ABSTRACT
At the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in May 2001, Robert Spitzer of Columbia University presented a paper that generated a great deal of heat and publicity (Spitzer, 2003). Spitzer is well known for his help, in 1973, in removing homosexuality as a mental disorder from the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) (Bayer, 1981; Silverstein, 1976/1977). All the greater wonder then the Associated Press’ headline that Spitzer was presenting, “An explosive new study that says that some gays can go straight if they really want to” (Lund and Renna, 2003).
