Link:
http://www.apa.org/topics/orientation.html#choiceAmerican Psychological Association:
Based in Washington, DC, the American Psychological Association (APA) is a scientific and professional organization that represents psychology in the United States. With 148,000 members, APA is the largest association of psychologists worldwide. It is difficult to be considered a reputable psychologist in the United States without being a member of the American Psychological Association.
Official views of The American Psychological Association, its affiliates, and reputable science:
Is Sexual Orientation a Choice?
No, human beings can not choose to be either gay or straight. Sexual orientation emerges for most people in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. Although we can choose whether to act on our feelings, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed.
Can Therapy Change Sexual Orientation?
No. Even though most homosexuals live successful, happy lives, some homosexual or bisexual people may seek to change their sexual orientation through therapy, sometimes pressured by the influence of family members or religious groups to try and do so. The reality is that homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable.
However, not all gay, lesbian, and bisexual people who seek assistance from a mental health professional want to change their sexual orientation. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people may seek psychological help with the coming out process or for strategies to deal with prejudice, but most go into therapy for the same reasons and life issues that bring straight people to mental health professionals.
What About So-Called "Conversion Therapies"?
Some therapists who undertake so-called conversion therapy report that they have been able to change their clients' sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Close scrutiny of these reports however show several factors that cast doubt on their claims. For example, many of the claims come from organizations with an ideological perspective which condemns homosexuality. Furthermore, their claims are poorly documented. For example, treatment outcome is not followed and reported overtime as would be the standard to test the validity of any mental health intervention.
The American Psychological Association is concerned about such therapies and their potential harm to patients. In 1997, the Association's Council of Representatives passed a resolution reaffirming psychology's opposition to homophobia in treatment and spelling out a client's right to unbiased treatment and self-determination. Any person who enters into therapy to deal with issues of sexual orientation has a right to expect that such therapy would take place in a professionally neutral environment absent of any social bias.
Is Homosexuality a Mental Illness or Emotional Problem?
No. Psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals agree that homosexuality is not an illness, mental disorder or an emotional problem. Over 35 years of objective, well-designed scientific research has shown that homosexuality, in and itself, is not associated with mental disorders or emotional or social problems. Homosexuality was once thought to be a mental illness because mental health professionals and society had biased information. In the past the studies of gay, lesbian and bisexual people involved only those in therapy, thus biasing the resulting conclusions. When researchers examined data about these people who were not in therapy, the idea that homosexuality was a mental illness was quickly found to be untrue.
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association confirmed the importance of the new, better designed research and removed homosexuality from the official manual that lists mental and emotional disorders. Two years later, the American Psychological Association passed a resolution supporting the removal. For more than 25 years, both associations have urged all mental health professionals to help dispel the stigma of mental illness that some people still associate with homosexual orientation.
Can Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals Be Good Parents?
Yes. Studies comparing groups of children raised by homosexual and by heterosexual parents find no developmental differences between the two groups of children in four critical areas: their intelligence, psychological adjustment, social adjustment, and popularity with friends. It is also important to realize that a parent's sexual orientation does not dictate his or her children's.
Another myth about homosexuality is the mistaken belief that gay men have more of a tendency than heterosexual men to sexually molest children. There is no evidence to suggest that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to molest children.
Author(s):
Burr, Chandler
Source:
Homosexuality and religion: An encyclopedia. Siker, Jeffrey S. (Ed); pp. 26-31. Westport, CT, US: Greenwood Press/Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. x, 258 pp.
0-313-33088-3 (hardcover)
978-0-313-33088-9 (hardcover)
(Transcribed direction from text) The history of science has been anything but tranquil. In 1859, when Charles Darwin proposed to the world the theory of evolution, the world was repelled. It was aghast that a former Christian cleric would propose it. Most of the preeminent scientists of the day renounced both what Darwin had observed and the conclusions he had drawn from it. Adam Sedgwick, Darwin's old geology teacher and friend, denounced evolution and the biological mechanism of natural selection. Thomas Carlyle called it "a Gospel of dirt." Along with his personal integrity and his motives, Darwin's science was attacked. People rejected Darwin's theory not because the evidence was against him. What troubled the world was a science that dragged human beings down from their position of primacy to the level of the other animal species. What bothered the world was the apparent diminishment of humanity, which was no longer and would never be again, as Darwin would one day rather brutally put it, a separate act of creation. The world has again been disturbed by the science on homosexuality. The first major biological investigation of sexual orientation was published in 1991, neuroanatomical research that jumped from the pages of the periodical Science to the popular media and to public conversation. Within a relatively short time, it was followed by several genetics forays and heightened interest in the hormonal evidence. In early 2005 a team of scientists led by Dr. Brian Mustanski of the University of Illinois at Chicago published their findings in the highly respected biomedical journal Human Genetics. They identified three chromosomal regions linked to sexual orientation in men, mapped on the human genome as 7q36, 8pl2, and 10q26. The various scientists pursuing this biological mystery--neuroanatomists Simon LeVay and Laura Allen, human geneticists Richard Pillard and Michael Bailey, molecular geneticists Dean Hamer, Angela Pattatucci, and Brian Mustanski, and endocrinologists Heino Meyer-Bahlburg and Anka Erhardt--proposed that homosexuals were, in fact, the work of a separate act of creation, in this case biological creation. Gay people, they argued, are biologically distinct human beings from "straight" (heterosexual) people. Where evolution had threatened to bring human beings down from a separate pinnacle to the level of the animals, this latest science on the biology of homosexuality threatened to raise homosexuals up from the level of the subhuman or aberrant and place them on the fully human plan. The implications were and are of tremendous consequence, not only for science, but also for religion. What would it mean for religious views of sexuality and reproduction if there were a subgroup of human beings genetically directed to have nonreproductive sex? The consequences of the scientific studies have resulted in a profound equalizing effect, a leveling of political, social, and even theological hierarchies. The research said that in the important ways heterosexuals and homosexuals were the same, and yet different. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)
From an accredited University website with a .edu url:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/scotts/bulgarians/nature-nurture/levay.htmlThe Proven Difference in Hypothalmic Structure Between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men:
Simon LeVay The anterior hypothalmus of the brain participates in the regulation of male-typical sexual behavior. The volumes of four cell groups in this region
were measured in postmortem tissue from three subject groups: women, men who were presumed to be heterosexual, and homosexual men. No differences were found between the groups in the volumes of INAH 1, 2, or 4. As has been reported previously, INAH 3 was more than twice as large in the heterosexual men as in the women. It was also, however, more than twice as large in the heterosexual men as in the homosexual men. This finding indicates that INAH is dimorphic with sexual orientation, at least in men, and suggests that sexual orientation has a biological substrate.
