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from Books & Reviews
New Book on Prevention
Released in October 2002
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT WHAT IT
MEANS TO PREVENT HOMOSEXUALITY
Q: Many people think that homosexuality is part of
a person's natural identity. Is homosexuality
really something that can be prevented?
Joseph Nicolosi: Homosexuality is understood by
the majority of mental health practitioners
working in this field to result from the
interaction of biological, social and
psychological factors. The social and
psychological factors can be modified. What
parents can do to make a homosexual outcome
unlikely is to lay the best possible foundation
for their child's secure gender identity.
Q: Homosexuality as a developmental disorder has
been taken out of the American Psychiatric
Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.
Why do you still say that it is a developmental
disorder?
Linda Nicolosi: Psychiatry says a disorder is
characterized by distress and disability. We see a
lot of subjective distress in
homosexually oriented people which cannot be
attributed solely to social discrimination. We
also believe there is evidence of a "disability"
in the homosexually-oriented person's feeling of
not being comfortable with members of their own
sex, of feeling "different" and inadequate, and of
course, in not being able to function according to
their biologically mandated sexual design.
Furthermore, the gay world is very destructive to
our communal understanding of healthy gender
identity and gender roles, to the stability of the
traditional family, and to our integrity as
persons who are designed to live in accordance
with our created natures.
Q: Some may think that an idea like preventing
homosexuality will only create more tension toward
the homosexual community. How do you see A
Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality fitting
into the bigger picture of understanding sexual
identity?
Joseph and Linda Nicolosi: We think it fits in by
showing parents that they can do something to
influence their child's gender identity and future
sexual orientation, even though there are no
guarantees of the outcome. But they can certainly
lay the foundation for a secure gender identity
and thus provide what hundreds of dissatisfied
homosexual strugglers have told us over and over
was painfully absent in their own childhoods. And
so there is very good reason for hope.
What are some of the strongest studies and pieces
of evidence that homosexuality can be prevented?
Joseph: There is suggestive evidence, particularly
from the research of Dr. George Rekers, that we
can reduce the incidence of adult homosexuality if
we support the gender-identity development of the
child. But perhaps the best evidence to date
comes from listening to the stories of adult
homosexuals who have told us, over and over, what
was missing in their own childhoods, and then
working backward to fill those unmet needs and
correct those misconceptions.
Time and again we hear such men say, "I never felt
close to my father." "I always felt 'on the
outs' with the other boys." "I never thought I
could live up to my dad's expectations; so I was
sure I was a failure." "My mother and I were best
friends, and my father was the outsider in the
family." "My brothers teased, abused and ridiculed
me and my Dad called me a sissy." "An older guy
molested me and I liked the closeness, the
hugging, and the attention, and so I came to the
conclusion I must be a homosexual." "My Project 10
counselor at school said this confusion I'm
feeling means that 'gay is who I really am'."
What about parents who do the best they can--and
their child grows up and says he is gay?
Joseph and Linda: Parents can make it clear,
lovingly, that they're grieved by their child's
lifestyle choices. They can also clarify that they
don't believe that that gay is ultimately "who a person is,"
in the deepest sense. But we must love and stay close
to all our children, even those who later make
lifestyle choices of which we strongly disapprove.
They are, of course, always our children.
How would you summarize your advice to parents
who suspect their young son, for example, may be
prehomosexual?
Joseph: I would tell fathers to go after
your sons--push through the resistance and the
estrangement, and don't let them reject you.
Encourage them to find healthy same-sex peer relationships.
Mothers, don't make your sons into your best friends;
emphasize their differentness from you. Make it
clear to your son that being a boy is good and desirable.
And listen closely to the many personal stories in
our book--told by both gay and former homosexual men--about
what was painfully absent in their own boyhoods.
If you employ the insights these stories provide,
there is much that you can do to help your sons
and daughters grow up to be secure, confident and
happy in their gender.
What the author of Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth says about A
Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality:
"After years of indifference from the professional rank-and-file, most people
have been trained to no longer see the exit from homosexuality--nor even the
need for one. A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, therefore, is an
inoculation for our future.
"Or it can be: if enough of us take up the work he and a few of his fellows
began--and then persisted in, through these decades of bigotry and
ignorance--to learn that the power of homosexuality comes not from its
innateness or intractability (however much it feels that way), but from the
fears and uncertainties that plague every human being with a heart.
"The prevention of homosexuality, like its treatment, is no more difficult,
nor more easy, than the re-shaping of any other human foible...and just as
important."
--Jeffrey B. Satinover, M.D.
former Fellow in Child Psychiatry
at Yale
University
A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality is
now available from InterVarsity Press at
www.ivpress.org. Paperback, $15.00.
Updated: 8 February 2008
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