source-library

GSRM/LGBTQ ISSUES

Conversion Therapy

Conversion Therapy/Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE)

CT increases depression and suicide attempts, does not have public nor professional backing, and lacks proof of its effectiveness.

Cornell University
- A literature compilation of 47 peer reviewed studies on conversion therapy for sexual orientation.
- 12 concluded that it is ineffective and/or harmful
  - These studies found links to depression, suicidality, anxiety, social isolation and decreased capacity for intimacy.
- Only one study found positive results, with biased and unreliable self-identified religious subjects.
- The remaining 34 studies found null results.
  - Much of the info we have on conversion therapy is self-reported, so the data has certain limitations.
The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies and others (pdf)
- Multilateral condemnation of ‘conversion therapy’ from essentially every medical institution in the United Kingdom, with reasons provided.
Trevor Project 19
- Massive survey of LGBT folk
- Found that LGBT people who go through conversion therapy are significantly more likely to attempt suicide
Williams Institute: Mallory et al. 18
- A majority of people support banning conversion therapy in the U.S. and the vast majority of people in the U.S. don’t believe that CT is effective
- Many well-respected health organizations also condemn CT
- Many LGBT folk are predicted to go through CT in the coming years
  - “An estimated 20,000 LGBT youth will receive conversion therapy from a licensed professional before they reach the age of 18 in the 41 states that currently do not ban the practice. In addition, an estimated 57,000 LGBT youth across all states will receive conversion therapy from religious or spiritual advisors.”
Human Rights Campaign
- An additional resource which includes an overview of the issue as well as the statements of several well-respected American organizations which denounce CT
APA 09
- HIGH QUALITY, COMPREHENSIVE review of information, studies, etc on CT.
- Finds that most academic information on CT’s effectiveness is low quality, and thus should be viewed with skepticism (pg 27-28)
  - This is in line with the Cornell compilation linked earlier, which suggests that most of the data is self-reported and has significant limitations
- “We conclude that there is a [lack] of scientifically sound research on the safety of SOCE. Early and recent research studies provide no clear indication of the prevalence of harmful outcomes among people who have undergone efforts to change their sexual orientation or the frequency of occurrence of harm because no study to date of adequate scientific rigor has been explicitly designed to do so… However, studies from both [early and recent] periods indicate that attempts to change sexual orientation may cause or exacerbate distress and poor mental health in some individuals, including depression and suicidal thoughts.” (pg 42)
- “The recent nonreligious interventions are based on the assumption that homosexuality and bisexuality are mental disorders or deficits and are based on older discredited psychoanalytic theories. Some focus on increasing behavioral consistency with gender norms and stereotypes. None of these approaches is based on a credible scientific theory, as these ideas have been directly discredited through evidence or rendered obsolete.” (pg 82-83)
- Note: There’s a lot of useful info in this report, so I encourage you to read relevant portions for yourself if you want to use it in future discussions
A HUGE number of academic and medical organizations have expressed opposition to CT, amounting to millions of experts, including but not limited to:
- World Psychiatric Association
- American Medical Association
- National Health Service (UK)
- Pan American Health Organization
- International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses
- American Psychiatric Association
- Australian Psychological Society
- American Psychological Association
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American Academy of Physician Assistants
- American College of Physicians
http://homoresponse.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/position-statements.html a bunch of position statements by relevant academic institutions
A number of former ex-gay activists, usually religious, have since come out as gay again, including:
- Michael Bussee (co-founder of Exodus International, one of the largest ex-gay groups)
- Michael Johnston (founded the now-defunct ex-gay movement called Kerusso Ministries)
- McKrae Game (conversion therapy promoter and founder of Hope for Wholeness)
- John Paulk (worked with anti-gay group Focus On The Family for several years before coming out as gay again)
https://www.susans.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fcou0000011 (covered here as well https://archive.ph/RGykB)

Homosexual Parenting

Homosexual parents are just as good as heterosexual ones, according the the majority of research on the subject. However, most of the research is poor in quality or flawed in some other way, leaving a need for higher quality research.

