The Truth Behind Anti-LGBT Research

Last week I was introduced to MN State Representative Glenn Gruenhagen.  I immediately shared what I learned about Mr. Gruenhagen with all of you, paying particular attention to his anti-LGBT stance and his attempts at legalizing discrimination by pretending to care for the mental health of LGBT people through a misrepresentation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). 

I have spent considerable time since researching Mr. Gruenhagen and his colleagues.  I’ve reviewed his website and have been in contact with a few media outlets who shared with me their experiences and findings with regard to Mr. Gruenhagen. 

Before I continue I want to point out the obvious.  I know the vast majority of my readers don’t live in Minnesota.  Heck, I know a lot of you don’t even live in the United States.  The reason why I’ve decided to devote attention to Mr. Gruenhagen’s attempts is because his tactics are universal.  Face it, a fear-monger only has one play:  Be afraid of those people.  The only thing that ever changes from fear-monger to fear-monger is who the those people are.   Mr. Gruenhagen has a few different those peoples to choose from; I’m simply going to focus on the LGBT community because of his recently introduced bill and the heinous actions of politicians in North Carolina.  This is becoming a theme again for this election cycle:  Be afraid of the gays because they’re going to corrupt you with their illness!

You would think that we could start moving past this considering recently court rulings but some people simply cannot abide progress or inevitable judgments that permit that progress. 

So according to Mr. Gruenhagen’s website, designed to get him elected every two years, there exist…

over 2500 studies in the social sciences that confirm the economic and social benefits of traditional marriage, for both men and women. Studies also confirm that children especially benefit in numerous ways when raised by a mom and dad.

It was a bibliography of these studies I had requested from Mr. Gruenhagen.  My request was ignored.  So, though I can’t speak directly to these individual studies, their methodologies and institutions of origin, I can speak to what I know and what I know is this:  Absolutely no legitimate institution of research or higher learning within the educated, academic psychological and psychiatric community within the United States (and perhaps the greater western world) would have published such a study within the past two decades for the simple reason that it defies the science behind identity and sexuality.  What this means is that, if these 2500+ studies Mr. Gruenhagen is talking about actually exist they were authored by pseudo-scientific organizations that are more religion than science, institutions like the Family Research Council.

The interesting thing about the Family Research Council, however, is that they actually don’t do any research.  If you review their list of so called experts you won’t find a single psychiatrist or psychologist in the bunch.  What you will find, however, is a bunch of marketing gurus and lawyers.  If you review their literature on topics like “marriage” and “sexuality,” you’ll find a few briefs that support their political position some policy publications promoting that position, and a number of op-eds advocating for that position.  There’s a gaping hole in the area of actually providing research that support their position and here’s why:

It doesn’t exist.

At least authentic, scientific research conducted morally, ethically, and appropriately away from underlying bias does exist.  It hasn’t existed since the 1970’s when the scientific community, namely the American Psychiatric Association (APA), removed homosexuality from the DSM in 1973.  In their determination the APA indicated that support for the traditional mentality that an LGBT sexuality was reflective of disorder, disturbance, or any similar pathology.  In short there is nothing to be addressed here; take your medieval ideas of prayer and healing elsewhere.  Science does not support it.

But as anyone with a Republican uncle knows after the topic of global climate change comes up at Thanksgiving Dinner, some people just can’t integrate actual science into their belief system.  Typically in such cases we see one of two reactions: 

1.     That’s just liberal nonsense trying to figure out how to run people’s lives and tax the bejesus out of them by using made up facts that happen to support the views of their campaign donors.

2.     But I read on the Family Research Council’s website and heard on Focus on the Family or saw on The Seven Hundred Club that that’s not even true.  It’s just part of the liberal gay agenda to let perverts near our children.

Reaction number one ignores scientific evidence.  Reaction number two counter scientific evidence with religious based pseudo-science. 

Why do you I say it’s religious based pseudo-science?  Look at the institutions that produce these so called studies.  How many of them are connected to current or former televangelists?  How many of them are connected to institutional denominations running ad campaigns in neighboring states to beat marriage equality? 

Here’s the other source for anti-LGBT propaganda:  Other scientific disciplines.   For example, two sociologists who have become champions of the conservative anti-LGBT campaign are Dr. Mark Regnerus, a sociologist from the University of Texas, Austin, and Father Donald Sullins, a Roman Catholic Priest and Sociology Professor at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.

Just to be clear, let me offer simple definitions of the disciplines we’re discussing here.

