Unqueering the Double Helix: Conversion Therapists, the “Gay Gene,” and Culture Wars in the United States

Abstract

In 1993, geneticist Dean Hamer and his colleagues published a groundbreaking study suggesting that a region on the X chromosome—Xq28—might be linked to male homosexuality. Widely covered in the press and championed by LGBTQ rights advocates, the study lent scientific weight to the argument that sexual orientation is biologically rooted rather than solely the product of psychosexual developmental failure. This posed a significant threat to the cultural authority of conversion therapists, who had long relied on psychoanalytic frameworks that pathologized same-sex desire as a “curable” condition. In response, conversion therapists launched a coordinated counteroffensive, rejecting the emerging biological evidence about homosexuality and doubling down on psychodynamic theories about same-sex desire developed in the mid-20th century. This article argues that the publication of Hamer’s research drew conversion therapists into the heart of the United States’ culture wars, where they forged interfaith political coalitions and constructed alternative knowledge-production networks to preserve the plausibility of sexual reorientation. Their opposition to genetic research was more than scientific skepticism; it was a strategic political effort to defend heteronormativity, enforce rigid gender roles, and delegitimize queer and trans identities. By tracing how conversion therapists selectively engaged with emerging scientific discourses around LGBTQ individuals being “born that way,” this article reveals how marginalized actors helped shape—and distort—the boundaries of scientific authority in service of a broader anti-queer agenda.

Introduction

In July 1993, Dean Hamer and his colleagues at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) presented groundbreaking research suggesting that sexual orientation could be rooted in human genetics. The study, published in Science, traced shared genetic markers on the X chromosome among gay brothers. This intimated that same-sex desires might be influenced by a specific stretch of inherited DNA—the Xq28 region of the long arm of the X chromosome. The implications of this research were immense [1]. For the first time, researchers offered strong biological support for the idea that gay men—and possibly all individuals with same-sex sexual desires—could be “born that way.” Hamer’s research, as a result, stood in stark contrast to longstanding psychoanalytic models of homosexuality that emphasized stunted sexual development during childhood. The Science article, in turn, bolstered the argument—especially among lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights activists—that “conversion therapy,” a set of practices aimed at “curing” or “changing” non-normative sexual and gender identities, was both ineffective and harmful [2].

The genetics revolution, by opening new frontiers in sexuality research, posed an existential threat to the psychological knowledge that had long upheld conversion therapy as an efficacious practice to “change” or “cure” people of their same-sex desires. In the early 1990s, conversion therapists included professionally trained psychologists and psychoanalysts. But there were an increasing number of faith healers, lay ministers, priests, and rabbis who comprised the ranks of conversion therapists. Despite professional and religious differences, though, conversion therapists believed that homosexuality stemmed from stunted psychosexual development. As the US media increasingly spotlighted the possible biological roots of homosexuality, whether in brain structures or chromosomal regions, larger numbers of Americans began embracing the view that LGBTQ individuals were “born that way.” Seeking to preserve the view that nonnormative sexual desires were pathological, conversion therapists intensified efforts to discredit emerging genetic research on homosexuality. At the turn of the 21st century, becoming vocal players in the US culture wars was one vital way for conversion therapists to advance their political, religious, and therapeutic goals [3].

Proponents of “reparative therapy,” a form of conversion therapy aimed at “changing” a person’s gender identity to align with their sex assigned at birth, typically to encourage heterosexual attraction, accelerated their participation in political activity after the publication of Hamer’s study. By dismissing genetics researchers’ approaches as methodologically flawed, these therapists, along with their religious and political allies, advanced their own agenda by challenging the biological determinism apparent in genetics research. Rather than ceding ground to biological explanations of homosexuality, reparative therapists reframed the scientific discourse to validate their continued practice of attempting to “change” their patients. Rather correctly, these therapists noted that genetics research into same-sex desire was suggestive of a biological link to homosexuality. Psychological understandings of sexual desire, long a central feature of the medical model of homosexuality, had not been entirely disproven. Because of this, individuals with professional psychological training, such as Joseph Nicolosi, a Catholic clinical psychologist based in Los Angeles, and A. Dean Byrd, the Latter-day Saint psychologist who lived in Utah, could tout their medical expertise in psychology as they challenged the findings of genetics research on human sexuality.