Cornell University
- A literature compilation of 79 peer reviewed studies on gay and lesbian parents
- 75 concluded that children of gay or lesbian parents fare no worse than other children.
- The other four took their samples from children who endured family break-ups, a cohort known to face added risks. Scholars consider them unreliable, and one even has a letter rebuking it signed by 150+ experts.
- Unfortunately, nearly all of the studies use convenience sampling, which is considered to be low-quality data.
  - However, the Cornell meta-analysis suggests this isn’t a particularly big deal: “researchers regard such studies as providing the best available knowledge about child adjustment, and do not view large, representative samples as essential”
  - Since limits in data collection on this topic are almost inevitable, it’s important to approach such sources with caution.
Rekers & Kilgus 02
- Literature review on homosexual parenting
- Finds that existing research is largely low-quality and that there’s a need for high-quality academic research on the subject, so it’s hard to draw reliable conclusions in either direction
  - Unfortunately, this has continued to be the case since 2002. Similar results were found in a more recent 2016 literature review
American Academy of Pediatrics 13
- Review of 30 years of research on homosexual parenting, finds that they fare just as well as heterosexual parents in spite of social stigma against them
- Co-author of review acknowledges that in spite of most research on the subject coming to the same conclusion, a lot of that research is low quality- “[none of the studies has been a randomized, controlled trial—the Holy Grail of scientific investigation—and all studies of gay parenting are necessarily small, since there aren’t many gay parents](https://www.bu.edu/articles/2013/gay-parents-as-good-as-straight-ones).*”
National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study
- The largest, longest-running study on lesbian parents and their children - some of the HIGHEST QUALITY RESEARCH there is on homosexual parenting
- This study is particularly impressive because of how it’s been able to keep track of families for multiple decades while keeping a high retention rate with responses
- Publications based on NLLFS data find no substantial differences between same-sex and hetero-sexual parenting when it comes to children:
  - https://www.nllfs.org/images/uploads/pdf/nllfs-same-sex-different-sex-parent-households-2016.pdf
  - https://www.nllfs.org/images/uploads/bos-et-al-2017-family-process.pdf
  - https://www.nllfs.org/images/uploads/pdf/2020-studying-longest-same-sex-couples.pdf this one talks about what we’ve learned from existing research and how we can go forward in doing better research in the future
- There are still clear limitations to the NLLFS, e.g. limits that come with convenience/snowballing sampling. This should be noted in conjunction with the study’s strengths
Schofield 16
- Meta-analysis of 81 studies on gay parenting, found overall inconclusive results
- Of the several negative outcomes associated with gay parenting, a lot of varying data makes it hard to put together an overall reliable conclusion, and furthermore it’s not even clear that these negative outcomes are due to gay parenting - “Whatever causes the differences observed in these samples between children raised by gay or lesbian parents and children raised by heterosexual parents, it is not parenting behavior.”
- Found no substantial difference between gay parenting and lesbian parenting - “A third potential explanation, based on theories of gender development… has to do with the presence of a parent of the same or opposite gender as the child. There was, however, no support for this explanation. Children raised by gay fathers were no different than children raised by lesbian mothers, and the differences associated with parent sexual orientation did not vary between boys and girls.”
- Recommends further research into the subject, preferably such which is higher in quality
Huffpost: Pappas 12
- Homosexual parents tend to be more motivated to raise children compared to heterosexual parents, as homosexual parents rarely have unwanted children compared to heterosexual parents
- Homosexual parents are also very useful when it comes to adoptions - “According to a 2007 report by the Williams Institute and the Urban Institute, 65,000 kids were living with adoptive gay parents between 2000 and 2002”
  - A lot of those children are also racial minorities or special-ed, who normally spend more time in the adoption system
- An estimated 2 million gay people have expressed interest in adoptions - that means a lot of kids who could potentially get out of the adoption system. Even if someone believes that gay parents fare worse that heterosexual parents, it’s much harder to concede that gay parents would raise a child worse than an orphanage would.
http://homoresponse.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/position-statements.html#02
https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/53/5/1605/167643/Family-Structure-and-Child-Health-Does-the-Sex
Nationally representative data, does a good job with distinguishing between cohabiting households and married households
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3000058/

Gay Nature vs Nurture

Much of this article takes its sources from this Scientific American article and it should be cited if referring to this whole section.