Sociology is the study of social behavior or society, including its origins, development, organization, networks, and institutions. It is a social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order, disorder, and change.

Psychology is the study of behavior and mind, embracing all aspects of human experience. It is an academic discipline and an applied science which seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles and researching specific cases.

Psychiatry is devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study and treatment of mental disorders. These include various abnormalities that are affective, behavioral, cognitive and perceptual.

Do you see the difference here?  Whereas psychology and psychiatry focus on the inward processes of health and well-being and the behaviors that may stem from the internal, sociology focuses on the outward behaviors of society.  So when an individual looks at a sociology study that may seem to indicate that children in the home of two non-LGBT parents are more successful than children in the home of two LGBT parents, the factors that contribute to this success lie outside of the individual and within society itself.  We are no longer talking about mental health and identity.  We are now talking about the ability of an individual to matriculate into society without prejudice.  Contrary to the opinions of Dr. Regnerus and Father Sullins, there are far too many variables in such research to make conclusive arguments.  Which, of course, they should know since they are sociologists whose job is to remark on the behavior of society and not identify the development of individual identity and how to influence it. 

If sociology discovers that social behavior and society struggle with the integration of LGBT individuals with regard to respect and equality and even fundamental human rights, their discovery does not indicate something faulty or defective with the LGBT mind and/or development.  That is not their area of expertise.  If the psychiatric community, in 1973, determined there is nothing detrimental to the quality of life of an LGBT person when that LGBT person embraces their identity, a sociologist cannot come back, fifty years later, and declare that the whole field of psychiatry is wrong because our study of society shows society can’t deal with LGBT people.

It should be noted as well that these two scholars along with their work have been soundly criticized by their colleagues. 

So why am I sharing this with you?  I mean, it’s not like you’re ever going to have a conversation with that uncle at Thanksgiving Dinner and convince him that science is real and that there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.  Ours is not a society in which we have conversations that lead to change anymore.  Ours is a society in which we don’t have conversations, we no longer seek to learn as much as to teach, to be changed as much as to change. 

The first reason I share this with you is so that you know that when someone like Glenn Gruenhagen, an elected official of the State of Minnesota, stands up and tries to convince you of certain facts based on 2500+ studies that he’s apparently unwilling to share—you need to know where those facts came from and how they are interpreted.  People like Mr. Gruenhagen have anchored their arguments in a body of work but the body of work is as accurate and appropriate as the user’s manual from an old VHS player.  I could make a sound argument for forcing women into subservient roles, too, but it would mean taking the Bible out of context and relying on archaic research and cherry picked contemporary studies.  Not unlike Mr. Gruenhagen and his colleagues have done with LGBT equality. 

The second reason is more difficult than the first.  Armed with the knowledge that homophobes like Glenn Gruenhagen use bad science and no science to bolster their argument means that the people who fight for LGBT equality need to be equipped with actual facts and research for when they find themselves in a position to have legitimate conversation.  Google advocacy and support groups and learn truth to combat misinformation and ignorance.

The third reason is:  I don’t want you to feel bullied by law makers, teachers, or parents when they throw this pseudo-science at you while you struggle with your identify.  Do not let anyone ever tell you that because you identify as LGBT or question whether you identify as LGBT that you are somehow inferior or sick or that you need to change to integrate better with society.  You are a gift to this world—absolutely everything about you.  Don’t let others zero in on one thing that in the grand scheme of things is just one part of who you are and let them destroy you because of it. Again, the problem isn’t within you.  The problem is with how society might see you and that never going to change until society gets to know you.

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Boy George, Troye Sivan, and Me

I spend a lot of time puttering around on the internet.  Every morning I get up and start googling random crap and cruising through YouTube subscriptions and trendings.  It inevitably happens.  At some point a search for one specific thing will lead me to something completely different and it will be that something completely different that will unexpectedly educate and inspire me.

Today I ended up on this video on YouTube.  It’s an interview from 1984 between Johnny Carson and Boy George. 

History lesson time.  Before James Corden rode around in a car singing with superstars and Stephen Colbert lampooned newsmakers with mock earnestness, there was an old white guy who sat behind a desk and did some interviews and cracked some jokes.  In the interest of full disclosure I wasn’t a fan.  But a lot of folks tuned in because, really, he was the only game in town until folks like Joan Rivers and Arsenio Hall brought life and variety to the late night talk show arena.  But Carson was kind of the godfather of it all. 

