“ ‘Ex-Gays’: Religiously Mediated Change in Homosexuals” by E. Mansell Pattison and Myra Loy Pattison, The American Journal of Psychiatry, December 1980.
by Dr. Ralph Blair
The American Psychiatric Association’s scientific declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder did not prevent the publication of this article that views it as a sort of spiritual disorder. Here, in the APA journal, amid ads for antipsychotic drugs and antidepressants, is a homespun “Amen!” for the so-called ex-gay “cure”. (One author is a psychiatrist, but the other, his wife, is given no clinical/research identification.) Reporting on testimonies of 11 “ex-gays”, the Pattisons say that “these same healing elements” are present in other “folk healing” approaches in “cross-cultural healing methods”, perhaps involving “the spirit world”. Evangelical “ex-gay” advocates will find this interpretation unsatisfactory, contending that the “ex-gay” phenomenon is wrought by “The Holy Spirit”. The authors describe what can amount to at least a temporary placebo effect, complete with highly charged ideology and the necessary expectations for “cure”.
Splashy promises of psychopharmacological ads must be tempered with contraindications, warnings, precautions, and data on adverse reactions and over-dosage, albeit in fine print. But the closest the Pattisons come to such is to say that deciding which is best among the treatment options, e.g., folk healing (the “ex-gay” route), psychoanalysis, behavior therapy, or sex therapy, “is undetermined” (though elsewhere he concedes that secular therapies are ineffective with homosexuality). There is no mention of the adverse reactions to the overwhelming “ex-gay” failures – such as fostered guilt, feeling forsaken by God, and ultimate despair as the baby (faith) is thrown out with the dirty bath (the homophobic churches and their niggling Pharisees). What of the 270 people they admit sought and failed to achieve the “ex-gay” experience from the same self-help group? Why did only 11 men out of a mere 30 alleged “cures” finally g agree to cooperate with the Pattisons? The Pattisons do not explain why cooperation was not obtained from the presumably grateful remainder of 19. [An “ex-gay” leader carefully selected the agency’s “very best cases” for interviews with the Pattisons.] left the movement shortly thereafter and got into a gay relationship with another of the group’s leaders.]
The Pattisons’ acknowledged limitations in relying on retrospective data from men who “changed” at the time of life when Bell and Weinberg and other researchers have found that homosexuals marry or at least make their most serious attempt at heterosexual adjustment, are compounded by their naivete in believing that these men “did not attempt to distort their life experience” and in trusting so uncritically the corroboration of the “ex-gay” leaders. [That “ex-gay” leader who’d selected the interviewees left the movement shortly thereafter, divorced his wife and entered into a gay relationship with another of the group’s leaders.] As has been reported often, ex-“ex-gays” say that, as part of their former testimony, they lied and/or withheld information “for the good of the ‘ex-gay’ ministry” and in order to “keep from slipping back into homosexual sin”. The small sample size, especially in view of the many failures, is another methodological deficiency. The Pattisons use percentages in comparing their findings with those of others whose samples were much larger. This is misleading and statistically unacceptable. Another serious weakness is their misunderstanding of the research of others. Example: They report that Bell and Weinberg had a sample size of only 575 (in reality it was almost three times that) and that “all of the men were white” (in reality there were hundreds of blacks).
The Pattisons well define “ex-gay” as “a basic change in sexual orientation from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality” and say, correctly, that “suppression of behavior or involvement in heterosexual activity does not constitute a ‘cure’.” However, they then jettison this standard and promise and claim much that their data cannot substantiate and even make claims that their data contradict. There is a statistical discrepancy between text and a table misleadingly labeled “Characteristics of 11 Homosexuals Who Changed to Heterosexuality After Religious Participation”. On the contrary, what their data reveal is that only 3 of the 11 claim to have no current homosexual dreams, fantasies, or impulses and one of these 3 is listed as being still incidentally homosexual. Of the other 8 “cured” individuals, 3 are said to be suffering “neurotic conflict” over their continued “homosexual impulses”, even though 2 of these started out as more heterosexual than any of the other 9. Only 6 of the 11 “cured” ones have married and 2 of these are included with those suffering “neurotic conflict” over continued homosexuality that the Pattisons admit is more than incidental homosexuality. That only 6 have married is a telling fact since, for these Pentecostal Christians, one may have heterosexual intercourse (need have it!) only in marriage. Indeed, none of these men has fallen into premarital sexual activity with a woman. The authors rank one man as “exclusively heterosexual” after “change”, but he himself admits to continued homosexual fantasies. They say he changed from “exclusive homosexuality” even though he himself considered himself to be bisexual before “change”. The Pattisons disregard the self-identification of all 3 “bisexuals” and label them all “exclusively homosexual” before “change”. Of little worth is the authors’ observation that even after “change”, all the men are still effeminate. In an attempt to bolster their argument, the authors tout here-today-gone-tomorrow testimonies (ironically: an anonymous religious tract, a pseudonymous story of a self-defined “doubtful Christian” who admits to using gay fantasy in order to engage in infrequent sex with various women “to demonstrate my heterosexual prowess”, and the now invalidated book, The Third Sex?, by Kent Philpott).
Thus, close examination of the Pattisons’ own data reveals no real “cure” even by their own definition. Thankfully, though, for a few of these “incurables”, bitter disappointment can give way to acceptance of their homosexuality that can be channeled into Christian ways of meeting their natural homosexual/affectional intimacy needs.