Gay 'cures' don't work but banning them helps nobody

Therapies that claim to make gay people straight are hateful and dangerous, but banning them won't win over their supporters

CAN therapy make gay people straight? It might seem strange to ask that question in this day and age, but reparative (or conversion) therapy is back in the news. Last month the governor of California Jerry Brown signed legislation banning reparative therapy for minors. Within days, Christian legal group, the Pacific Justice Institute, sued to stop its implementation, on the grounds of both freedom of speech and intrusion of privacy into relationships between therapists and families.

Reparative therapy is used primarily in conservative religious communities where homosexual behaviour is considered a sin. It is based on the flawed assumption that homosexuality is a mental disorder - a position that was comprehensively rejected by mainstream psychiatry in 1973.

So it may seem that California's ban is a good thing. Not necessarily. The case raises important questions about the role of government in promoting equality for repressed minorities.

First, let me be clear that I am not defending reparative therapy. Far from it. The American Psychological Association has warned that it is at best useless, and at worst potentially harmful, stigmatising unchangeable sexual orientation. Studies cited by the APA suggest the therapy may lead to anxiety, depression and raised suicide risk in some people.

The main evidence in favour of reparative therapy came from a 2003 report published in Archives of Sexual Behavior (vol 32, p 403) by Robert Spitzer of the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He reported that some participants self-identified as heterosexual after therapy. However, the study did not look at actual sexual inclinations or erotic fantasies, and the sample consisted mainly of religious conservatives eager to identify as heterosexual. Spitzer's study was subjected to severe criticism and Spitzer himself disavowed it in 2012, apologising to the gay community.

Put simply, current evidence suggests that reparative therapy is useless or even dangerous. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that it should be banned.

First, it is worth noting that many forms of psychotherapy are harmful. In a classic report in Perspectives on Psychological Science (vol 2, p 53) Scott Lilienfeld of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, details a number of therapies which evidence suggests are harmful. These include well-known lemons such as rebirthing therapy, recovered memory therapy and facilitated communication, which supposedly allows children with severe developmental disorders to communicate.

But they also include mainstream approaches such as boot camps for youths with conduct problems, Drug Abuse and Resistance Education (DARE) and Scared Straight, which aims to frighten adolescents away from a life of crime by exposing them to prison. If the intent of California's ban is to eliminate potentially harmful therapies, why not ban these too? Of the harmful therapies enumerated by Lilienfeld, only rebirthing has been banned, and only in two states. Even the lobotomy is not banned in the US. Boot camps and DARE programmes are mandated by the justice system or schools for some children. As such, their potential negative impact is just as great as for reparative therapy.

Of course the issue of reparative therapy fits with a broader narrative of gay rights and the truculence of religious conservatives in acknowledging equality for homosexuals. Perhaps reparative therapy simply seems more hateful and thus is particularly distasteful. But programmes such as Scared Straight and boot camps are aimed at adolescents and are arguably just as hateful - as sociologist Mike Males of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco notes, adolescents tend to be a perennial societal punching bag.

Though reparative therapy may indeed be an awful thing, I'm not convinced government regulation is the best way to address it. The heart of this issue is some people's stubbornness to accept the fact that consenting adults lead sexual lifestyles different from their own. I doubt that regulation will address this fundamental problem. It could even backfire, further convincing religious conservatives that they are under fire from an increasingly secular and liberalised culture. It seems unlikely that families and therapists who have not listened to the APA's warnings about reparative therapy are now going to be swayed by the state of California.

On a broader level, I believe government must be careful when tackling social issues, especially when using social science data. Spitzer's study is perhaps a case in point, but increasingly in this field we acknowledge we have a problem with flexible methodology, meaning that our data analysis procedures are so wishy-washy, it's possible to "prove" anything.

Consensus at any point in time is largely irrelevant. Today's scientific sure thing is tomorrow's junk science. That was evident during last year's US Supreme Court case when an attempt by California (again) to ban violent video game sales to minors was struck down, in part because the scientific case had unravelled. Ten years ago scholars were sure violent video games caused aggression; it is increasingly clear the evidence never was there. I doubt reparative therapy will ever be similarly redeemed, but I do worry when social science becomes the basis for policy.

Gay men and women have benefited from a general liberalisation of our culture. I don't believe this is something that can be enforced through legislation, though. The drive to ban reparative therapy is understandable, but apart for the symbolic victory, I worry it won't have the intended effect.

Christopher J. Ferguson is an associate professor of psychology and criminal justice at Texas A&M International University in Laredo

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