So, picture it.  1984.  The AIDS crisis is evolving.  Ronald Reagan is president and neither he nor his First Lady, Nancy, will acknowledge the crisis because they don’t even want to be associated with the dirty word “homosexual.”  That doesn’t stop religious leaders and conservative politicians from making hay on the suffering of others by demonizing the victims of the disease while declaring “God’s judgment” on “sinful and deviant lifestyles.”

In the midst of this ignorant morass of silence and blame and fear comes…Boy George.

That picture is a screen capture of Boy George from the Johnny Carson interview.  It was the second time he had appeared on Carson’s show but the first time with Carson.  The first time he had appeared the iconic Joan Rivers was hosting.  This is a fact that Boy George jokes about in the interview with Carson by commenting, “The last time I was here you were in drag.”  Carson quickly distanced himself from the joke, clarifying that it had been Joan Rivers and not Carson with whom he had appeared.  If I’m right, this is a picture of Boy George and Joan Rivers from that first appearance. 

So, back to the video of Carson, the old White guy with his sense of humor that seems to ignore other people’s senses of humor, and Boy George sitting on the opposite side of the desk in all of his Boy George glory.  In 1984.  Amidst fear and ignorance.  And remembering that the culture of the UK is usually about 20 years ahead of culture in the US.  So, for Boy George, the smallest things he said or did at home were met with raised brows and anxiety here in the United States. 

Carson introduced Boy George, who comes in and makes the joke about Carson being in drag that Carson finds so repugnant, and then the interview begins.  It’s clear where Carson wants to go with the interview. 

Not long before this appearance Boy George attended the Grammies and made a joke about wondering when they music industry would see a real queen dressed as a drag queen.  Carson brings up the controversy his comment caused and Boy George brushes it aside, pointing out that in the UK you can say things like that and people laugh but in the US it’s basically a big scandal.  This brings up a conversation about “all of the stupid questions” Boy George had been answering since his arrival in LA from LA radio personalities. 

“What are some of the dumb questions they ask so I know which ones to avoid.  I mean, the first one has got to be,” and Johnny Carson makes sweeping gestures with his hands.  “Why do you dress like that?”

You can hear Boy George’s eyes rolling in his answer.  “I’ve answered that one so many times I’m going to avoid that one.”

“Okay, so what are the other questions?”

“Well, basic things like ‘How long does it take to do my makeup?’ you know and just boring things about my childhood.  Which was just the same as anybody else’s really.  Pretty dull.  Pretty boring.  So, Father Christmas, you know, and grazed knees, that kind of stuff.” 

“Yeah, but you can’t blame them, can you, Boy George, for asking those kinds of questions.  Because you are rather controversial.  It is something new that—“

“But after like three years of seeing me you would think people would be a bit used to me by now, you know.  I mean, in a country that has Liberace, I am hardly revolutionary, am I?

And the audience cheers.  But see the difference between Boy George and Liberace is that Liberace’s glam was still masculine.  He still wore tuxes and suits while performing.  So what if they were covered it glitter and sequence?

Johnny Carson continues.  “I’m trying not to be square you see.  I come from the middle of the United States.  State called Nebraska, which is right out in the middle of the country.  Rather conservative.  Now if I was your dad and you came home one day and I didn’t know it and I walked in and saw you as a young man—I guess you were about fifteen or sixteen when you started actually….wearing the make up and the costumes—I wouldn’t know how to react myself.  I think I would be adult enough myself to try to handle it but—“

“What do you got to handle?”

“Well, the effect that you walk in and you see your son dressing with makeup on.  The average person….”

“Okay, well, you’re going to have Halloween in a couple of weeks, you know.  What’s the difference between somebody dressing up for Halloween?  It’s only because people think it’s serious that they get frightened.  They look at me and they say, ‘Well, it’s not a Halloween party.’  So you have to have a reason to dress up.  There is nothing wrong with being different.  Why do you have to have an excuse to enjoy yourself?  You know there are people out there taking drugs, killing each other, fighting.  And like I just don’t see that you have to wait once a year, Christmas or Halloween, to enjoy yourself.  I think it’s a load of rubbish.  I think there is nothing wrong with dressing up and enjoying yourself if you want.”

“I think you’re right.  I think what you said before though…people are probably uncomfortable though with some things they don’t quite understand or something that’s different from them and they get uptight about it.”

