Dr. Robert Spitzer’s study of 200 self-identified former homosexuals is back in the news.
The Archives of Sexual Behavior, the official journal of the International Academy of Sex Research, published it, along with 26 peer reviews and a response from Dr. Spitzer, in its October issue. Titled “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation? 200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation” (abstract), it has garnered fresh attention from Focus on the Family, Exodus International (as noted earlier on XGW), and NARTH.
(ReligiousTolerance.org offered a thoughtful analysis after the study was first published in May 2001, prior to peer review.)
With the articles in hand, Ex-Gay Watch will analyze it in pieces. Today, we will look at the reason cited by Dr. Spitzer for undertaking the study and the objective it achieved.
From the abstract that introduces the study:
Position statements of the major mental health organizations in the United States state that there is no scientific evidence that a homosexual sexual orientation can be changed by psychotherapy, often referred to as “reparative therapy.” This study tested the hypothesis that some individuals whose sexual orientation is predominantly homosexual can, with some form of reparative therapy, become predominantly heterosexual.
Under the heading “Clarifying the Research Question” in his reply to the peer reviews, Spitzer notes:
When I started the study and told colleagues about it, I was greeted with anger and disbelief that I would be so foolish as to believe what ex-gays said about themselves.
To which he later adds:
The basic assumption of the study is that research on the possible benefit of reorientation therapy must begin with listening to what ex-gays say about how they believe they have changed.
This is an essential point. Other researchers have studied ex-gays, listening to their self-reports of change, but by and large have worked with folks who were either unsatisfied with the extent of change they had achieved or used methods which discounted the participants’ self-reports. The results have been at odds with self-reports of ex-gay ministries and NARTH (which cites anecdotal evidence but has not conducted structured studies and submitted them for peer review).
With ex-gay advocates like Exodus and NARTH boasting thousands of successful, contented former homosexuals yet unable or unwilling to produce anything other than anecdotal evidence of them, Spitzer set a microscopic target: Use structured methods to study self-identified ex-gays.
Donald Strassberg, Ph.D., from the University of Utah Department of Psychology, described the study this way in his peer review:
Spitzer is to be congratulated on trying to “light a candle” rather than continuing to “curse the darkness” when it comes to trying to understand what happens as a result of reparative therapy.
It’s not hard to see the problems with choosing a result (ex-gay success) and working backwords from it (looking for common characteristics among ex-gays) using limited-scope (45 minute) phone interviews which gather unverified self-reports. As Strassberg put it:
Although Spitzer made some laudable methodological improvements in his approach to an important research question, the design of his survey does not really put it into the category of “scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of reparative therapy” for which so many seem to be looking.
But, in testing his hypothesis — that some predominantly homosexual folks can, with some sort of support, adopt predominantly heterosexual identity and functioning — Spitzer focused on the change without examining the therapy. It was not a “does reparative therapy work?” study, or even a “what is reparative therapy?” study. It was a “what does self-reported change look like?” study.
It was a micro-sized target, a starting point.
Coming in future installments: Where did the peer reviewers find value and find fault in the study? How do well-known ex-gay leaders compare to the profile of the study subjects? What did reviewers infer from the study size and participant selection criteria? How many of the 26 reviews echoed Joseph Nicolosi’s appreciative review?
Have you checked out Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian? They’re at https://www.bettybowers.com
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry.
Although I appreciate the idea that Spitzer was trying to at least begin a scientific approach to assessing whether ex-gay reports are valid or not, unfortunately his work has been misappropriated, misused and misanalyzed to continue the defamation of all gay and lesbian people.
What is also interesting is that the media, which picked up on Spitzer’s initial announcement in 2001, failed utterly to give equal time to another study, which did attempt to answer the question “does ‘reparative therapy’ work?” That was the work by Shidlo and Schroeder, presented on the same day at the same panel as Spitzer’s. In that far more scientifically sound study (following for 5 years a cross-section of gay people who expressed a desire to change, and assessing them by standard psychological tests at regular intervals) the resounding failure of this “treatment” was clear (97% failure rate, with the subjects worse of psychologically after treatment than before). Yet the media either failed to mention this study (which passed peer review and was published within a few months of the 2001 convention) when discussing Spitzer’s or presented the two as equally scientific studies looking at the same question. So much for liberal media bias.
I applaud him for trying to answer the question can orientation be changed. However with odds like that, I think there is more weight to the theory that it can not be change than it can. Not to mention the problems of using highly motivated people (Did they really change or are they deceiving the tester or themselves?).It is amazing how strong things like the placebo effect and the self-fulfilling prophecy can be. I would have a lot more respect for the survey if he had selected the members at random himself and compared them to people who where not actively trying to change their sexuality.
My own experience is that once in a blue moon a person finds a suitable opposite sexed person despite the attraction. I tend to take the view that being totally homosexual (finding no one of the opposite gender in any way shape or form attractive) or totally heterosexual (finding no one of the same gender in any way shape or form) are probably impossibilities. If that were true there would probably be a lot less homosexual activity in prisons.
That being said, the odds of finding a reasonably attractive member of the opposite sex are greatly reduced when you don’t generally find members of the opposite sex, attractive to begin with! And, the odds of waiting on that person are greatly reduced when you find members of your own gender both attractive and available.
