Ideologically Driven Sexology: Tools for Building “The Sexual World We Want”
- Post by: Dr. Amy E. Hamilton
- December 15, 2023
From its earliest inception, the pioneers of sexology set out not simply to study and discover what is, but also to change what is to align with what they thought should or wanted to be. While we can objectively study the anatomy and physiology of the sex organs or seek to understand the mechanisms of reproduction, when going beyond basic facts,[1] researchers inevitably collide with challenges to being “neutral observers.” Each of us brings values and worldviews to the subject of any study, especially the study of sex.
Our surveys peep through the keyholes of the world’s bedrooms and record sexual behaviors: frequency, number of partners, body parts used and in what ways. While we can dispassionately record the statistics, can we really remove a personal assessment by the “scientist”—however he or she chooses to weight it—if there are two people in the bed versus five? If there is a child and an adult? If the participants are married or strangers or biologically related? If the sexual activity is consensual or not? Is it really possible to study the behavior in a “neutral” way—to record what is reported and describe it—and then present it as if it has no more moral valence or societal and human health implications than if we were studying the mating of primates or gall wasps? Such is how Kinsey got away with presenting his now infamous data on infant orgasms: these data were neutral statistics, numbers in a table, objective facts.[2]
In truth, “neutrality” regarding sex behaviors is itself a worldview, as full of evaluation as any other, only the metrics are masked through “objectivity” and a different scale of assessment. Values are inextricably bound up with human sexuality, creating an inherent conundrum for the study of sex.
In this essay, I demonstrate the ideological values that drive much of sex research through considering four points. First, I examine how the apparatus of science and research are harnessed as instruments to effect social change. Second, I share relevant examples of the worldview commitments expressed during my experience as a Sexuality Research Fellow. Third, I discuss the “minority stress model” as an explicit example of ideologically-driven science. Finally, I consider if there is a “way out” from this seeming aporia.
Harnessing Sex “Science” for Social Change
In 1896, when Alfred Kinsey was but a toddler, German physician Magnus Hirschfeld’s work made him one of the fathers of sex science. He did not choose the subject from disinterested curiosity. Hirschfeld self-identified as homosexual, and his initial works proposed studying various aspects of homosexuality while he simultaneously lobbied in favor of decriminalizing homosexual acts.[3] Hirschfeld created a “Scientific Humanitarian Committee” specifically to invigorate his legal reform efforts. According to historian Vern Bullough, Hirschfeld then “began moving from what might be called a propagandist into a sex researcher,” and his “first step was to carry out sex surveys.”[4] From establishing the Journal for Sexual Science in 1908 to founding the Institute of Sexual Science in 1919, his research endeavors were intertwined with his goal of changing society’s attitudes regarding the acceptance of homosexuality.[5]
From Hirschfeld to Kinsey to today, advocates for societal change utilize the apparatus of science and research in similar ways: conducting a survey, forming “scientific” committees, establishing a journal, an institute, and then making public policy recommendations based on their research. These endeavors are perfectly within their rights to pursue. What I want to highlight is that the findings of sex science are presented as objective and in amoral and thus “neutral” terms, as if these also do not arise in the context of values and a worldview. With sex, I contend there is no value-free, neutral zone. In fact, it is the values of society that research advocates most wish to inform and transform.
