Groups slam study saying gays can become straight

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Gay advocacy groups are sharply criticizing a study suggesting some gay people can become straight if they work at it.

Dr. Robert Spitzer, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University in New York, presented his findings Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. Spitzer conducted 45-minute telephone interviews with 200 people, 143 of them men, who claimed they had changed their sexual orientation from gay to straight.

MESSAGE BOARD Gay rights   TRANSCRIPTS Read the transcript of CNN's interview with Dr. Robert Spitzer Human Rights Campaign's David Smith: Gay study "unscientific"

"Many of these people that I studied, I studied over 200, were never gay in the sense of being comfortable with their homosexual feelings. ... Most of them did not actually choose to be openly gay," Spitzer said on CNN "Live at Daybreak."

"Some have been, but most were never comfortable with their homosexual feelings and through a variety of change efforts, some with standard psychotherapy, some in ex-gay ministries, over many years, and usually a very gradual process, they did change their sexual feelings," he said.

He added, "They didn't all change completely, in fact a relatively small number changed completely, but they did change substantially."

Gay and lesbian advocacy groups contend the study is flawed.

"Spitzer's conclusions are based on a self-selected sample of people who are so troubled by their sexual orientation that they will go to any lengths to attempt to 'change' it" said Joan M. Garry, executive director of Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. "Spitzer defines them as 'highly motivated' and that's not surprising. These are people who live in a world in which gays, lesbians and bisexuals are treated like second-class citizens."

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force spokesman Jason Riggs called Spitzer's sample skewed.

"One of the problems with Dr. Spitzer's sample is that more than half of the people that he got to study were referred through ex-gay ministries," Riggs said. "It's not a surprise that an ex-gay ministry isn't going to turn over people who have dropped out of ex-gay therapy to a person doing study."

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American Psychiatric Association
National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)

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