5 posts tagged “warning: science content”

I've spent a lot of energy lately ripping into Randy Thomas, which is unfair, I suppose--unfair to the other ex-gays on Vox who need a ripping-into!

Take Mike Ensley, for example. (Why do these people use their full names on the Internet??  Haven't they been watching NBC catch predators????)  Mike tells us in this post that he is upset because people have been "misrepresenting" Exodus.  We're sorry about that, Mike, really.  But nevermind, that isn't really the focus of the article.

The main thrust (sorry, couldn't help myself) of the post is that Mike believes gays exist:

I think these words [gay and homosexual] are largely understood in our culture to mean more than just a person’s attractions. The popular idea of what it is to be gay is not only to be attracted to the same sex, but to be made and meant for homosexual relationships, to be destined to find happiness and true love only there. It’s more than how you feel or what you do; it’s who you are. If that is what our society means when using this word, then no, I don’t believe anyone is truly gay.

Except, of course, that's what (almost) everyone outside of Exodus means when they say gay, including at least 99.8% of gay people, is exactly what Mike has just described he does not believe.  Thanks for, uh, being totally clear there.

He goes on to state:

Other than the experience of these feelings [gay feelings], there is nothing else about those of us with SSA (biology, etc.) that would distinguish us from the rest of humanity. We aren’t a separate creature....

Mike is apparently trying to make my life easy, and has conveniently included the word "biology" in this sentence.  Let's look at biology, shall we?  There's one study here that straight and gay men's brains respond differently when exposed to testosterone (that's a male sex hormone, for those of you un-science types out there).  Fortunately, the authors of this write up also addressed biology by name:

Sandra Witelson, an expert on brain anatomy and sexual orientation..., who was not part of the research team, said the findings clearly show a biological involvement in sexual orientation.

Or how about this study which describes a correlation between which X chromosome a woman's body has deactivated and how many gay sons she has?  Or this one, where the change in a single gene is enough to make a female fruit fly court other females with the courtship ritual most often performed by males?  Or what about this one, which showed systematic differences in brain structure in sheep that mate with their own sex?  And then there's this one (slightly more technical, sorry), where men and women, gay and straight are shown to rate the attractiveness of faces similarly, but there are stark differences in the processing of value judgments of the faces based on orientation (i.e., male faces are given special recognition by straight women and gay men--maybe this explains why I have so much trouble remembering women's faces!).  On the right-hand side of that page you'll notice 10 links to other articles about gays and biology not detailed here.

My current favorite, however, is this one.  Scientists exposed folks to a nudie picture of either a male or a female which was obscured by random noise, and then displayed a second image (a pattern).  Subjects were asked to determine the orientation (clockwise or counterclockwise, not gay or straight) of the pattern.  Scores were higher when the pattern appeared in the same location on the screen as the erotic image had, which is essentially what the researchers had predicted--that although the image was not consciously registering, the brain still perceived it.  What they had not anticipated, however, was that gay men did far better when the image was of a nude male, and straight men far better when the image was a nude female.

And so once again we've run headlong into the problem with ex-gay arguments: they just don't make a damned bit of sense, and apparently have no basis in reality whatsoever.

Update!
Maureen, in a comment on Mike's post, says what has to be one of the truest and most hilarious things ever said by their ilk: "I'm as bewildered by SSA as I am as to how the picture gets from Hollywood to my TV screen. Even pictures don't help." I guess Maureen doesn't know the power of gay pornography (note: link does not go to porn).

Randy Thomas today talks at length in a comments thread on his blog about how to block "trolls or nuisance commentors [sic] [or gays]" from commenting on one's blog.  You just click a picture, and, apparently, "BOOM!  Done.  Their whole presence disappears from your blog; every comment, every private message ... like a vapor!"  I don't know how he knows it's like vapor, though.  Seems to me like it might have more to do with shuffling electrons around, and maybe magnetic bits on a hard drive somewhere (silly science!).  And of course there is nothing to make disappear if you ban someone who has never commented on your blog or had any contact with you whatsoever. He totally fails to mention that. Randy also claims he's only ever used this feature twice, but, well, yours truly finds that hard to believe.

To top it off, he has the balls to say, "And if those stinkers [I'm gay, Randy, not smelly!] ever decide to not be mean..."  If *I* ever decide to not be mean??  You get paid for work whose sole purpose is to deny my existence by passing laws restricting who I can marry/leave property to/visit me in the hospital/raise a child with/kiss in public.  How dare you, of all the terrible people in this world, call me mean.  When *I* decide to not be mean????

As someone somewhere has probably already said, you need to check yourself before you make yourself sound like a total fucking ass.