The U.S.-based National Coalition for Sexual Freedom provides a good example.[6] Founded in 1997 by sado-masochism (SM) and fetish activists, the NCSF’s mission “is committed to creating a political, legal and social environment in the US that advances equal rights for consenting adults who engage in alternative sexual and relationship expressions.”[7] One of the NCSF’s first steps was to conduct a survey on discrimination and violence among those who practiced BDSM; the next year, members began presenting at professional conferences, such as the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality.[8] Later, the NCSF successfully campaigned the American Psychiatric Association[9] to revise the DSM-5 by de-pathologizing consensual BDSM behaviors between adults.[10] The NCSF Foundation “educates about BDSM, swinging and polyamory to destigmatize sexual practices between consenting adults” and is now a co-sponsor of the Journal of Sex Positivity.[11]
Destigmatization has been a fundamental premise of sexology since Hirschfeld, whose views were summed up by Linge as: “If sexual diversity is a fundamental part of all human life, regardless of dividing categories such as class, then everyone should have access to adequate information and education about sexual matters, free from stigma and prejudice.”[12]
A hundred years hence, Hirschfeld’s fundamentals are essentially unchanged. In 2019, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS) re-branded after 55 years to make its mission explicit: “Sex Ed for Social Change: We are working toward a world where all people can experience and enjoy sexual and reproductive freedom as they define it for themselves.”[13]
The SIECUS website is worth quoting in detail:
While sex education is a necessary sexual health tool, it can (and should) be so much more than that. With sex education, we have a golden opportunity to create a culture shift—tackling the misinformation, shame, and stigma that create the basis for many of today’s sexual and reproductive health and rights issues, like: reproductive justice, LGBTQ equality, sexual violence prevention, gender equity, dismantling white supremacy. Think about it: At the root of each of the issues above (among many more that exist) is a need to teach people about them in an appropriate, unbiased, and accurate way—presenting young people, early on, with the evidence, not the ideologies.”[14]
SIECUS claims to present information that is “unbiased” and “accurate,” giving young people “evidence,” not “ideologies,” so that they can enjoy freedom and sexuality, as if the mission to create a culture shift of “dismantling” and destigmatization does not itself represent an ideology and a worldview infused with values. Values are no less values by virtue of being self-defined.[15]
Refreshingly, some sex researchers are more honest and/or aware. For instance, in a 2018 Annual Review of Sex Research article, Hammack and his co-authors define “a scientific paradigm as the framework or worldview from which scientists operate as they produce knowledge.”[16] The authors then suggest a need for “retooling” sex science for the 21st century due to increased sexual and relationship diversity. However, this paradigm is not merely for collecting data but explicitly works to offer new answers to inherently philosophical and even metaphysical questions (i.e. “nature and meaning”). In their words, “a queer paradigm goes beyond the documentation of diversity, however. Its axioms reorient our fundamental assumptions about the nature and meaning of human intimacy.”[17] They write, “the task now for sexual and relationship science is to legitimize relational diversity through a rigorous process of documentation.”[18] “A rigorous process of documentation” refers to data collection; “to legitimize” refers to using that documented data to effect a change in values.
Sex Research: “The Sexual World We Want to Live In”
In 2003-2004, I was a doctoral fellow of the Social Science Research Council’s Sexuality Research Fellowship Program (SRFP).[19] Funded by the Ford Foundation, the SRFP was launched in 1996 after conservative politicians intervened to stop the funding for large National Institutes of Health sex research projects in the early 1990s; thus, my entry into this arena immediately exposed me to “the politics” involved.[20] In 2006, at the SRFP’s capstone event,[21] well-known sociologist and sex researcher John Gagnon described the future of sex research as “dangerous terrain” due to there being an “active, public conflict about sex.” During a panel discussion, he described a public struggle for power, saying that he and his colleagues had “underestimated the staying power of religion.” In his remarks, Gagnon elaborated on the political divide: “We are committed to sexual citizenship—they are not. This is ultimately about what kind of society we want to see in the future, what kind of sexual world do we want to live in.” Gagnon stated that the issues such as abstinence education or opposition to gay marriage were ultimately about “how sexuality should be enacted,” and referred to “agencies of virtue” that were trying to prescribe these matters. He then remarked, not unseriously, “We are obviously more virtuous than they are.”
Dr. Gagnon continued with remarks such as: “What we’re asking them is ultimately for them to change their lives. White, heterosexual men are not going to go quietly,” and
“The right sees themselves as the saving remnant.” He also warned that conservatives and “the right” were establishing think tanks, doing research, and trying to establish themselves as legitimate scientists, which for him seemed a genuine impossibility. As I listened and took notes, I was struck by how the panelists presented those with libertine values as the only ones capable of intellectual and scientific enterprise while simultaneously expressing their positions with moral superiority and zeal.[22]
Thirty years earlier, in a 1975 article entitled “Sex Research and Social Change,” Gagnon had written:
Sex research and the sex researcher have played an important role in providing benchmarks for sexual practices, illuminating general understanding, and providing the content for ideological debates about the right and wrong of sexuality in the society. In few areas of research have researchers had such an important role in the debate over the meaning and significance of the behavior they have studied.[23]
Just so.