LeVay, 1991
- 41 subjects
  - 18 homosexual men (+1 bisexual) of ~38.2 yrs.
  - 16 heterosexual men of ~42.8 yrs.
  - 6 heterosexual women of ~41.2 yrs.
- INAH 3 (Interstitial Nucleus of the Anterior Hypothalamus 3), a cluster of neurons has been shown to determine sexual orientation. INAH 3 is around twice as large in heterosexual men than homosexual men
- INAH 3 has been considered to be similar to a sexual orientation deciding cell cluster of a rat. The size of this cell cluster cannot be changed after birth, even with extreme methods such as castration.
Byne et al., 2001
- INAH 3 volume is unaffected by HIV status
- Provides further evidence on volume difference of INAH 3 between hetero and homosexual men
- Evidence of rat cell cluster being equivalent to INAH 3
- Respective cell clusters are both a component of equivalent structures
Savic & Lindström, 2008
- 90 subjects (40 Homosexuals, 50 Heterosexuals, even male-female split)
- PET and MRI scans show that the** right hemisphere of the brain tends to be larger in heterosexual men and homosexual women. Hemispheres are symmetric in homosexual men and heterosexual women.
- Homosexual subjects had sex-atypical amygdala connections. HoM (as in HeW), connections were more widespread from the left amygdala.
- Evidence shows that homosexuality is linked to levels of hormones (specifically androgen) in the womb.
  - Especially in HoW [Hines, 2010 & 2011], references to 10 other studies that have concluded that high androgen levels in the womb affect homosexuality in women. Some evidence shows that androgen also affects homosexuality in men.

Brain Development and Sexual Orientation

Swaab & Hofman, 1990
- 28 subjects
  - 18 Heterosexual Men
  - 10 Homosexual Men
- SCN (Suprachiasmatic nucleus), a cluster of neurons is 1.7 times larger and contains twice as many neurons in HoM than HeM, however cause is unclear
Allen & Gorski, 1992
- 90 subjects
- Connection of two hemispheres (anterior commissure) is larger among HoM than HeM and even women
Witelson et al., 2007
- 22 subjects
  - 10 Heterosexual Men
  - 12 Homosexual Men
- The size of the area of the brain (isthmus of the corpus callosum) has been shown to decide handedness. Another study,** as well as this one mention how the size of this is related to handedness. Not only was there a higher chance of HoM being left handed, but the isthmus remains larger even among right handed HoM. Based on the size of this, there was a 96% correct classification of sexual orientation among subjects
  - Handedness (the size of the isthmus) is decided in the womb
Manzouri & Savic, 2017
- 140 subjects
  - 40 Heterosexual Men and Women (80 total)
  - 30 Homosexual Men and Women (60 total)
- HoM (as in HeF) display a significantly thicker parietal lobe (left occipito-parietal) than in HeM
- HoM have a thinner part of the occipital lobe (cuneus cortex) than in HeM
- HoM differed from all other groups in that they have a greater cortical thickness in some spots of the brain (Superior frontal, mPFC, Precuneus)
Hines, 2011

Family Support

Familial support and acceptance is vital to the mental health and wellbeing of GSRM youth

Cornell University
- Utilized in the trans section but still important to add here
- A LITERATURE REVIEW of 42 peer-reviewed studies that analyzed the links between family support and the health and well-being of LGBT youth
  - 25 studies found that accepting behavior by parents toward their children’s sexual orientation or gender identity is linked to the health and well-being of LGBT youth.
  - The other 17 studies found that family support in general (i.e. not necessarily in response to children’s sexual orientation or gender identity) is linked to the health and well-being of LGBT youth.

Marriage Equality

Associated with positive mental health outcomes, establishing a more utilitarian argument to the legalization of same-sex marriage

John Hopkins: Raifman et al.17
- State same-sex marriage policies were associated with a reduction in the proportion of high school students reporting suicide attempts
- Based on the available sample size, same-sex marriage policies would likely be associated with more than 134,000 fewer adolescents attempting suicide
Hatzenbuehler et al. 12
- Compared to the prior 12 months, in the 12 months immediately after Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, LGB men saw decreases in:
  - Medical care visits
  - Mental health care visits
  - Costs related to these
Erlangsen et al. 2019 (cited) (cited)
- TLDR suicide among gay people fell in Denmark and Sweden after gay marriage was legalized in those countries. The links cited do a good job explaining things
A number of reputable academic/scientific organizations see no problem with same-sex marriage:
- American Psychological Association
- American Anthropological Association
- American Sociological Association
- American Psychiatric Association
- American Medical Association
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American Bar Association
- Canadian Psychological Association
- American Academy of Family Physicians
- American Psychoanalytic Association
- American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- National Association of Social Workers
https://www.washington.edu/news/2017/04/13/married-lgbt-older-adults-are-healthier-happier-than-singles-study-finds/

Legal Protection

Anti-bullying laws decrease suicidal ideation and increase safety

Meyer 19 (cited)
- Anti Bullying state laws that enumerate sexual orientation were associated with:
  - lower risk for suicide attempts and serious attempts requiring medical attention
  - feeling safe at school or on the way to or from school.
  - lower risk for forced sexual intercourse
  - Results did not differ by sexual orientation.

