U.K. Medical Organization Condemns Anti-Gay ’Therapy’
0Not only should Britain's health system refuse to fund "discredited" attempts to "cure" gays, says the British Medical Association, but instances in which government funds went for attempts to "convert" gays should also be investigated, reports the British Medical Journal in a July 1 article.
"This isn't about therapy designed to help reconcile people to their sexuality, which is laudable and appropriate," said the BMA's Tom Dolphin. "I'm talking about therapy aimed at changing that sexual orientation.
"Conversion therapy does not work, and can be actively harmful," Dolphin continued. "Sexual orientation is such a fundamental part of who someone is that to attempt to change it will just result in significant conflict and depression, and even sometimes suicide."
Britain declassified homosexuality as a mental illness in 1994, two decades after American mental health experts ceased to view gays as suffering from some sort of pathology. But a survey undertaken last year in Britain showed that a sixth of mental health professionals had attempted to "cure" gays, reported PinkNews.com on July 2. Nearly half--40%--of those cases involved money from the National Health Service.
Dolphin proposed a motion for the professional medical organization to urge Britain's medical establishment to ban so-called "reparative therapy," Pink News reported. "You can't just wish away same-sex attraction no matter how inconvenient it might be," said Dolphin.
Clinical neurophysiologist Gareth Payne took issue with the motion. "This motion makes the classic error of interpreting absence of evidence as evidence of absence," he declared, going on to ask, "when faced with a patient expressing a clear preference for changing their sexual orientation, then surely we as clinicians should respect their right to self-determination?"
Pink News cited a recent expose in which British journalist Patrick Strudwick posed as a gay man struggling to alter his innate sexuality. Strudwick launched his investigation after hearing an address in London by an American proponent of "conversion therapy," Dr. Joseph Nicolosi. In a Feb. 2 article on Strudwick's expose, Pink News.com noted that Nicolosi is the founder of the American National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). The article also noted that general practitioners were referring patients to practitioners of "reparative therapy" on the taxpayers' tab.
Strudwick was told by one practitioner of "conversion therapy" that he was probably gay due to having been sexually assaulted early in his life. The same practitioner told him that HIV could be cured through prayer.
Strudwick detailed his experiences in an article published by U.K. newspaper The Independent on Feb. 1.
In the article, Strudwick wrote that British practitioners of so-called "conversion therapy" were, "with the help of the American conversion therapy movement... becoming coordinated and unified. They plan to gain credibility, university backing and government funding. In some cases, the NHS is even paying for the treatment" at the present time, Strudwick reported.
"This is despite the fact that homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual--psychiatry's glossary of conditions--36 years ago. And despite much evidence that such practices are damaging and ineffective," added the journalist.
Strudwick describes hearing Nicolosi speak to a room full of "subdued" men in a facility secured by "hulking security guards." Nicolosi's explanation for homosexuality bears no relation to current medical research into the question, which indicates that brain structure, in-utero fetal development, and genetics may all play a role. Rather, Nicolosi tells his followers that gays are the inevitable result of fathers not being involved enough in the lives of their children--with mothers taking on too much of the father's role. "We advise fathers, 'If you don't hug your sons, some other man will.' We train the mothers to back off," the article quotes Nicolosi as saying.