Minority Stress: “An Ideological Agenda That Promotes Social Change”[24]
I first heard a minority stress perspective expressed during the SRFP conference held for my fellowship cohort in October, 2003, at Columbia University in New York. One of the conference presenters, Dutch psychologist Theo Sandfort, was a lead investigator on the population-based study in the Netherlands that documented mental health disparities between heterosexuals and LGB-identified individuals.[25] During a panel presentation, Sandfort remarked,
Of course this finding surprised us, because it runs against the notion that homosexuality is not related to disorders. But the data was clear; homosexuality was an increased risk factor for psychiatric disturbance. But we know we are not disturbed, so it must be due to society or other factors—stigma and discrimination must play a part.[26]
Several years prior, two other well-controlled studies began returning similar findings to the Netherlands study. American psychologist and sex researcher J. Michael Bailey wrote that each data set was demonstrating the “same unhappy conclusion; namely, members of the LGB community are at substantially elevated risk for several forms of psychopathology versus heterosexuals.” [27]
Bailey urged that while it was certainly possible that “widespread prejudice against homosexual people causes them to be unhappy or worse, mentally ill,” other sources and plausible accounts of the disparities were worthy of consideration. He cautioned that “commitment to any of these positions would be premature,” because more research was needed and warned that “it would be a shame—most of all for gay men and lesbians whose mental health is at stake—if sociopolitical concerns prevented researchers from conscientious consideration of any reasonable hypothesis.”[28]
This counsel, however, was destined to go unheeded. Four years earlier, the research agenda had been already been explicitly predetermined to achieve sociopolitical goals. In his 1995 article, “Minority Stress and Mental Health in Gay Men,” public health researcher Ilan Meyer wrote:
The minority stress perspective, which views social conditions as the source of morbidity and distress for minority persons, advances an ideological agenda that promotes social
change toward a more egalitarian society. From a public policy perspective, cumulative evidence of the negative effects of prejudice and discrimination may help mobilize social forces to abolish oppressive policies. . . . Identifying the stressful conditions that are related to antigay attitudes highlights the need for gay-affirmative programs in dealing with psychological distress in lesbians and gay men, and for public education and legislation in preventing antigay violence and discrimination. . . . Further research on minority stress must address these public policy and public health recommendations as well as barriers to their implementation.[29]
Thus there should be no surprise that by 2003, Meyer was already describing minority stress as “(r)esearchers’ preferred explanation for the cause of the higher prevalence of disorders among LGB people.”[30] Meyer formalized the “minority stress” model as a conceptual framework which “describes stress processes, including the experience of prejudice events, expectations of rejection, hiding and concealing, internalized homophobia, and ameliorative coping processes.”[31] He claimed that “stigma, prejudice, and discrimination create a stressful social environment that can lead to mental health problems in people who belong to stigmatized minority groups.”[32]
A reasonable prediction of the model is that reducing or eliminating these stresses would significantly ameliorate the emotional health challenges experienced by sexual minorities—the more social acceptance, the less stigma and stress, thus health should improve. But this outcome has repeatedly failed to materialize.
Recall Theo Sandfort’s surprise at the population-based studies out of the Netherlands, namely finding “evidence that homosexuality is associated with a higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders.”[33] Those findings came from 1996 data collected during the first wave of the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS). Five years later, in 2001, the Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.[34] During 2007-2009, researchers collected data for the second wave of the NEMESIS study. Sandfort and his colleagues once again examined sexual orientation and psychiatric health measures to see “whether or not, with increased acceptance of homosexuality, these disparities had diminished over time.”[35] More than ten years after the first study wave and six years after the global first of legalized same-sex marriage, there was no change.
