation and gender identity, with opposition ranging from 13 to 15 percent.
Legal status
Main article: Legality of conversion therapySome jurisdictions have criminal bans on the practice of conversion therapy, including Canada, Ecuador, France, Germany, Malta, Mexico and Spain. In other countries, including Albania, Brazil, Chile, Vietnam and Taiwan, medical professionals are barred from practicing conversion therapy.
In some states, lawsuits against conversion therapy providers for fraud have succeeded, but in other jurisdictions those claiming fraud must prove that the perpetrator was intentionally dishonest. Thus, a provider who genuinely believes conversion therapy is effective could not be convicted.
Conversion therapy on minors may amount to child abuse.
Human rights
In 2020, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims released an official statement that conversion therapy is torture. The same year, UN Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, Victor Madrigal-Borloz, said that conversion therapy practices are "inherently discriminatory, that they are cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and that depending on the severity or physical or mental pain and suffering inflicted to the victim, they may amount to torture". He recommended that it should be banned across the world. In 2021, Ilias Trispiotis and Craig Purshouse argue that conversion therapy violates the prohibition against degrading treatment under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, leading to a state obligation to prohibit it. In February 2023 Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, qualified those practices as “irreconcilable with several guarantees under the European Convention on Human Rights" and having no place in a human rights-based society urging the Member States of the Council of Europe to ban them for both adults and minors, later in July 2023 she advocated for clear actions during a public hearing at the European Parliament studying different approaches to legally ban "conversion therapies" in the European Union. In September 2024 it was reported that the European Union is considering banning "conversion therapies" across its Member States, while a European Citizens' Initiative that started collecting signatures in May 2024 is also calling on the European Commission to outlaw such practices.
In media
Efforts to change sexual orientation have been depicted and discussed in popular culture and various media. More recent examples include: Boy Erased, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Book of Mormon musical, Ratched, and documentary features Pray Away, Homotherapy: A Religious Sickness.
Medical views
Main article: Medical views of conversion therapyNational health organizations around the world have uniformly denounced and criticized sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts. They state that there has been no scientific demonstration of "conversion therapy's" efficacy. They find that conversion therapy is ineffective, risky and can be harmful. Anecdotal claims of cures are counterbalanced by assertions of harm, and the American Psychiatric Association, for example, cautions ethical practitioners under the Hippocratic oath to do no harm and to refrain from attempts at conversion therapy. Furthermore, they state that conversion therapy is harmful and that it often exploits individual's guilt and anxiety, thereby damaging self-esteem and leading to depression and even suicide. There is also concern in the mental health community that the advancement of conversion therapy can cause social harm by disseminating inaccurate views about gender identity, sexual orientation, and the ability of LGBT people to lead happy, healthy lives. Various medical bodies prohibit their members from practicing conversion therapy.
See also
- Christianity and homosexuality
- Corrective rape
- Recovering from Religion
- Sexual orientation change efforts and the LDS Church
Notes
- not to be confused with the American Academy of Pediatrics
References
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Further reading
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