Well, the odds of my landing Hugh Jackman are about nil, so there goes that idea.
LoL..or mine of Brad Pitt!
I read about this “study” when it first came out. I’m amazed that Spitzer could get it published anywhere. From the methodology that he reportedly used, it certainly wasn’t scientific in any sense of the word.
Two problems, off the top of my head.
One,how is it known he actually interviewed 200 different people? It could have been a small group of ten who changed voices and accents to fill various roles.
Two, what evidence beyond self report is there that these people ever were gay to begin with? Did they actually live for an extended period as an adult in the gay world? Who knows.
The “self-report” aspect is one of the flawed methodologies employed. All of it can be questioned, including the fact that many of those interviewed are paid employees or volunteers of ex-gay ministries. I know a lot of people involved in these enterprises, and most of them talked with Spitzer — and that info comes from those people, who told me so.
Natalie is correct, the sample was largely made up of people who worked for, or were public “success” cases of ex-gay programs, and that actually was why Spitzer chose them – he wanted to see if it were ever possible to change sexual orientation – basically he was looking for a miracle.
In addition, less than half the sample had been exclusively homosexual before enrolling in the ex-gay program, and a good percentage (like 20% maybe) had never had a homosexual experience at all. Clearly not a random sample of gay people.
The issue of self-report was also in Shidlo and Schroeder’s work (you can measure sexual arousal using the same type of measurements as used in polygraph tests, but I am not aware of a systematic attempt by any researcher to assess ex-gay programs that way), but because they were dealing with a random sample, a long time frame and because they have the more objective measure of “in therapy or not” their results would be considered more “robust.”
The flaw is in this sentence:
The participants were 200 self-selected individuals (143 males, 57 females) who reported at least some minimal change from homosexual to heterosexual orientation that lasted at least 5 years.
A self-selected sample is simply not valid. This is why web polls are labelled as “unscientific”. Self-assessment can be gotten around by good survey techniques (since I have only seen the abstract I cannot assess if this was OK), but self-selection cannot.
If you want to look at a subgroup you need to cull it out of a random sample. This sample is motivated to answer in a particular way, making the results suspect at best, and invalid at worst.
Still and all, I think it’s good that he started out with the assumption that ex-gays actually know themselves better than he or anyone else does. Perhaps more scientists will give gays and bisexuals the same courtesy.
Public Radio’s This American Life is rebroadcasting its program “81 Words,” the story of how “homosexuality” got to be deleted from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic And Statistics Manual (“DSM”). An interesting program. They had an interview with Irving Biber’s wife and with Charles Sacarides. It becomes clear that these people (Biber and Sacarides) were very–I hate to say it–sick.
In many ways, much like conservative christians.
And remember, Socarides’ son was the gay and lesbian liason in the Clinton White House. If the leading authority on the “treatment” of homosexuality, who has publically stated that a good parent can ensure their child does not end up gay, has a gay son himself, why exactly should we trust him?
I agree that Dr. Spitzer should be commended for attempting to further understand reparative therapy claims. However, his flawed poll of ex-gay promoters falls short of answering his study’s title, “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation?”. If anything, his poll creates more disinformation and confusion due to its lack of credibility.
In his new book, “Anything But Straight”, Wayne Besen says he warned Dr. Spitzer, on behalf of HRC, to avoid many of the credibility problems that are now evident in his “study”. Spitzer was specifically warned not to use paid ex-gay promoters, to obtain evidence through lie detector or penile plethysmograph, to verify the mental competency of his subjects, and to not include individuals who may be considered bisexual. For whatever reason, Dr. Spitzer chose to ignore HRC’s advice.
Besen further points out how unremarkable the study’s results are considering how ex-gay promoters stacked the deck with professional ex-gays. Although anti-gay groups claim thousands have changed, only 200 ex-gays were in the study and many of these were paid ex-gays. Even these among these successful ex-gays, only 17% of ex-gay men claimed complete change.
Exactly Norman – I knew Spitzer’s study and methodology were flawed, but I had no idea how much. If you have not read “Anything But Straight” you should. It is a pretty sad account of the deception, the psuedo-science, the politics behind so-called “ex-gays.” I think Besen displays his own lack of objectivity (but is that so surprising), nonetheless his hard data and facts speak for themselves.
Interestingly, Spitzer didn’t have anything nice to say about Wayne when I spoke to him right after the study’s release. But he did corroborate that Wayne had indeed spoken with him about methodology early on. Personally — and this is purely speculation — I think all Spitzer could find were largely paid exgays, so that’s what he went with. This I know: A few of the people I know who took part in the study told me that they helped in recruitment by vouching for Spitzer so that their colleagues felt comfortable about participating. Which makes the whole thing even less credible, IMO.
I appreciate what Spitzer set out to do at the outset. Sadly, the end result doesn’t achieve that in any meaningful way. And now, it seems he’s being used as a pRR tool, which is even worse.
You know, it isn’t too late: If the Spitzer study is still getting attention, why not promote the Shidlo/Schroeder study? I interviewed them too, around the same time I spoke with Spitzer (for a long-ago piece in Mademoiselle), and as you say, their findings are much more “robust.” Michael, you might consider interviewing them for XGW… (hint, hint)