Australia provides another good example. Using four waves of population-based survey data from the 2010s, researchers examined sexual fluidity among Australian young adult women. [36] Despite the study being conducted at a time in which “acceptance of same-sex sexuality was relatively high,” the data showed that “the adoption of a nonheterosexual identity was still associated with a large and meaningful elevation in psychological distress.”[37]
Recent analyses by Meyer and his colleagues in the U.S. yielded similar results. The Generations study compared three generational cohorts, dubbed “pride (born 1956–1963), visibility (born 1974–1981), and equality (born 1990–1997).”[38] Counter to what MST predicts, the researchers “found no signs that the improved social environment attenuated their exposure to minority stressors.” The study also showed no improvement in “psychological distress and suicide behavior;” in fact, the younger cohorts, which experienced greater social acceptance of nonheterosexuality, “indeed were worse . . . than the older cohorts. These findings suggest that changes in the social environment had limited impact on stress processes and mental health for sexual minority people.”[39]
Thus on three continents, over three decades, and across three generational cohorts, the fundamental prediction of the minority stress theory failed: namely, that “as the social environment improves, exposure to stress would decline and health outcomes would improve.”[40]
In 2020, J. Michael Bailey reiterated his concerns from 1999, saying that his fear of “sociopolitical concerns” hamstringing the research process has largely been realized. “The minority stress model has been prematurely accepted as the default explanation for sexual orientation-associated differences in mental health,” despite the fact that research has not “generated findings uniquely explicable by the model” and “has ignored the model’s serious limitations.”[41] If the true goal is to help improve the lives of the LGBT-identified, Bailey concluded that the “acceptance of an incorrect explanation helps no one.”[42]
But perhaps the societal change sought and the validation desired overrides the desire for accurate information to help individuals. It is important to many in the sex research field that the problem is defined and people are thereby “helped” in a singular way: by a change in societal values and norms.
Consider the Australian study above, where the researchers conclude that their information should be used for “reforming” and “dismantling” social structures: “We generate evidence that can inform current theories of sexual identity and sexual identity change and interventions aimed at alleviating individuals’ distress and reforming heteronormative social structures.” [43] “Dismantling the social structures that continue to produce these disparities is of paramount importance if we are to support the mental health and well-being of young women.”[44]
Similarly, in light of their multi-generational study suggesting “little distinction in the experience of minority stress across cohorts, indicating no discernable improvement in minority stress and health of sexual minorities,”[45] Meyer and his colleagues never question their fundamental premise. Rather, at a time when societal acceptance of homosexuality has reached both majority and record-highs, they conclude these findings “speak to the endurance of cultural ideologies such as homophobia and heterosexism accompanying rejection of and violence toward sexual minorities.”[46]
MST has been expanded to encompass far beyond the LGB-identified. From those engaging in consensual non-monogamy (CNM), fetish, kink, and BDSM to polyamorists, studies invoke minority stress to explain health disparities in both mental and physical health. No matter what differences occur, societal stigma, prejudice, and discrimination are the presumed cause. Recently, “the theory has been applied to gender minorities” and new, allegedly prejudicial norms and stressors have been coined, such as “misgendering and identity invalidation” for “nonbinary people.”[47]
In one of our final 2003 sessions, noted psychiatrist Richard Pillard[48] exhorted us to “hammer at the cracks”; he gave “intersex” conditions, “where there is not a one-to-one mapping of sex and gender,” as a place where the understanding of sex and gender could be split apart. Notably, a hammer is used for demolition and construction, not observation. Our research was to be a tool for changing the world more than understanding it. And so it was.
Twenty years later, the state of being “cis”—that is, experiencing psychological congruence and lack of body dysmorphia over your physical sex—is part of common cultural parlance. Not only that, but also “cisnormativity”—considering such a state as normative or healthy—is now portrayed as an oppressive ideological norm. As one prominent U.S. youth gender specialist urged in 2020, “perhaps humanity might redirect its reparative efforts toward dismantling the harmful hetero and cisgender normative choke-hold that continues to asphyxiate social evolution.”[49] From surveys to hammers and scalpels, we ply our tools; refusing both the world and our bodies as they are, we demand they become as we wish them to be.