Bullying, Harassment, and Discrimination

LGBT People experience disproportionate homelessness, hostility of family (negative statements. shaming), harassment at school, and physical and sexual abuse

HRC and University of Connecticut: 2018 Youth LGBT Report
- MASSIVE survey of 150+ questions and 12,005 respondents who answered most of them
- Easy to read, goes over the impact of parent support on LGBT youth
- LGBTQ youth family stats:
  - Only 24% can “definitely” be themselves as an LGBTQ person at home
  - 67% hear their families make negative comments about LGBTQ people. This number jumps to 78% if they haven’t come out as LGBTQ to their parents
  - 48% out to their parents say that their families make them feel bad for being LGBTQ
- LGBTQ youth school stats:
  - Only 27% can “definitely” be themselves in school as an LGBTQ person
  - Only 13% report hearing positive messages about being LGBTQ in school
  - And only 12% received information about safe sex that was relevant to them as an LGBTQ person
  - Only 26% report that they always feel safe in the classroom
  - 73% have experienced verbal threats because of their actual or perceived LGBTQ identity
  - 70% have been bullied at school because of their sexual orientation
  - 51% of Trans Youth can never use the restrooms or locker rooms that match their gender identity, either from school-sponsored restrictions (17%), the perception of a lack of safety (58%), or uncertainty towards school policy (46%). 65% of students with this issue try to avoid using the bathroom entirely at school in response
- Some methodology notes:
  - “A post-hoc mischievous responder’s sensitivity analysis was conducted to identify and delete mischievous or intentionally misleading cases, resulting in 96 deleted cases.”
  - In total, 29,291 youth entered the survey website. Among these respondents, 17,112 completed at least 10 percent of the survey, 12,005 completed at least half, and 9,460 completed the entire survey. In this report, the 50 percent and up sample (n=12,005) was utilized for analyses.
Pew Research 13
University of Chicago Chapin Hall Youth Homelessness Report 17
- LGBTQ youth are 120% more likely to experience homelessness than cisgender and heterosexual youth.
- “These findings reinforce growing evidence on the heightened risk of experiencing homelessness among LGBT youth. This often stems from a lack of acceptance that young people experience both in and outside of the home.”
Williams Institute: Dowd 18 (cited)
- HUGE collection of data points on harassment in schools
- 85% of LGBT students have experienced verbal harassment
- 58% of LGBT youth have felt unsafe at school due to their sexual orientation; 43% have felt unsafe because of their gender identity
- 27% of LGBT students have been physically harassed at school because of their sexual orientation; 13% have been physically harassed because of their gender identity
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence 18
- Queer folks experience a disproportionate amount of domestic and sexual violence
  - Experience disproportionate amounts of rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime
  - Only 26% of gay men called the police for assistance after experiencing near-lethal violence.
  - Fewer than 5% of LGBTQ survivors of intimate partner violence sought orders of protection.
  - Transgender victims are more likely to experience intimate partner violence in public
  - Bisexual victims are more likely to experience sexual violence.
  - LGBTQ Black/African American victims are more likely to experience physical intimate partner violence.
  - LGBTQ white victims are more likely to experience sexual violence.
- Here’s how it breaks down:
  - 20% of victims have experienced some form of physical violence
  - 16% have been victims to threats and intimidation
  - 15% have been verbally harassed
  - 4% of survivors have experienced sexual violence
  - 11% of intimate violence cases reported in the NCADVP’s 2015 report involved a weapon.
Sears et al. 14
- LGBT people face high levels of discrimination at work
- Finds evidence of widespread discrimination (workplace harassment, reduced employment opportunities, etc.) in scientific field studies, controlled experiments, academic journals, court cases, state and local administrative complaints, etc.
- “discrimination has negative effects on LGBT people in terms of health, wages, job opportunities, productivity in the workplace, and job satisfaction”
http://homoresponse.blogspot.com/2011/06/mental-health-and-substance-abuse.html
- Pretty useful repository of studies which affirm the idea that discrimination is the main driver of lower quality of life for gay people
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/40/eaba6910
- Representative sample of LGBT population, using NCVS data, shows LGBT people face more discrimination than non-LGBT people across the board
- They have some cool graphs and charts too
Sun and Gao, 2019
- Deals with discrimination against LGBT+ people in Lending
- “The data reveal that, compared with otherwise similar different-sex applicants, same-sex applicants are 73.12% more likely to be denied, and they tend to be charged up to 0.2% higher fees/interest.”
- Note: Does not use a self identification method to infer sexuality
- This is illogical: “Meanwhile, we find that same-sex borrowers are less risky overall, as they exhibit similar default risk but lower prepayment risk.”
https://www.lambdalegal.org/sites/default/files/publications/downloads/whcic-report_when-health-care-isnt-caring.pdf
https://winnspace.uwinnipeg.ca/handle/10680/1265 about school discrimination in canada
https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/aeap.2006.18.5.444
https://drugfree.org/download/preventing-substance-abuse-among-lgbtq-teens/