I’ll leave the transcript there because it speaks to the points I want to make. [Go and watch the video, though.  It’s fascinating. ]

In 1984, when Boy George was being interviewed by Johnny Carson, I was in the sixth grade.  I remember my class’s Halloween party.  We still dressed up “back in the day” and spent the afternoon munching candy and watching movies.  One of my classmates dressed up as Boy George.  I knew it was a Boy George costume because she had obviously done the makeup and hair thing but she had written “Boy George” on her t-shirt.  My teacher, who was about the age of Johnny Carson, had a conniption.  He ranted about the costume being inappropriate and offensive.  And it was a female classmate dressed up as Boy George.

Of course this was the same teacher who demanded a male student remove his earring.

This was the mentality of the time.  It’s gotten better, to be sure, but we still have such a long way to go.  Someone I follow on social media just tweeted today that if people fought as hard for the poor as they fight against equal rights and protections, poverty would be history. 

But Johnny Carson, in this interview, actually makes a point.  He pointed out that people are uncomfortable with things they don’t understand or things that are different from them.  And make no mistake about it—Johnny Carson and Boy George and a significant segment of the audience knew that this conversation had nothing to do with make-up and clothes.  This was about identifying as something other than straight (on Boy George’s side) and the fear of validating something that not even the president would even speak about (on Johnny Carson’s side). 

I don’t know what the conversation was like in the UK or other parts of the world, but in the United States, at this time, coming out wasn’t an option for many artists and actors.  For example, George Michael at this same time was making it big with Wham!.  And speculation was just as bad.  If I had a dime for every time I heard a story about the members of New Kids on the Block having their stomach pumped to find gallons of bodily fluids, I could have retired at age 20.  I even remember watching some awards show with my folks one time and hearing my mother comment about how masculine Grace Slick from Jefferson Starship was trying to be while performing “We Built This City.” 

More and more I find myself stopping in my tracks to take stock of how far we’ve come, not just in the LGBTQ community but as a society.  Sharing our stories, when we can and how much we can and in whatever overt or veiled language we can, changes things.  It started somewhere.  It didn’t begin with Boy George on Johnny Carson and it’s certainly not going to end with marriage equality or the overturning of North Carolina’s disgusting law.  We all play our parts, when we can, how we can.  We show our faces with courage.  We move in small circles for our own safety.  We speak from behind the curtain of the internet to protect the people who love us. 

I’ve written before about Troye Sivan.  Last week Troye Sivan tweeted, “I am forever indebted and so so so grateful for the LGBTQ+ people who have come before me.”   This hit me for a variety of reasons but the truth of it is so poignant.  Troye Sivan, global recording superstar, gay, out at 20, changing the world.  But not just him.  Jordan Gray (@TallDarkFriend), trans contestant on The Voice UK, sharing her powerful story.  Noah Galvin on TV—a gay man playing a gay teen on The Real O’Neals.  YouTuber stars from all over the world, out and proud and sharing their stories, continuing the fight for equality so that the next generation of LGBTQ people won’t have to struggle so hard.

Just as Troye Sivan, still fighting with his beautiful spirit and his powerful words (“Without losing a piece of me, how do I get to heaven?”), doesn’t have to fight as hard as Boy George did. 

But here’s the flip side of Troye Sivan’s grateful statement.  My response:  “The ones who came before are grateful to the ones who come after; you’re still changing the world & us.”

You see, this is the reality in which I live.  The world has yet to open for me.  The light of peace and acceptance (of the world toward me and me toward the world, for that matter) hasn’t reached the dark recesses of my “closet.”  But I celebrate these rewards that have been hard won and the ability of those who can live in that light.  I am thrilled when I see Troye Sivan changing the world with his music.  I am thrilled when I read about Cole Ledford’s “Fifty States of Gay” project.  I am thrilled when I see someone like Jordan Gray on a national/international platform like The Voice, not only sharing her gift and her story, but doing it with Boy George himself watching and tearing up for each of her performances.

And all of these and more give me hope that maybe the world will change enough for me and this light will break open my prison door.  You see, in a place where teachers flipped out over girls dressing like Boy George and students assaulting other students just because they might be gay all with the blessing and support of a Church that loves Jesus but not enough to actually listen to the things Jesus says—for people who lived in these places, people like me, then and now, people like Boy George and Troye Sivan mean nothing.  They could be from a completely different world, somewhere over the rainbow (if you’ll pardon the expression). 

But from within my closet, I hear their words coming to me from that magical place of hope.  They inspire me, the one who came before who, from the shadows, fought and still fights,   It’s a cycle, I suppose.  An enormous wheel.  Where does what one generation give to the next begin and end? 

