The June issue of Psychology Today has (mentioned on the cover or I would never have glanced at the publication), an article called “The Darwinism Logic of Homosexuality,” by Robert Kunzig.
It is total nonsense, as usual, since little research has ever gone into actually studying the subject-which as Dorr Legg said must be done with the question: what causes anyone's sexuality, NOT what causes someone to be homosexual.
And while we know the danger of judging something from just our personal experience, I can tell you that the idea that we are more likely to be homosexual if we have lots of brothers-which I didn't, or our aunts on the mother's side had large families, which mine didn't, it seems obvious to me that there was little acceptable research on this that is quoted.
And to try to promote the "answers" given by knocking down the old (but usually accepted till only recently)ideas of Freud, etc-such as saying it is not biological by defective psychology, only shows what charlatans/exploiters of ignorance these people are, including the editors at the magazine.
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The finding about which you say "it seems obvious to me that there was little acceptable research on this that is quoted" is actually one of the most robust in the entire field.
More than a dozen studies have documented the fraternal birth order effect. The more older brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay. "It's probably one of the most replicated findings in all of developmental psychology," says Brian Mustanski, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "If there ever were an effect to accept, this is it."
I don't believe it for a minute. I see we still have a lot of work to do with the socalled elitists.
Dear Mr. Glover,
As the article stated, many known and unknown factors likely contribute to any one person being homosexual. Research findings reflect tendencies in large populations, not in any one individual such as yourself. Thanks for your interest in PT.
We aim to share the best research findings with our readers—even if, as with homosexuality, the puzzle isn’t completely solved yet—and to provoke thought and discussion.
Just yesterday I was a participant in an American Psychiatric Association seminar, at their annual meeting. At that I pushed the idea of what I term "symmetry". That is that we must deal precisely equally in all matters with homosexuality and heterosexuality. That certainly includes the causes of each.
Universally, tacitly, heterosexuality is treated as the default condition, into which all people go, without further explanation, unless they are derailed. That is insufficient. That is consistent with your opening remarks.
My view was favorably received.
I am delighted to hear that Frank remains so active and, of course, so deservedly well recognized. Congratulations to him on his tenacity in articulating and advocating such a clear message. It's as clear as "Gay Is Good," which he originated in 1968.
The reason we still hear such nonsense is partly that people still have noses and still often can't look beyond them. Their positions are, to them, the default positions
Thanks for the complimentary words. It was a seminar entitled, in Ron Gold's famous comment from the 1973 APA convention in Honolulu: "Stop it, you're making me sick". It dealt with the multi stage process of removing homosexuality from pathology. I was the first panelist, speaking on "How it all began", narrating our initiating the effort, about 1963, through to the Board of Trustees mass cure ibn 1973.
As the first recipient (a few years ago, jointly with Barbara Gittings) of the APA's John Fryer Award (he was the masked psychiatrist who appears in the famous pictures of the 1972 APA meeting in Dallas) I was paid particular attention.
I had also made special arrangements to be present in the audience and raise whatever questions I wished at their much-pre-publicized seminar with far-right religious people, a day or two earlier, pushing the ex-gay, conversion bit (they not me, of course). But that one was cancelled at the last minute.
The APA's Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists (AGLP) seems to be very active and doing a good job. Connected with the convention, they had a whole day of papers and discussion which I didn't attend; This would have been utterly inconceivable in 1973 when the "GayPA" socialized in a nearby gay bar in Waikiki and were terrified when Ron Gold, Bob Spitzer (an APA official) and I walked in. Things DO improve, even if, often, not as fast we we would like.
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