Homosexuality and Pedophilia

General overview:

Videos that cover a lot of the stuff in this section but in video format:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV5PbrTySxY short video which hones in on some key concepts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26CIdhTnbV4 longer video which covers a bunch of studies
https://lgbpsychology.org/html/facts_molestation.html thorough webpage which covers the stuff in this section and more, including the typologies and various studies. also written by a highly influential and respected scholar in the field

It’s important to note that most studies on this topic are several decades old, usually from the 70s and 80s. Studies conducted back then didn’t have the same resources or level of knowledge that we do today, and also society’s opinions on gay people have changed a lot since that time period. These studies may be tainted with decades-old cultural bias as a result of what most people believed at the time.

Typologies of child sex offenders:

Before talking about homosexuality in relation to pedophilia, we have to understand how exactly pedophilia and CSA breaks down. Groth & Birnbaum 1978 is an old but important study which put together a framework for this. It broke down a sample of 175 child sex offenders into two groups: “fixated” and “regressive”, though today they’re referred to as “preferential” and “situational” respectively.

Fixated/Preferential offenders are simply attracted to kids. They are pedophiles and have a documentable history of being attracted to children. Usually what matters to the fixated offender is not what sex the kid is, but the fact that the kid is young to begin with (pre-pubescent children haven’t gone through puberty so aren’t nearly as distinct in masculine/feminine body types as someone who has gone through puberty).
Regressive/Situational offenders are adults who are otherwise sexually normal but “regressed” to being attracted to children for a short amount of time due to external stressors. These people don’t have a history of being attracted to children. The study gives the example of Ted, who is a straight man with a sexual history of dating/marrying adult women, only for him to go through a regressive phase immediately after his marriage falls apart, during which he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old boy.

This typology was made in the 70s, but was further studied and expanded on in following decades (more info on that here). There are other typologies but the preferential/situational typology is still broadly accepted in the academic community, just with some nuance talked about in the above links.

So where do gay people come into play? The original 1978 study talked about this at length and went as far as to argue that homosexual pedophiles are a phenomenon entirely separate from normal gay men. This passage from the study explains:

“There were no peer-oriented homosexual males in our sample who regressed to children. Homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia are not synonymous. In fact, it may be that these two orientations are mutually exclusive, the reason being that the homosexual male is sexually attracted to masculine qualities whereas the heterosexual male is sexually attracted to feminine characteristics, and the sexually immature child’s qualities are more feminine than masculine.”

Essentially, normal gay people are entirely different from pedophiles because the qualities that gay men find attractive in other men are completely different from the qualities that pedophiles (straight or otherwise) find attractive in children. This also means that a male pedophile who molests a boy is not automatically gay - this is very important to remember when looking at studies on this subject, and something that a lot of people forget.

Useful studies:

Stevenson 2001
- Very useful study about the various flaws in anti-gay arguments and related studies. Also provides a systematic review of 20+ years of research
- Points out that in the past, various stigmatized groups have been accused of molesting children, often without evidence: “Research on prejudice shows that members of stigmatized groups (e.g., Catholics, Jews, developmentally disabled people, AfricanAmericans) tend to be accused of the same sexual misconduct (e.g., rape, child abuse, and the inability to control their sexual impulses) (Martin, 1982; 1988; Schneider, 1993). The same unsupported rhetoric is reflected in the erroneous assumptions that adult men who sexually abuse boys are gay and that gay men molest children.”
- This paper goes great lengths to point out, in very blunt terms, that engaging in same-sex behavior does not automatically make someone gay:
  - “Contrary to the assumptions made by the public (Ohi, 2000) and by anti-gay researchers and activists (e.g., Cameron & Cameron, 1996; 1998), engaging in same-sex behavior is not synonymous with the adoption of a gay identity (i.e., being gay or lesbian) regardless of the ages of the participants … over 9 percent of men had engaged in a same-sex sexual behavior at least once since puberty, whereas only 2.8 percent reported some level of gay identity … To put this in the context of the sexual coercion of children, when sexual behavior occurs between an adult and a child of the same sex, we cannot infer the sexual orientation of either party.”
- Even in the 90s, there were a LOT of studies that concluded gay men are no more likely than straight men to be child molesters:
  - “In spite of Western culture’s failure to distinguish consistently between gay men, ‘‘child molesters,’’ and pedophiles (Ohi, 2000), numerous empirical studies support the conclusion that a gay man is no more likely than a straight man to perpetrate sexual activity with children (Barret & Robinson, 1994; Becker et al., 1995; Groth & Birnbaum, 1978; Groth, 1978; Herek, 1991; Jenny, Roesler & Poyer, 1994; Patterson, 1997; Sarafino, 1979).”
- In general this paper has a lot of detailed, thoughtful discussion about various studies, including critiques of anti-gay activism and the studies they cite. Very useful paper if you have the time to delve into it
McConaghy 1998
- Broader literature review on pedophilia but includes a section on homosexuality
- Most pedophiles are more attracted to someone’s youth than they are to either particular sex: “The man who offends against prepubertal or immediately postpubertal boys is typically not sexually interested in older men or in women.”
- People associate gays with pedophiles not because of actual evidence but because of intense media focus on the topic: “The confusion of homosexuality and paedophilia would appear to result from the much greater media and legal attention given to homosexual as compared to heterosexual paedophilia. This appears uninfluenced by the findings that there are many more heterosexual than homosexual paedophiles”
Jenny et al. 1994
- Study analyzed 352 children suspected of being victims of child sex abuse. That group was narrowed down to 269 children who were molested by pedophiles.
- “Using the data from our study, the 95% confidence limits, of the risk children would identify recognizably homosexual adults as the potential abuser, are from 0% to 3.1%. These limits are within current estimates of the prevalence of homosexuality in the general community.”
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224498909551494
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/000579678890071X?via%3Dihub
https://web.archive.org/web/20120314124757/http://www.internationalorder.org/scandal_response.html
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/homosexuality-and-pedophi_b_1932622

Flawed/unreliable studies:

Freund & Watson 1992
- Study that’s regularly cited by anti-gay activists to claim that gay men are more likely to be pedophiles than straight men are
- Study that uses phallometric testing to measure the “true” sexual preference of 465 child molesters, 90+% of whom were understood to be pedophiles. By doing this they found a 11:1 straight:gay ratio among pedophiles, so around 92% of pedophiles are straight and 8% are gay
- While the methodology isn’t necessarily bad, the results need to be reinterpreted. Activists will often say it means 8% of pedophiles are gay, which is a disproportionate amount relative to the gay population (4% of the US population), but it’s only slightly disproportionate, an amount so small you could chalk it up to statistical error. For reference, straight people were reportedly 96% of the US population and were predicted by the study to be 92% of all pedophiles, a measly difference which could be due to statistical error. The difference just seems bigger for gay people (4% vs 8%) because the gay population is simply way smaller than the straight population, even though the statistical error is the exact same size. Ergo, neither straight people nor gay people are disproportionately represented among pedophiles.

Demographic Reference

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr077.pdf the CDC in 2014 said 3.4% of the US population didn’t say they’re straight
Pew Research 2013 - (population stats are not the best because non-heterosexual trans folk are counted once as either trans or non-heterosexual)

Williams Institute 16 (pdf)
- WIDELY CITED population estimate for transgender people
- Estimates a transgender population of around 0.6%, or 1.4 million people, in the United States
- This is double the amount estimated by a 2011 study (0.3%) which had limited data to work with

Rebutting Myths about LGB People

This related document also covers some material so I’d recommend you give it a look as well.

1. Gay people molest kids far more frequently than straight people.

This claim was popularized in part by disgraced psychologist Paul Cameron, who is well known to have misrepresented data before to promote an anti-gay agenda. The Family Research Council, an anti-gay religious group, has also pushed this claim.
Most research into the subject is heavily unreliable for a number of reasons detailed here and here, and approaches which try to circumvent those issues don’t show gay people disproportionally molest kids.
https://medium.com/@juliussky/gays-arent-more-likely-to-be-pedophiles-611a48469655
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV5PbrTySxY most molesters of young boys are disturbed, on a power surge, etc. very few are gay

2. People become gay as a result of sexual abuse at a young age.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160323160542/http://malesurvivor.org/myths.html see myths 2 and 5
https://truthwinsout.org/pressrelease/2010/10/12118/ schumm study meant to prove the homophobic point is dumb
While it’s still unknown what causes homosexuality, chances are it’s not due to one environmental variable (e.g. child sexual abuse), but rather a variety of genetic and environmental variables: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080628205430.htm
http://homoresponse.blogspot.com/2011/05/countering-heterosexist-arguments.html#04

