Psychiatrist requests retraction of controversial ‘gay cure’ study

Dr Robert Spitzer has said he would like to retract a study he conducted on the result of ‘gay cure’ therapy which has been used to claim that some gay people are able to turn straight.

In 2001, Dr Spitzer presented the controversial paper “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation? 200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation”, a study which looked at those who attended gay ‘cure’ therapy.

The American Psychological Association distanced itself from the study, which said 66% of the men and 44% of the women Spitzer spoke to had achieved “good heterosexual functioning” after seeking therapy for their sexual orientation.

To meet the required standard of “heterosexual functioning”, Dr Spitzer, who was himself instrumental in declassifying homosexuality as a disorder in the US in 1973, measured them against five criteria.

Former patients needed to be in a loving heterosexual relationship during the last year, have overall satisfaction in emotional relationship with a partner, have heterosexual sex a few times a month, achieve physical satisfaction through heterosexual sex, and not think about another person of their sex more than 15% of the time they were sleeping with an opposite sex partner. Read More