The Aporia of the “Scientific” Study of Sex
What then of neutral and objective “science”? According to science historian Naomi Oreskes, “the classic fact/value distinction: the idea that we can identify facts and then (separately) decide what if anything to do about them based on our values . . . is no longer working (if it ever did), because most people do not separate science from its implications.”[50] Perhaps this is truer nowhere more than the field of sex research. For instance, that is why the data on outcomes for children raised by same-sex couples versus opposite-sex households was so politicized. The data were clear; there were differences.[51] Due to ideological commitments[52] however, the facts had to be obscured to advance the social change most sex researchers desired.
Research teams intentionally constructed to have ideological diversity are valuable and all too rare; they help to keep minds open and the data honest.[53] So is there a way to get “just the facts” of sex?[54] We can start with the “plea for honest social research.”[55] Researchers should work to get the data, as much as possible, objectively correct. The source of our disagreements are more often about our respective values and worldviews than the facts. By recognizing the genuine aporia, our time as researchers is better spent constructing arguments rather than looking for a way out.
Dr. Amy E. Hamilton is a research associate at the University of Texas-Austin and a happily married mother of two school-age children.
[1] Currently even objective biological facts such as the sexed binary of male and female are disputed due to worldview and ideological commitments. E.g. Agustin Fuentes, “Here’s Why Human Sex Is Not Binary,” Scientific American (May 1, 2023), available at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-human-sex-is-not-binary/.
[2] Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia, PA: WB Saunders, 1948).
[3] Vern L. Bullough, “Magnus Hirschfeld, an Often Overlooked Pioneer,” Sexuality & Culture 7.2 (2003): 62.
[4] Id., 64.
[5] Ibid.
[6] National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, “The History of the NCSF,” NCSF Website, https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/the-history-of-the-ncsf/ (accessed December 18, 2023).
[7] NCSF Mission Statement, found at ncsfreedom.org (accessed December 18, 2023).
[8] National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, “The History of the NCSF,” available at https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/the-history-of-the-ncsf/ (accessed December 18, 2023).
[9] Regarding the American Psychological Association, in 2005, former APA president Nicholas Cummings’ described it as follows: “advocacy for scientific and professional concerns has been usurped by agenda-driven ideologues who show little regard for either scientific validation or professional efficacy. . . . The APA has chosen ideology over science. Let no one presume that ideology does not influence science. Within psychology today there are topics that are deemed politically incorrect, and they are neither published nor funded.” Nicholas A. Cummings, “Preface,” in Nicholas A. Cummings & Roger H. Wright (Eds.), Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm (New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group, 2005), xiv.
[10] Susan Wright, “De-Pathologization of Consensual BDSM,” The Journal of Sexual Medicine 15.5 (2018): 622.
[11] National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, “The History of the NCSF,” available at https://ncsfreedom.org/who-we-are/the-history-of-the-ncsf/ (accessed December 18, 2023); Center for Positive Sexuality, “Sex Positive Education and Research,” available at https://positivesexuality.org/research/journal-of-positive-sexuality/ (accessed December 18, 2023).
[12] Ina Linge, “Sexology, Popular Science and Queer History in Anders als die Andern (Different from the Otherss,” Gender & History 30.3 (2018), at 598.
[13] SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, “Our History,” available at https://siecus.org/about-siecus/our-history/ (accessed December 18, 2023).
[14] SIECUS, “Sex Ed Is A Vehicle For Social Change,” available at https://siecus.org/sex-ed-is-a-vehicle-for-social-change/ (accessed December 18, 2023).
[15] Note that our knowledge base can be drawn from anything save philosophical or moral considerations. See Carlo Lancellotti and his interpretation of the works and thought of Italian philosopher Augusto Del Noce, especially his descriptions of “scientism.” E.g. “The following sentence from [Reich’s] The Sexual Revolution sums it up nicely: ‘Religion should not be fought, but any interference with the right to carry the findings of natural science to the masses and with the attempts to secure their sexual happiness should not be tolerated.’ Del Noce rephrases it as follows: ‘the Church is tolerated only to the extent that she does not take any stance on the moral assertions that supposedly derive from science, understood as the only valid form of knowledge.’” Carlo Lancellotti, “The Origins of Sexual Totalitarianism,” First Things (December 23, 2020), available at: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/12/the-origins-of-sexual-totalitarianism.
