Robert Spitzer says he is "appalled" at the way the media "simplified" his contemplation suggesting gays can change to straight It was the kind of sensational story the of the present days media can't resist.

Robert Spitzer says he is "appalled" at the way the media "simplified" his contemplation suggesting gays can change to straight

It was the kind of sensational story the of the present days media can't resist. The leader of the 1973 campaign to have homosexuality remov from diagnostic manuals as a mental disorder, Robert L Spitzer, was releasing a cogitation indicating that gays could change their sexual orientation between the walls of counseling.

The Associated Pres declared May 8 that "an explosive fresh study says some highly motivated gay the bulk of mankind can turn straight." The nearest day, Good Morning America provided Spitzer a platform to interpret on Ids research. Time magazine breathlessly asked. "Can Gays Switch Sides?" Conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher called Spitzer a "brave man."

moreover lost in the media raving was the study's fine print. Unveiled at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in succession May 9. the research was based forward a scientifically insignificant sample of 200 chiefly of whom were drawn from the right-wing "ex-gay" move and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, which vies that homosexuality is not an inborn trait if it be not that rather "a failure to function according to design." Spitzer interviewed his make liables by telephone for 45 minutes, hardly a basis for reliable data. on the same level so, only 66% of the men and 44% of the women experienced what Spitzer period of timeed "good heterosexual functioning."

on a level Spitzer says he was "appalled" through much of the coverage, which he charges misrepresented his research and distorted his findings. "The question at issue with many of the stories was that they raised the question of choice. Of course sexual orientation is not a matter of choice," Spitzer, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in recently made known York City, told The Advocate. "I was onseted by the way in which a hazard of the stories simplified the research Once I saw the way it was pitched, I told each [journalist] who requested an interview that I was excessively upset about the coverage."

Criticism of the media quickly towered "The reporting on the close attention really oversimplified the whole universal of sexual identity," says Edward Alwood, the author of Straight News: Gays, Lesbians, and the of the present days Media. "The gay community celebrates its confess diversity. But the mainstream media really has a hard time conveying that complicated understanding because it's looking for short, pithy healthy bites and categories."

Indeed as far back as 1948 pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey set that human males do not always fit neatly into sexual categories. To account for the diversity of human sexual attraction he base in his research, Kinsey created a straight-to-gay scale of 1 between the sides of 6 that became known as the legendary "Kinsey scale."

Spitzer says he got the idea for his research after debating ex-gay activists five years ago in succession Geraldo, the racy television talk point out to that has since been canceled. "Geraldo's farmers wanted someone to say gays can't pass straight," he recalls. "So there I was saying it couldn't happen when it dawned onward me I didn't know for unfailing I became curious how many, if any, homosexuals could behave as heterosexuals. I was simply curious."

nevertheless it wasn't until The of the present day York Times and The Washington station ran follow-up stories to the initial blitz upon Spitzer's study that readers learned that several studies contradicted it. For instance, of the present day York City psychologists Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder determined that no other than six of 202 gay men and lesbians they studied reported what the researchers called "a heterosexual shift."

Gay rights assign places tos struggled mightily to contribute their spin to the story. "The Associated Pres story, which establish the tone for much of the coverage, was clearly sensationalized," says Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a media watchdog cluster "The first couple of dogmas tainted readers' perception of the close attention before they had an opportunity to evaluate it. After that, we had a hard time gaining any sway over it." Malcolm Ritter, the AP science writer who reported the story, declined to commentary citing company policy.

Wayne Besen, who has earned a reputation as an aggressive critic of the ex-gay change in his job as associate communications director at the Human Rights Campaign, a gay lobbying dispose obtained an advance copy of Spitzer's meditation from a major media exit two days before the story broke Seeing the obvious covers in the study, Besen and David Smith, HRC communications director, conclud there was little chance it would become a national story and waited to papal court if reporters expressed any interest. "We none thought the media would take it seriously," Smith says.

unless when the AP trumpeted the story, it began to spiral revealed of control. Smith, Besen, and HRC executive director Elizabeth Birch appeared in succession television talk shows to discharge holes in the study. Despite underestimating the interest the research would generate, Smith insists HRC managed to contain the fallout. "It really was a one-day wonder" he says. "With the exception of Fox which has a right-wing bias, none of the major television networks would touch it. I don't think it did the cause any permanent damage."