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Gay, Straight, or Questioning? Sexuality and Political Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2011

Charles Anthony Smith
Charles Anthony Smith
Affiliation:
University of California–Irvine
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Extract

In August of 2009, the American Psychological Association adopted the report of its Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation and urged mental health professionals to avoid telling their patients that sexual orientation can be changed (APA 2009a). The report examined the efficacy of “conversion therapies”—also called “reparative therapies”—wherein the patient and therapist attempt to change the sexual orientation of the patient from gay or lesbian to heterosexual. The report is over 160 pages and examines over 80 peer-reviewed, published studies spanning five decades of research. Despite the heft of the report, the findings are briefly and well summarized by the chair of the task force, Judith M. Glassgold, Psy.D.: “Contrary to the claims of sexual orientation change advocates and practitioners, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation” (APA 2009b). Of course, this conclusion is a given among all but minor fringe elements in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) community or among this community's friends and affiliates. While sexuality collectively seems to present itself along a scale, it seems for individuals to become fixed at some point along that scale. The APA report provides a useful framework for considering the role of sexuality in political science and raises several important questions for political science as both an endeavor and a discipline.

Type
Symposium
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 35 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

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