[16] Phillip L. Hammack, David M. Frost, & Sam D. Hughes, “Queer intimacies: A New Paradigm for the Study of Relationship Diversity,” The Journal of Sex Research 56.4-5 (2019): 556-92, at 557.
[17] Ibid. Also at p. 557, the authors clearly describe “ideologies” in competition: “By creating a concept of normativity that not only described but also prescribed ideals of human development, some scientific fields such as psychology and biology supported existing cultural ideologies that privileged particular forms of intimacy (e.g., asymmetric heterosexual relations. . . . Scientists have since worked to challenge these underlying ideologies with respect to gender and sexuality . . . , and our aim is to offer a novel contribution to such efforts by proposing a queer paradigm that challenges normative assumptions of human intimacy.”
[18] Id., at 584.
[19] Diane di Mauro, “The Sexuality Research Fellowship Program: Ten Years After,” The Social Science Research Council Items & Issues 6.1-2 (2007/8): 23.
[20] J. Richard Udry, “The Politics of Sex Research,” Journal of Sex Research 30.2 (1993): 103.
[21] Conference notes from the now late John H. Gagnon’s remarks during: “Gazing into the Crystal Ball: Prophecies for the Field, 10 Years Hence,” Panel Presentation: Prophecy and Discussion, The Capstone Event and Closure Meeting of the Sexuality Research Fellowship Program (March 31, 2006), Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico.
[22] Cummings Destructive Trends in Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm, at xvi, gives a relevant parallel: “Political diversity is so absent in mental health circles that most psychologists and social workers live in a bubble. So seldom does anyone express ideological disagreement with colleagues that they believe all intelligent people think as they do. They are aware that conservatives exist but regard the term intelligent conservative as an oxymoron.” See also Fn. 15.
[23] John H. Gagnon, “Sex Research and Social Change,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 4.2 (1975): 111-41, at 112.
[24] Ilan H. Meyer, “Minority Stress and Mental Health in Gay Men,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 36.1 (1995): 38-56, at 52.
[25] Theo G. M. Sandfort et al., “Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders: Findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS),” Archives of General Psychiatry 58.1 (2001): 85-91.
[26] Notes taken at the SSRC Sexuality Research Fellowship Program Fellows’ Conference (Friday, October 24, 2003), Theo Sandfort, “The Sexuality and Health MPH Program,” Panel Presentation, the Center for Gender, Sexuality, and Health of the Sociomedical Sciences Dept., Columbia University.
[27] J. Michael Bailey, “Homosexuality and Mental Illness,” Archives of General Psychiatry 56.10 (1999): 883-84, at 883.
[28] Ibid, 884.
[29] Ilan H. Meyer, “Minority Stress and Mental Health in Gay Men,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 36.1 (1995): 38-56, at p. 52-53.
[30] Ilan H. Meyer, “Prejudice, Social Stress, and Mental Health in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Populations: Conceptual Issues and Research Evidence,” Psychological Bulletin 129.5 (2003): 674 at p. 675.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Id. at pp. 674-675.
[33] Theo G. M. Sandfort et al., “Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders: Findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS),” Archives of General Psychiatry 58.1 (2001): 85-91, at 90.
[34] Data gathered in 2001 also found negative disparities in both physical and mental health associated with nonheterosexuality. Theo G. M. Sandfort et al., “Sexual Orientation and Mental and Physical Health Status: Findings from a Dutch Population Survey,” American Journal of Public Health 96.6 (2006):1,119.
[35] Theo G. M. Sandfort et al., “Same-Sex Sexuality and Psychiatric Disorders in the Second Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS-2),” LGBT Health 1.4 (2014): 292-301, at 292.
[36] Alice Campbell et al., “Sexual Fluidity and Psychological Distress: What Happens When Young Women’s Sexual Identities Change?” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 63.4 (2022): 577-93.
[37] Id., at 590. Note: A 2022 review of 30 studies conducted between 2000 and 2020 found a similar pattern among adolescents. “Adolescents who reported either nonheterosexual orientation at baseline or a shift toward nonheterosexual orientation had a greater likelihood of reporting depressive symptomology, suicidality, and substance use compared to those who did not report a change or reported consistent heterosexuality.” Ankur Srivastava et al., “Sexual Orientation Change among Adolescents and Young Adults: A Systematic Review,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 51.7 (2022): 3,361-76, at 3,361.