I hear their words and they tell me of a time I will be able to be me without causing the people I love and who love me a pain they don’t deserve for something not in their control anymore than the pain I’ve suffered for things outside of my control.  I’ve lived as a victim of the world’s ignorance for this long.  With these glimpses of hope, I can wait.  I will not victimize others to escape my lot. 

So I keep watch.  I listen.  I write and I speak what I can, when I can, how I can.  And I hope I make a difference.  Probably not as big of a difference as Boy George, Troye Sivan, or Jordan Gray.  But hopefully a difference, if only to one person.  Because that one person still has the potential to change the world.

Addendum:  About 30 minutes after posting this entry I found the interview of Boy George with Joan Rivers.  An astounding difference.  Night and day.  Whereas Carson backs away from Boy George, Joan Rivers sings his praises, calling him "cute and sexy."  

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Success

When everything about you is wired to be a helper and a supporter and advocate you don’t always get to see or experience the fruits of your labor. 

Sometimes your efforts go unnoticed. 

Sometimes the seeds you plant won’t blossom until the people you’ve reached out to have moved out of your life.  They simply carry the seed with them until the right place and right time combine for them to understand what it is you gave them or did for them. 

Sometimes with the pace of life people take hold of what you offer and run with it, never realizing the effort you put into the contribution or that they didn’t express any kind of gratitude. 

We don’t help people because of the accolades.  We don’t expect a round of applause every time we do the right thing.  Often times the fact that we blend so seamlessly into the background of people’s lives is a sign that we’re doing the right thing and, because we don’t demand recognition or payment, we’re doing it for the right reason.

That doesn’t mean people who are wired to be care givers or who simply care don’t find themselves wondering if the things they do matter to people. 

All of my life I have fought to do the right thing.  Sometimes I fail.  Usually I succeed.  At all times I strive to make a difference—to speak for the voiceless and advocate for the powerless.  But because this is my calling, for lack of a better term, it comes with the knowledge that I may never know if I do make a difference because rarely do people like me get the recognition or expressions of gratitude.

And it’s not that we want these things beyond what our human nature drives us to desire.  Everyone wants their fifteen minutes, I suppose.  Human beings like it when our egos can be stroked and our genius can be recognized.  But for those of us who advocate and support and speak, recognition and gratitude aren’t really food for the ego.  Hearing these things is how we know we’re on the right track, that we’re doing the right thing, that our work is validated and someone finds it valuable. 

Now, for someone like me who works behind the curtain as I do with my writing and my blogging and my anonymous advocacy, I regularly find myself wondering if what I’m risking is worth the benefit of what I’m doing.  Do the things I write actually help people?  Are the things I blog about beneficial to anyone?  When I reach out to someone, is what I share beneficial to them?  Or do all of these things that I do from behind the veil of a pseudonym and the mystery of the internet just add to the clutter of the internet and leave a trail for some jerk to undo the non-Troy Comets me?

I know what is behind these thoughts.  It’s insecurity and anxiety.  There was a time I was so confident in my profession, in my work, and my call.  Not so much anymore.  And I know what the difference is:  When you do what I do in real life with people who actual move through your physical space, you have the benefit of seeing the difference you make whether it’s spoken about or not.  When you do what I do now on the internet it’s not so easy to judge your success rate.  I find myself watching the quantifiable markers.  Tweets, interactions, retweets, shares, etc. on social media and page visits and comments on my blog.  I watch marketing trends for my book.  I can even track how many pages of my book are read on any given day by people who use kindle.  What I forget is that these are just…numbers.  They aren’t signs of success.

I imagine it’s like those of you who are youtubers.  You’re driven to tally your views and subscribes and it helps you feel like a success.  But for those of you who vlog about real life stuff you know that making that connection with just one person out of the 20,000 who watched your video and needed to hear what you had to say—that one person is a measure of your real success, not the 19,999 others who simply watched your video. 

We really need to evaluate what we use as metrics of success in a culture that tells us more is better and high traffic means you are successful.  Mass consumption isn’t success. At least in work like I do.  My blog had nearly 100 views today.  That’s not success.  If my blog changed one person’s attitude, informed one person of an important fact, if I entertained one person through my blog, or drew attention to a solitary issue for a single individual—that’s success.

This post isn’t about fishing for praise.  This post is just a gentle reminder—if someone says or does something, offers you something, informs you of something you didn’t know or never realized—thank that person.  It feeds their soul and encourages them to keep going.  It’s simple positive reinforcement. 

And now…some of you know why I am constantly thanking you.