Good-As-You today posted a rather long, detailed rebuttal of ""ex"-gay" Stephen Bennett's claim in the wake of Foleygate that childhood abuse (whether homosexual or heterosexual) makes people gay.  The best part about the rebuttal?  It details the scientific studies (read: study) that claim abuse gives you gay cooties.  You can read the whole rebuttal here; it's a bit long, but worth it.

Damn I love me some anti-ex-gay science!

I am still confused about how ex-gays seem to know exactly why they are gay.  "I was abused and look! I'm gay!" or "I had a terrible relationship with my father and OOPS! I'm gay!"  It seems to have never occurred to them that they might be a survivor of child abuse AND gay, or have a deadbeat dad AND be gay.  The two are not causally correlated (as G-A-Y points out).

These ""ex"-gays" are more than ready to claim others are being "offensive" when we point out the fallacy of their arguments and beliefs, but they don't seem to have considered that gay men and lesbians everywhere are assuredly quite offended at the idea that they must have been abused or had a shitty relationship with the 'rents.

I count myself in this group.  No abuse, lucky enough to have a great relationship with my still-married parents. Take that, family-values tools: you can't even claim a broken home for my queeritude!

Okay, I'm fed up!  Why, noble reader?  Because of the ex-gays!!  There is no end to the self-delusion and ignorance that these people will go to to make themselves sound like they are right (which, of course, they are not).

I am going to respond to the comment thread from this post here, since I have been banned from commenting by at least two members of the ex-gay neighborhood on Vox (apparently, they just say "open dialogue " but don't know what it means--I left ONE comment on ONE BLOG ONCE and two people moderate comments?  Christ, people).  You don't have to read the comments thread there if you can't stomach it; I'll quote the relevant bits as I go.

Randy went to protest a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association because they do not support the efforts of people who want to change their sexuality.  He says (in a discussion in the comments):

"Faith or not, change happens and for the APA to say that I don't exist or that it is unethical to help someone change is a tragedy.  They should be a help not a hindrance.  I want the APA to live up to their own standards because it could be of tremendous benefit for those of us who want to change." (emphasis mine)

Apparently, Randy hasn't actually read what the "standards" of the APA are.  Their vision statement reads, in part:

"... [T]o ensure humane care and effective treatment for all persons with mental disorders, including mental retardation and substance-related disorders."

Since homosexuality is not a mental disorder, the APA really has no say on the matter.  A psychiatrist, confronted with a patient who wants to change his or her sexuality, has an obligation to say, "Sorry, that isn't something I can help you with; I only treat mental disorders."  This should be the same as their response if a patient came in and said, "I'm a lefty but I really want to be a righty,"  or "I'm a dog person but my girlfriend has this cat..."  NOT a mental disorder, and thus beyond the purvue of psychiatry.

Additionally, Randy claims that "change happens."  Despite Randy's clear lack of understanding of science, even he should realize that his personal experience does not a proved hypothesis make.  The APA values statement clearly says (it's a bullet list; hard to get clearer) that they value "scientifically established principles of treatment."  Although Randy might like to think that he gets to decide what science is, he (thankfully) does not.  The fact is, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that homosexuals can change their sexual orientation.  There is, however, evidence that, with lots of adversive training and counseling, gay men can settle down with a woman and have kids and a family.  But in all of these cases, the men were still sexually attracted to men and not to women.  Their behaviour changed, not who they are.  So, even if homosexuality were a mental disorder and thus warranted treatment, a psychiatrist confronted with a gay patient would be unethical in saying anything other than, "I would love to help you because you have a mental disorder, but I can't because there is no scientifically-proven method to treat your disorder."

Randy likes to say throughout this conversation that the denial of ex-gays on the part of the APA is "political,"  but let's be clear about something:  the APA used to make "political" decisions (and here I mean "influenced by general concensus," which I assume is what he means; the APA has never asked politicians to weigh in on the matter); it did this when it included homosexuality in the DSM in the first place.  Removing homosexuality, however, was a scientific decision, not a political one.

Finally, Dean, the other major participant in this coversation, points out that "to condemn homosexuality as immoral and unnatural requires that one make a theological judgment."  This seems--to me, anyway--to be so glaringly obvious as to warrant the kind of confused, nonsensical God-talk that usually comes from evangelicals to hide the fact that they don't know what they are talking about.

And yet Randy tries to challenge this point!  "I don't think that to view homosexuality as immoral or unnatural takes only a theological judgment...."  He doesn't, of course, say where else one might get such an idea, although I might pre-emptively point out that the ex-gay movement is strongly (read: exclusively) evangelical, and that I have yet to meet an athiest who thinks that homosexuality is immoral or unnatural.  I would also say that all of the gay animals

And besides, if religion isn't the only possible justification for anti-gay sentiment, then where does your self hatred come from, exactly? tromping around pretty much closes the "unnatural" line of argument.