[38] Ilan H. Meyer et al., “Minority Stress, Distress, and Suicide Attempts in Three Cohorts of Sexual Minority Adults: A U.S. Probability Sample,” PLoS One 16.3 (2021): e0246827.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Ibid.
[41] J. Michael Bailey, “The Minority Stress Model Deserves Reconsideration, Not Just Extension,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 49.7 (2020): 2,265-68, at 2,267; see also, Amy Hamilton, “Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Law: Justifying Harms to Religious Minorities through Ideological Science,” The Public Discourse (November 16, 2022), available at: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2022/11/85816/.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Campbell et al., “Sexual Fluidity and Psychological Distress: What Happens When Young Women’s Sexual Identities Change?”
[44] Id. at p. 590.
[45] Ilan H. Meyer et al., “Minority Stress, Distress, and Suicide Attempts in Three Cohorts of Sexual Minority Adults: A U.S. Probability Sample,” PLoS One 16.3 (2021): e0246827, at 15.
[46] Ibid.
[47] David M. Frost and Ilan H. Meyer, “Minority Stress Theory: Application, Critique, and Continued Relevance,” Current Opinion in Psychology (2023): 101579. Consider this claim: Not gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, medicalization, surgeries, physical health challenges, but the state of having a sexed body-mind congruence, a state on being non-dissociative, being considered “normative” is identified as the problem.
[48] Notes taken at the SSRC Sexuality Research Fellowship Program Fellows’ Conference, Closing Session, October 25, 2003. An example of Dr. Pillard’s work: J. Michael Bailey and Richard C. Pillard, “A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation,” Archives of General Psychiatry 48.12 (1991):1,089.
[49] Johanna Olson-Kennedy, “When the Human Toll of Conversion Therapy Is Not Enough,” JAMA Pediatrics 176.5 (2022): 450-51, at 451.
[50] Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), at 147.
[51] E.g. Walter R. Schumm, Same-Sex Parenting Research: A Critical Assessment (London, England: Wilberforce Publications, 2018).
[52] Conference notes on panelist comments and discussion: “Gazing into the Crystal Ball: Prophecies for the Field, 10 Years Hence” Panel Presentation: Prophecy and Discussion, The Capstone Event and Closure Meeting of the Sexuality Research Fellowship Program (March 31, 2006) Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico. See also: Luke Gahan, “Separated Same-Sex Parents: Troubling the Same-Sex Parented Family,” Sociological Research Online 23.1 (2018): 245.
[53] For an excellent example of an ideologically diverse research effort, see: Christopher H. Rosik, G. Tyler Lefevor, and A. Lee Beckstead, “Sexual Minorities who Reject an LGB Identity: Who Are They and Why Does It Matter?,” Issues in Law and Medicine 36.1 (2021): 27-43; Naomi Oreskes, op. cit., recommends guarding the scientific process through ideological diversity as well: “In Diversity There Is Epistemic Strength,” at 55.
[54] On this, the worldview, morals, and values of the researchers will lead them to different conclusions. For instance, during the 2003 SRFP conference, Theo Sandfort spoke about his research on pedophilia. He collected qualitative interviews with 25 minor boys, ages 10 to 16, who were in sexual relationships with adult pedophilic men, the oldest of whom was 66. In the foreword, Sandfort writes of the potential of his research to inform public policy: “Sexual abuse lies quite outside the area of this investigation. Finally we will comment on the significance of what these boys have reported for Dutch penal legislation . . . bearing on the ages of sexual consent.” Theo Sandfort, Boys On Their Contacts With Men: A Study of Sexually Expressed Friendships (Elmhurst, NY: Global Academic Publishers, 1987). The data collection on minors allowed in Dr. Sandfort’s ethical worldview is verboten in mine.
[55] Nicole M. King, “A Plea for Honest Social Research: The Work of Walter R. Schumm,” The Natural Family 35:1-2 (January 21, 2022), 75-80, available at: https://thenaturalfamily.org/article/a-plea-for-honest-social-research-the-work-of-walter-r-schumm/.