Straight Spouse Connection

Emotional Damage of Reparative Therapy: One Man's Story

    My interest in exposing the dangers of reparative therapy grows from my experience as a straight spouse.  If gay people were allowed to be open about their sexual orientation, and if society accepted them as they were born to be, they would not be forced into the closet.  There would be no mixed-orientation marriages.  Gay or straight, people could live their lives authentically. 

    My previous post on reparative therapy brought a slew of comments and emails, some from people who were subjected to this wrong-headed approach.  These are the real experts on its long-term damage.  One of these emails came from Dr. Jerry Bigner, a professional in the field of psychology who specializes in GLBT issues and has written widely on these subjects.  He also was a recipient of reparative therapy as an adolescent.  Here is his story, used here with his permission.

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    Reparative therapy is evil in that it represents another institutionalized form of heterosexism and homophobia that is used as a tool to oppress GLBT people. The name itself shouts that we are desperately flawed as humans, and that one facet of our personalities makes us in desperate need of repair in order to be OK. Now, as we come to terms with the ill-gained outcomes of this unethical therapeutic tool, we will hopefully see the end of marriages that take place to facilitate the reparative message, the production of children who are completely innocent victims of this process, and the deep emotional wounds that are experienced by all who are affected when gay and lesbian people attempt or are coerced to deny their basic nature.  

      I experienced a form of reparative therapy after being forced to admit to my father that I was gay in 1959 when I was a young adolescent. At the time, homosexuality was considered to be a medical mental illness and held an official designation as such in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Manual. Because he was hesitant to share this revelation with our minister, he turned to the local psychiatrist to help him “straighten me out.” Unlike many other unfortunate people in a similar position, I was never subjected to being shocked while viewing naked male bodies, given shock treatments, or other incredibly harsh treatments. Instead, the message was driven deeply into my psyche that I would never be OK as an openly gay man, I would always be unloved, I could never hold a decent job, I would die lonely and alone, I could never be happy and have a normal life like everyone else, and so on. I knew at the time how I felt about being attracted to males, I liked it, it felt good, and I deeply resented the efforts being made to take these feelings away from me and to convince me that they were wrong. When you put these two psychological events together, the result became accepting my gay feelings while acknowledging the reality that to survive in that family and in this society, I would need to learn to pass as heterosexual. And so, I worked very hard to do just that.

      I learned how to date girls, how to swagger like the other guys, but to honor my feelings secretly and on the sly. I don’t think I’ll ever know how good I became as an actor but it was good enough to help me become a member of a fraternity in college and to eventually hold several important offices such as president. My father engineered my marriage to a woman I came to love very much in my last years of college, and in this union there were three beautiful children who were produced. However, I was never completely happy and this became evident in a number of ways.

      My depression deepened as I considered the hole I believed I had dug myself into and had been forced upon me. What sprung me from this emotional black hole was the death of my father. Interestingly, his death coincided with my mid-life transition experiences. These are the developmental events that lead one to question the direction that life has been taking, the veritable meaning of life itself, and what it will take to make one happy—finally. Additionally, the AIDS epidemic was surfacing (the time now was in the early 1980s), and I was frightened for myself as well as for my family in being exposed to this fatal disease. However, it was obvious that I could and should finally act to stop the charade and learn to be authentic. I would soon find the price that this would exact on myself and others. 

      While I don’t have the time or space to go into sufficient detail here, I came out to my wife and eventually to my children. We went through all the emotional ups and downs that Carol describes in her text; we went through a divorce that has taken years to reconcile; I was spurred into a new area of research (I was a college professor in human development and family studies); and all of us in my immediate family have had to build new identities and new lives.  

      I don’t know if I will ever have the full insight about what my life would have become or how it would have unfolded had I not experienced that form of reparative therapy when I was young. I do know now that I could become a parent if I wanted to and that I could be in a loving, committed relationship with another man. I didn’t know that then, however; and so there are no regrets except for the hurt that was caused to my ex-wife and to my children. I have made my amends, but I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive my family of origin. I am one of the lucky ones who have had many people who have loved me as I am; I have found a sense of family in many others to whom I have no blood relationship for I have learned that we are seldom born into our true families. I only hope that others in the future will not have to experience what the closeted married gay men and women of today have had at the hands of reparative therapy and a culture that endorses homophobic and heterosexist attitudes about gay and lesbian people.