3. Gay people have 500-1000 sexual partners in their lifetime.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Debunked:_gay_men_have_500-1000_partners just go here, it addresses the claim pretty well

4. Homosexuality was only declassified as a mental disorder from the DSM in 1973 because of activist pressure.

This video does a good job rebutting the claim, though the video was originally meant as a response to a different video from Stand to Reason. You’ll have to skip to a few minutes in for the meat of the issue
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4695779/
https://www.scribd.com/document/165076223/APA-Science-vs-Obscurantists

5. Homosexuality is unhealthy to the point where it reduces your lifespan by 20 years. We shouldn’t be affirming towards something so destructive.

This originates from a study that found HIV was driving an 8-20 year decrease in avg gay lifespan (note the wide interval between 8 and 20), the study authors have since denounced homophobic use of their work. See below link
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/28211/do-homosexuals-have-a-shorter-life-expectancy-than-heterosexuals

6. Other material

http://homoresponse.blogspot.com/2011/05/countering-heterosexist-arguments.html

http://homoresponse.blogspot.com/2011/06/mental-health-and-substance-abuse.html

https://www.sexandpsychology.com/blog/2012/9/28/5-myths-about-homosexuality-debunked-by-science/

https://www.livescience.com/13409-myths-gay-people-debunked-sexual-orientation.html

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Homophobia covers some more general stuff

https://www.ulc.org/ulc-blog/10-reasons-why-homophobia-makes-no-sense-part-1

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178534

Rebutting Anti-LGB Studies

This related document also covers some studies so I’d recommend you give it a look as well.

1. Regnerus 12, sometimes called the New Family Structures Study (wikipedia)

Claims that same-sex couples have a negative impact on their children as opposed to heterosexual couples
- Common image which uses this study’s data:
METHODOLOGICAL FLAWS - ignores factors like family instability
- This problem goes as deep as the questionnaire that defined the samples - the questions basically barred unstable, broken straight homes out of the sample whereas unstable gay families were included in the data. This Slate article explains it well:
  - “The survey went on to ask: “From when you were born until age 18 … did either of your parents ever have a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex?” If the respondent said yes, he was put in the “gay father” (GF) or “lesbian mother” (LM) category, regardless of subsequent answers. But if he said no, a later question about the relationship between “your biological parents” was used to classify him as the product of an “intact biological family” (IBF) or of an “adopted,” “divorced,” “stepfamily,” or “single-parent” household. In other words, broken families were excluded from the IBF [straight couple] category but included in the GF and LM [gay couple] categories.”
- Subsequent studies, which were done WITH REGNERUS’S DATA, found that different results were found upon accounting for factors like family instability (first) (second). It’s worth noting that the first paper has since gotten a response from Regnerus.
Outside of the study design, certain problems have also been raised about the study’s timeline, peer review, etc.
Raised concern and criticism from 200+ scientists, a great deal of whom have PhDs in relevant fields. These were not merely concerns about being politically correct, but were actual criticisms of the study methodology, results, and the specifics of the study’s approval process.
Even if the study is robust, policy implications aren’t necessarily straightforward. Regnerus himself has said that “The political take-home message of the NFSS study is unclear, however. On the one hand, the instability detected in the NFSS could translate into a call for extending the relative security afforded by marriage to gay and lesbian couples.” In other words, you could interpret his study as an argument in favor of gay marriage, as legalizing gay marriage would offer gay couples the extra benefits and stabilizing impact that straight couples are already given.
https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/how-random-error-and-dirty-data-made-regnerus-even-wronger-than-we-thought/
https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/tag/regnerus/ for later digging. This specific guy spent quite a bit of time diving into the details of the Regnerus study.
https://healthland.time.com/2012/06/11/do-children-of-same-sex-parents-really-fare-worse/ provides a fair summary of the big critiques

2. “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation? 200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation” aka Spitzer 2001 (more info) (a bit more) (non-paywall)

