AMA Opposes Effort to Reverse Sex Orientation

The American Medical Assn., reversing a 13-year-old policy, has stopped recommending efforts to turn unhappy gay men and lesbians into heterosexuals.

In a report adopted by the AMA’s governing House of Delegates earlier this month, the association calls for a “non-judgmental recognition of sexual orientation by physicians.”

“All patients, regardless of their sexual orientation, have a right to respect and concern for their lives and values,” says the report, titled “Health Care Needs of Gay Men and Lesbians in the U.S.”

The policy paper, adopted at a meeting Dec. 6, replaces a 1981 paper titled “Health Care Needs of the Homosexual Population.” The 1981 paper supported treatments aimed at changing the sexual orientation of homosexuals. The notion that gays could not be turned into heterosexuals, it said, was a myth.

“There are some homosexuals who would like to and probably could change their sexual orientation,” the old policy read. “Because some homosexual groups maintain, contrary to the bulk of scientific evidence, that preferential or exclusive homosexuality can never be changed, these people may be discouraged from seeking adequate psychiatric consultation. What is more important is that this myth may also be accepted by homosexuals.”

In its new policy paper, the AMA notes that homosexuals may have “some unique mental health concerns” related to negative social attitudes regarding homosexuality. However, it says, most of the emotional disturbance homosexuals may feel about their orientation “is due more to a sense of alienation in an unaccepting environment.”

For this reason, the policy says, “aversion therapy”--such as showing a gay man nude pictures of men and then administering electric shocks or a substance to induce vomiting--”is no longer recommended for gay men and lesbians.”

Dr. M. Roy Schwarz, the AMA’s vice president, said Wednesday that he was surprised the policy paper was adopted without dissent.

“There were physicians who announced from the floor (of the meeting) that they were gay,” he said. “That wouldn’t have happened five years ago.”

The new policy paper was drafted after a meeting last year between AMA leaders and officials from the Gay and Lesbian Medical Assn., a group that has pressed the AMA for years to change its policies toward gay physicians and patients.

“I really believe that the truth won out more than politics,” said Benjamin Schatz, GLMA executive director.