Kendler, Kenneth S., Thornton, Laura M., Gilman, Stephen E., Kessler, Ronald C., (2000) Sexual orientation in a U.S. national sample of twin and non-twin sibling pairs. American Journal of Psychiatry Vol 157(11), Nov 2000. pp. 1843-1846
From the Abstract: Sexual orientation was assessed by a single item on a self-report questionnaire in a U.S. national sample of twin and non-twin sibling pairs (all Ss aged 25-74 years). Sexual orientation was classified as heterosexual or non-heterosexual (bisexual or homosexual). The authors compared the similarity of sexual orientation in the monozygotic twins to the similarity in the same-sex dizygotic twins, all dizygotic twins, the same-sex dizygotic twins and sibling pairs, and all dizygotic twins and sibling pairs. Biometrical twin analyses were performed. All analyses demonstrated familial resemblance for sexual orientation. Resemblance was greater in the monozygotic twins than in the dizygotic twins or in the dizygotic twins plus non-twin siblings. Familial factors, which are at least partly genetic, influence sexual orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)
Also see:
Bailey and Pillard (1991): occurrence of homosexuality among brothers
• 52% of identical (monozygotic) twins of homosexual men were likewise homosexual
• 22% of fraternal (dizygotic) twins were likewise homosexual
• 11% of adoptive brothers of homosexual men were likewise homosexual
J.M. Bailey and R.C. Pillard, “A genetic study of male sexual orientation,” Archives of General Psychiatry, vol. 48:1089-1096, December 1991.
Bailey and Pillard (1993): occurrence of homosexuality among sisters
• 48% of identical (monozygotic) twins of homosexual women were likewise homosexual (lesbian)
• 16% of fraternal (dizygotic) twins were likewise homosexual
• 6% of adoptive sisters of homosexual women were likewise homosexual
Bailey, J. M. and D. S. Benishay (1993), “Familial Aggregation of Female Sexual Orientation,” American Journal of Psychiatry 150(2): 272-277.
EXPLANATION OF ABSTRACT/DATA FROM THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY:
Monozygotic twins are twins that are derived from a single fertilized egg that divides into. Monozygotic twins, as a result, are close to being genetically identical. They are often referred to as identical twins.
Dizygotic twins are twins that were derived when two different sperm cells fertilized two different eggs. This creates two twins who are may be closer in genetic identity than mere siblings, but who are not at all genetically identical or significantly more similar.
In all twin studies, a concurrence rate, and a penetration rate is expected for a genetic factor. Penetration rate is almost never 100% for any condition. Here is an example of penetration rate. Schizophrenia is wildly understood and excepted as being a genetic disorder. Identical (Monozygotic) twins, separated at birth, have a 46% penetration rate. This means that if one twin develops schizophrenia then the other twin as a 46% chance of developing schizophrenia. If twins are genetically identical then why is the penetration rate not 100%? The answer is because the penetration rate is never 100% because, while the gene for Schizophrenia exists in both twins, all genes must be biologically activated in order for symptoms to emerge.
Looking at the above, wildly accepted study (which was published in one of the most respected, peer reviewed, and authoritative scientific journals in the world) it is explained that the penetration rate for homosexuality in identical twins is 52%. This is astounding because it is an even hire number than the penetration rate for Schizophrenia, a widely accepted genetic condition.
For autism, another condition that is widely understood to be genetic, the penetration rate for that gene is 60%. While this is slightly more (7%) than that of the homosexual gene, it still does not belittle the 52% number. Also, most journal articles allow for a very slender 1% to 5% (almost never more than 5%) margin of error. For almost all of these studies the p-value (likely hood of any error) is very low. In fact, anything with a p-value of .05 or less is definitively considered to be statistically significant. All of these articles posted (as is the standard for the American Journal of Psychiatry) are p < .05. (P is less than or equal to 5%)
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