Used by gay-straight conversion therapy advocates to suggest that conversion therapy works
SAMPLE BIAS - 93% sought therapy due to religious beliefs and 78% had publicly supported conversion therapy, thus motivating them to overreport success.
- In fact, two thirds of the participants had been referred from groups which are pro conversion therapy, further undermining the usefulness of the sample: “Some 43 percent of the sample had been referred to Spitzer by “ex-gay ministries” that offer programs to gay people who seek to change […] An additional 23 percent were referred by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, which says most of its members consider homosexuality a developmental disorder.”
- Even if all of the reports are legitimate and there 100% was conversion therapy, it’s still worth considering that these results still might only apply to people who are highly motivated to change sexual orientation, and wouldn’t work on the typical gay person. Spitzer himself has said multiple times following the study that he expected conversion therapy to only work on a small number of homosexuals. This makes sense too once you consider the sample bias of the study.
Bisexuality is completely ignored by Spitzer, meaning that any bisexuals in the study probably would have been considered homosexual from the start
The study was formally disavowed by Spitzer in 2012 due to its flaws, and he’s criticized anti-gay groups for abusing his research for their agenda.
- Some people say that he disavowed the study due to pressure from LGBT groups, but this view both pivots from the various flaws of the study and ignores that he reached that view from over a decade of retrospection, whereas most of the political pressure likely came from the study’s first step into the spotlight in 2001.
Some more info about its flaws here and here - probably worth citing if the study comes up in a discussion

3. Nicolosi et al. 2000

Used by gay-straight conversion therapy advocates to suggest that conversion therapy works
CAN’T BE EXTRACTED TO GENERAL POPULACE - “The sampling procedures did not permit the researchers to keep a count of the number of people who were invited to participate in the survey, and so it is not possible to estimate response rates. Thus, it is important to keep in mind that the results of this survey cannot be meaningfully generalized beyond the present sample. The survey also does not allow us to draw conclusions about what percentage of dissatisfied homosexually oriented people who experience conversion therapy find it helpful or unhelpful. All we can confidently conclude is that the survey enabled us to find out more about the beliefs and attitudes of this specific sample of dissatisfied homosexually oriented people.”
- Keep in mind that this does not render the data of this study as useless, as it could be used to figure out general attitudes regarding what CT practices worked or failed for those particular clients, and those practices could be experimented more on in the future
Sample bias likely plays a role as well - 96% of respondents said religion or spirituality matter a lot to them, making them more likely to overreport success as Abrahamic religions are generally pro-CT

4. Sullins 2016

https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/07/new-gay-parenting-study-is-a-dishonest-assault-on-lgbtq-families.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20150309084841/https://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/02/10/3621375/regnerus-sullins-same-sex-parenting/
Keep in mind the study’s critiques might be bad: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5204099/

5. “Does Maltreatment in Childhood Affect Sexual Orientation in Adulthood?” aka Roberts, Glymour, Koenen 2012

The study concluded that being gay could be caused in some cases by sexual abuse at a young age (though they also said the opposite could also happen, so homosexuality and childhood sexual abuse could have bidirectional causation)
Predicted a measly 2% increase in homosexuality in people who had experienced said abuse. This isn’t exactly the most significant evidence on the part of homophobes
The study itself used a really weird model that’s usually reserved for economics, and probably screwed some stuff up in part because of that. See the critiques below
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236080929_Poor_Instruments_Lead_to_Poor_Inferences_Comment_on_Roberts_Glymour_and_Koenen_2013 -https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260611224_Genetic_Confounds_in_the_Study_of_Sexual_Orientation_Comment_on_Roberts_Glymour_and_Koenen_2014
See also relevant commentary on the study here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_and_sexual_orientation

6. “Emotionally Absent Fathers: Furthering the Understanding of Homosexuality” aka Seutter & Rovers 2004

Study used to claim that weak/unstable father relations cause homosexuality
The crux of the argument here relies on a 4.27 point difference between gays and straights on “Intimacy with Father”, the difference between a score of 39.27 and 35. See the table below:
- In general, the average scores that gays and straights got are very similar across the board, none of them being more than 5 points apart. The standard deviations (labeled “SD”) are all remarkably similar too.
- People will hone in on how gay people scored lower on “Intimacy with Father” compared to straights, but the difference is scores is a pretty small 4.27 difference. Given the small sample size (only 24 gay people surveyed!) even one outlier could make the difference here.
- EVEN IF gay people scored SIGNIFICANTLY lower on father intimacy, this doesn’t mean anything about father absence CAUSING gayness. Correlation doesn’t automatically mean causation. On the flip side, you could argue the causation goes the other way around - gay people are often rejected from their families for being gay (a homosexuality → father absence effect).

7. Schumm 2010

Claims that children of gay parents are 1.7 to 12.1 times as likely to become gay as children of straight parents
https://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/10/17/27400
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dangerous-new-antigay-sha_b_767507