Stonewall Revisted

An email message was received from "AC" that challenges the notion that people who identify themselves as homosexual can experience real change in their personal lives.

To Whom it May Concern-

I am a practicing homosexual and I can honestly say that as long as I have understood being attracted to someone, and I was able to be, it has always been women. I feel that this site promotes the idea that homosexuals can change, but they can't. The therapy you speak of in your FAQ section has been proven to cause nothing but emotional problems; over all they are harmful. I would also like to point out that someone who is homosexual can deny it and repress thier feelings all they want, but that still makes them homosexual. As for your stories on God, I don't doubt they are true, but it is possible that those people were/are bisexual. There is a marked difference between the two. Bisexuals are attracted to both genders, so it wouldn't be a problem for them to enter into a heterosexual relationship. Homosexuals would just be miserable like that because it's not who they are.

I feel that whom ever put together this web page didn't get enough information on the subject and added in thier personal views on the subject. Why is it you can't just live and let live? I try doing research and I come across this telling me I can change if I accept Jesus. Well I can't and I have. I would suggest doing more research before making comments you can't back up. Thank you.

-AC

Dear AC,

Thank you for your inquiry and claim that we have not done our homework in addressing the possibility that homosexuals can change, which you reject.

Unfortunately, AC you have not done your home work. Even before the APA decided to remove homosexuality from the DSM-II as mental illness or treatable psychological condition, psychiatrists and psychologists had treated many men and women successfully who did not want to have same-sex sexual feelings and be involved in same-sex sexual behaviors. Therapists and psychiatrists like Charles Socarides, Irving Beiber, Anna Freud and many others had treated men and women successfully. It is true that not every person experienced change but according to statistics quoted by Dr. Jeffrey Satinover in his book, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (pg.185-186) the cumulative success rate of noticeable change was 52% with individual therapists experiencing anywhere from 27% to 100% success where success was defined as "considerable to complete" change.

In addition, the removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic Statistical Manual-II was not a decision grounded in broad based psychiatric research or case studies--It was a political decision plain and simple moved by the increasingly bold protests of "gay activists" in the early 70's. You can follow the changes in Roland Bayer's book, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 1987. Pp. 242].

In addition, professional journals and secular "pro-gay" periodicals like the Utne Reader, Off Our Backs, The Advocate and others all recognize that people have and do change. Here are just a few of the quotes:

Dr. Reuben Fine received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Southern California, is Director of the New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training and serves as a Visiting Professor at Adelphi University. He stated, "I have recently had occasion to review the results of psychotherapy with homosexuals, and been surprised by the findings. It is paradoxical that even though the politically active homosexual group denies the possibility of change, all studies from Schrenck- Notzing on have found positive effects, virtually regardless of the kind of treatment used..." [Reuben Fine, Psychoanalytic Theory, Male and Female Homosexuality: Psychological Approaches edited by Louis Diamant, (Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation, a subsidiary of Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., 1987), p. 84].

An editorial by Donna Minkowitz, The Advocate, December 29, 1992 (The Advocate is a gay publication) notes: "Remember that most of the line about homosex [sic] being one's nature, not a choice, was articulated as a response to brutal repression. 'It's not our fault!' gay activists began to declaim a century ago, when queers first began to organize in Germany and England. 'We didn't choose this, so don't punish us for it!' One hundred years later, it's time for us to abandon this defensive posture and walk upright on the earth. Maybe you didn't choose to be gay - that's fine. But I did."

In an Utne Reader article (September/October 2000) entitled "A Different Kind of Queer Marriage" by Linda Markowitz she writes: "For years, lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals repeated like wind-up dolls: 'Love is love, no matter what body it comes in, and we deserve equal rights.' But the new 'fluidity' of sexual identity leaves us in a state of linguistic confusion. Should an out, gay man who turns around and marries a woman continue to call himself gay? Should an out lesbian who turns around and marries a man continue to call herself a lesbian? This new breed of queer people struggle with what to call themselves, and the gay and lesbian community has strong reactions, no matter what label they end up taking on. As Sabrina Margarita Alcantara-Tan writes of her own shift from kick- ass queer to married-to-a-man in Bamboo Girl (No. 8, 1999), "What does this mean? Am I still queer?"

Markowitz continues, "As psychotherapist Bret Johnson explains in "In the Family" (July 1998), gays and lesbians often go through a second coming out, from lesbian or gay to bisexual—sometimes decades after their first coming out. "Back in the 1960s and 1970s, coming out meant making a break from heterosexuality," he writes. "But in the late 1990s, we are witnessing a break from gayness and lesbianism."

But, he adds, "the new wave of coming out almost looks like going back in. . . .It’s as if we’re seeing a challenge to the old, modernist way of thinking 'This is who I am, period' and a movement toward a postmodern version, 'This is who I am right now.' "

In another Utne Reader article (March 2001) entitled "Out Early" by Andy Steine, he notes: "They're (teens) also learning that sexual identity can be fluid. To many young people, if a person says she's a lesbian and then later decides she wants to see men, too, that's OK," explains Mariner. "It's not so absolute. On college campuses we're starting to hear the terms queer or genderqueer. This means rejecting the labels of male and female. If you erase those lines, then the whole thing changes."

There is also the case of Amy Tracy, the former NOW national press secretary, who changed after becoming a Christian. You can read her story in Christianity Today (see web) and do a search for Amy Tracy. The article is by Frederica Mathews- Green and is entitled, "Chasing Amy: God intervened in a NOW activist's unlikely conversion."

AC you can continue to maintain that change is not possible but you are mistaken. You may not want to change and that is your decision. Or, you may have tried to change and not found that to be helpful and so you became either discouraged or skeptical. However, there are many others who wish to change and there is evidence enough from secular sources--both "same-sex sexual advocates," Christian ministries and secular therapists--who all recognize that people can change.

In a symposium last year at George Washington University Law School, Chai Feldblum, a gay activist and law professor at Georgetown Law Center, noted: "If your worldview is different, as in fact is my worldview -- which is that sexuality is a wonderful thing and can best be expressed with a person of the same gender -- that is the reality for the individual," she said. "So it all depends on the initial world view of sexuality."

It is a cop-out to say that anyone who changes is really a "bi-sexual" to begin with. But, if you want to tell someone else what their "sexual orientation" really is, go right ahead.

AC, we have done our home work and we have researched the information available. People can change and have changed. But the road to change is neither short nor easy. It is not only based on the help available but also on the strength of individual's desire and ongoing commitment to change. Please recognize that we do not speak about "cure" but of change.

It is totally unrealistic to assume that a person who has had persistent same-sex sexual feelings or been involved in same-sex sexual behavior over a long period of time will never experience such attractions again. Change does not mean the cessation of certain feelings but a diminishing of those feelings and a change in personal behavior. It is as unrealistic to expect this as it is to expect that an alcoholic or sex addict will never "feel" the feelings to act out inappropriately again. The Scriptures do not say we will never be tempted again but explain the origin of the temptation (James 1:12-18) and how we can avoid falling into sin (inappropriate behavior).

If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to write.

We wish you well.

Sincerely,
Steve
Stonewall Revisited

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