Results: The Bitter Truth

Conversion therapy (sometimes called "reparative therapy") is the discredited practice that attempts to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity. Conversion therapists use a variety of shaming, emotionally traumatic or physically painful stimuli to make their victims associate those stimuli with their LGBTQ identities. Prior to this survey, were you familiar with conversion therapy?

Less than 8% of the United States population believes that conversion therapy is effective. A year and a half ago, 14% of Tellwut respondents approved of it. I'd like to know if that number has changed. Do you approve of conversion therapy?

According to a UCLA study, more than 700,000 adult LGBQT individuals have gone through this "therapy." More than half of those people were subjected to this treatment as minors. An estimated 58,000 teens (13-17) will go through religious-based conversion therapy before their 18th birthday. In the 41 states that have not banned the practice yet, an estimated 20,000 will receive these treatments from licensed doctors and counselors. Do these numbers surprise you?

Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, a psychiatrist who once offered a study on reparative therapy, has since denounced the practice and has apologized for endorsing it in the first place. His theories were based in a Freudian concept that suggests that everyone is born bisexual and can move along a continuum between homo-and heterosexuality. Dr Spitzer was largely responsible for having homosexuality removed from the DSM as a mental illness. Because of his prior work, he was trusted as an expert in the psychiatry of homosexuality. As such, his study that supported conversion therapy did not go through any of the normal peer reviews before being published. In fact, his results were based in fundamentally flawed methodology. He called 200 people who had received treatment (some from religious sources, some from therapists and medical professionals) and asked them about their sexual urges before and after therapy. That was it. Do you think that this is enough research to validate conversion therapy?

David Matheson, the former director of the Center for Gender Wholeness, which was notorious for it's anti-gay rhetoric, vague promises of help and association with Mormonism, has recently come out as exclusively homosexual. He is, in fact, cruising gay pick up sites currently. He claims that he chose to resist his same sex attraction and marry a woman, but that now he feels that that lifestyle is killing him and he has decided to be "exclusively gay." Does that sound like someone who was actually "converted" to you?

George Rekers, former board member for the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) testified repeatedly against gay and lesbian couples seeking to adopt. He also hired a gay prostitute to accompany him on a European vacation and give him daily "sexual massages." He claimed that the 20 year old (who was hired via Rentboy) was there to help carry his luggage. Do you think that he discredits the movement?