Dr. Robert Spitzer Retracts 'Ex-Gay' Study and Apologizes to the LGBT Community

In 1973, Dr. Robert Spitzer led the charge to successfully have homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which is its list of mental disorders. This was a major victory and remains one the gay movement's signature achievements.

Given his stature and key role in declassifying gay people as sick, it was quite a surprise when Dr. Spitzer published a non-peer reviewed 2001 study in the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior that claimed some "highly motivated" gay people could become straight through prayer and therapy. The study said that some gay people could reach their "heterosexual potential."

When he announced his work at the 2001 APA meeting in New Orleans, it created a media sensation. An Associated Press story called his findings "explosive."

In 2012, Dr. Spitzer recanted in the American Prospect magazine. In a letter obtained by Truth Wins Out and sent to the Archives of Sexual Behavior, Dr. Spitzer asked that his study be retracted.

TWO went to Dr. Spitzer's home in Princeton, NJ and interviewed him. He not only repudiated his study, he also apologized to the LGBT community. He told anti-gay organizations -- such as NARTH, Focus on the Family, and the American College of Pediatricians to stop promoting his invalid study. He even told Parents and Friends of 'Ex-Gays' (PFOX) to take a video they have posted of Spitzer off their website.

With Dr. Spitzer's renunciation of his study, a crowning achievement in efforts to promote sexual conversion has been reduced to a crown of thorns. Now that Spitzer has revealed the truth, perhaps anti-gay and "ex-gay" organizations can begin to abandon the harmful practice of reparative therapy.

Background:

New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/hea...

Truth Wins Out
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012...

Rachel Maddow
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012...

Dan Gonzales
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOA9jP...

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[erictim69]

The reasons for removing homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses are;

Homosexuals show no signs of psychopathology.

Homosexuals who are content with their sexuality function in society efficiently

Homosexuals who are not content with their sexuality are so because of external pressure

Homosexuality has never been treatable, in the sense of changing their orientation

Homosexuals who are not content have responded to therapy helping them accept themselves. not an over night decision

[ImagineMediaCLK]

Thank you so much, Wayne. Posted and reposted.

[Reverend Timmy]

"Deep in my heart I do believe that we shall overcome the evil myth of heterosexual-supremacy!"

Surviving and thriving on Planet Heterosexual-Supremacy, Rev. Timmy is together in Love at first sight with Earl for 37 years, since 1976 - Two American men who married in Canada in 2003.

youtube.com/user/WeShallOverco­meMyth/Videos

survivingplanetheterosexual-su­premacy.blogspot.com/

[Benjamin Clark]

Thank heaven for Wayne Besen and TWO. The Ex-gay fraud has got to be exposed at every turn. It's not only an ex-gay fraud it is an industry that makes millions of dollars every year. The books, the so-called experts, etc. all make a lot of money off of the false hopes of millions of religious people who feel homosexuality is a major sin. Think of how many millions of people have placed their very lives on the altar of change and have literally lost their lives (suicide) in the process.

[Rickie Bartlett]

Good News For The Lgbt Community With Rickie Bartlett

[Marty McCorkle]

Perhaps religious bigotry will be recognized as a form of mental illness, considering how delusional and dangeous it repeatedly proves to be.

[toltschin]

Ultimately, positive impact will result as the age old story tellers (of age old untruthful stories) continue to be unmasked. The whys of Spitzer we'll never really know, his clarification action does help. Heterosexual's consider themselves superior (general, obviously not all) as a whole, their lack of definitive support is due to their lack of interest without regard to the reality of discrimination or how it would impact them.

[Jackson Yee sheng]

Thank you so much ! Please disseminate this information.

[jimtrueblue99]

I don't respect Mr. Spitzer in the least. He cobbled together a pseudo-study that even an undergraduate psych major would recognize as crap yet it took him fully eleven years to repudiate it. Incredible! He never studied anybody; he just listened to a few specially selected people claim without proof that somehow they were now not gay. He made no follow up; he never examined the likely bias in the selection; he never examined the supposed treatments for efficacy. Shame on him!

[jaijoedougwatt]

Spitzer knew his study was false well before he published it.

Now he wants to be exonerated from guilt. How will he apologize to all the dead gays who committed suicide because of the pray-away-the-gay programs he encouraged?

[GodsSonJasonJ]

I whole-heartedly believe a great majority of people know orientation cannot be changed. There is however, much money involved in the "change" lie so it's not going away anytime soon - sadly! jasonjdotbizDOTwordpressDOTcom