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    Jerry's moving account demonstrates the anguish of both the gay and straight partners in mixed-orientation families.  Everyone connected to these families suffers when the truth comes out--parents, offspring, extended family and friends.  The repeated rejection of reparative therapy by the American Psychological Association is one more indication that society is finally realizing the folly of trying to change a person's inborn sexual orientation.

Reparative Therapy Debunked--Again

    “Reparative Therapy”:  The attempt to change a person’s innate sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual.  The term suggests that something is sick or broken and needs to be cured or fixed.  Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the erroneous belief persists that “reparative therapy” can actually work.  Instead, it causes harm to everyone involved.  A comment from this blog, quoted with permission, gives just one example.

    I was married for 18 years. . . . I got pregnant 3 months after we got married and all the sex stopped as soon as I got home with the baby. . . . I couldn’t do anything right . . . A negative and hateful monster began and he is still in denial, even after being caught at gay parks and bringing a strange man to our home.  We've had counseling from a place in Nashville that insisted he could be cured and it [homosexuality] was a choice.  Even a PhD that has been on Dateline and has [written] books told me so.  It’s been a nightmare.  He threw our family away for "friendships" all through the years, telling me I was crazy for not wanting him to have friends.  Everything was my fault--everything. . . . These men in denial are wrecks and mad at the world, taking it out on all who enter their paths.  

The woman quoted here speaks of suffering from two sources:  Denial on the part of her husband that he is actually homosexual, and the failure of reparative therapy to change that fundamental fact.  Sexual orientation is inborn, not learned nor chosen.  And it can’t be changed by any means.  Those who claim they’ve been “cured” of their attraction to the same sex have either chosen or been forced to suppress their own sexuality.

    Organizations like Focus on the Family and Exodus International claim to “cure” people who “choose” to be gay.  Their arguments are based on two false assumptions: That being gay is a mental illness, and that sexual orientation is a conscious choice.  Those assumptions have been rejected by creditable therapists, united in one voice through their professional organizations. 

    As early as 1973, the American Psychiatric Association eliminated homosexuality from their official manual of mental and emotional disorders.  Two years later, in 1975, the American Psychological Association supported that action.  In 1990, that organization made a direct statement about reparative therapy, concluding that efforts to convert sexual orientation are unsuccessful and do great psychological harm.

    Now, once again, the American Psychological Association has reviews the issue.  At their annual meeting in Toronto earlier this month, they issued the strongest rejection yet of the efficacy of reparative therapy.  A six-member task force examined 83 studies on attempts to change sexual orientation conducted since 1960.  Their report repudiated reparative therapy and was endorsed by the APA’s governing council for the 150,000-member association.  They adopted a resolution, passed with a 125 to 4 vote, asserting that no evidence exists that homosexual people can become heterosexual.  Moreover, efforts to force change in sexual orientation is harmful, inducing depression and suicidal tendencies.   

    This latest resolution strengthens previous APA statements on this divisive issue with guidance on how therapists should approach gay clients struggling to remain faithful to a religion that condemns homosexuality.  The task force suggested that therapists might transcend negative beliefs about homosexuality through reliance on overriding principles of religious teachings, such as hope and forgiveness.  Instead of offering extreme, detrimental treatments that attempt to change an individual’s sexual orientation, therapists should help people explore their realistic options—ranging from celibacy to changing churches.   

    Task force chair, Judith Glassgold, a psychologist from Highland Park, New Jersey, suggested that “Both sides have to educate themselves better.  Religious psychotherapists have to open up their eyes to the potential positive aspects of being gay or lesbian.  Secular therapists have to recognize that some people will choose their faith over their sexuality.” 

    Being gay or being straight is not a choice.  How we live out our personal reality does offer a variety of options—acceptance or denial, openness or repression.  Based on my contact with hundreds of straight spouses who also must live with the results of their mate’s hard choices, I cast my own vote for the freedom borne of open acceptance of who we are—gay or straight or anywhere in between.  Live your truth!