Conversion therapists specifically sought to legitimize their practices by strategically fusing their religious convictions with Freudian and Neo-Freudian theories of sexual development. They presented these frameworks not as theological interpretations of homosexuality but as scientifically grounded alternatives to emerging biological explanations of same-sex desire. By extending Tom Waidzunas’s concept of the intellectual opportunity structure, in which knowledge producing institutions negotiate the construction of discourses about science and sexuality, it is possible to see how conversion therapists inserted themselves into culture war debates to promote their therapeutic models of sexual reorientation [4]. Since they retained significant cultural influence at the turn-of-the-21st century, particularly as they founded professional organizations, published in academic and popular media outlets, and allied with conservative religious groups, conversion therapists could frame their opposition to biological research on homosexuality within an ideological campaign to uphold heteronormativity.

The scholarship on the history of conversion therapy has examined the intersections between religion, psychology, gender, and sexuality, often at the expense of understanding how conversion therapists have harnessed—or dismissed—biological research. There are anthropological and sociological studies, for instance, on evangelical Christians and conversion therapy, particularly from the 1970s into the 21st century [5,6]. More recently, historians have explored how conversion therapists from other religious traditions, including Catholicism and Mormonism, syncretized their faith with politically conservative understandings of gender and sexuality [7]. However, scholars have yet to fully analyze how conversion therapists of various faiths responded to biological research that challenged the psychosexual theories underlying efforts to “change” nonnormative sexual and gender identities. Only Waidzunas, in fact, centers conversion therapists’ efforts to influence and shape scientific understandings of sexuality. These politically and religiously conservative therapists, though, accomplished more than entering a scientific debate about human sexual desire. Instead, they produced knowledge at the intersections of religion, psychology, and biology to convince a critical number of Americans that sexual reorientation remained possible. This intellectual engagement, which was at the heart of the political struggles of the cultural wars, became more than a denunciation of genetic findings about homosexuality. It was a complex—if selective—construction of religious, psychological, and biological evidence to deny the genetic determinism of the “born that way” interpretation of same-sex desire.

In the decades after World War II, conversion therapists started weaving together threads from religion, psychology, and biology to construct their own understanding of sexuality. Long before the genetics studies of the 1990s, conversion therapists already used the language of science to bolster claims that same-sex desires could be “cured” or “changed.” By the time researchers began pointing to a possible biological basis for sexual orientation, figures like Joseph Nicolosi and A. Dean Byrd were well-practiced in the art of intellectual argumentation. Rather than rejecting the new genetic evidence outright, they found ways to reframe it—highlighting ambiguities, questioning methodologies, and emphasizing personal choice and agency over human sexual desires. Alongside their allies in the religious right, they offered a counternarrative, one that painted same-sex attraction as something still possible to change, bolstering a worldview deeply embedded in American conservatism, even as mainstream scientific institutions denounced the practice of conversion therapy.

From Freud to the Double Helix: Conversion Therapy and Shifting Theories of Sexuality

A practice that came to prominence with the rise of psychoanalysis in the first half of the 20th century, conversion therapy became medically popular in the US after World War II. Sigmund Freud had doubts that homosexual patients could become konvertit, famously writing that “to convert a fully developed homosexual into a heterosexual does not offer much more prospect of success than the reverse” [8]. Psychological professionals, however, came to embrace conversion therapy as the 20th century marched on. Because psychoanalytic theories, deeply rooted in Freudian thought, pathologized same-sex desires, clinicians in the early Cold War period had a framework to “treat” what they interpreted as “sexual deviance.” The American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a mental disorder in the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) in 1952, further pathologizing same-sex desires within the heavily conformist McCarthy era. As practiced by professional psychologists and psychiatrists, conversion therapy largely consisted of talk therapy, though there were efforts to “change” or “cure” homosexual men and women through sex therapy, electroshock therapy, and psychedelic use [9]. In the 1970s, an increasing number of faith healers, lay ministers, and Catholic priests became active in the “ex-gay movement,” a loose coalition of political and religious conservatives focused on sexual orientation change efforts, while psychiatrists and psychologists entered a fierce debate over whether homosexuality should remain in the DSM [10]. Slowly, after the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM in 1973, psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts turned away from offering conversion therapy to patients. By the turn of the 21st century, conversion therapy had become the target of scorn by professional medical organizations, including the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association. In just 50 years, conversion therapy went from the mainstream of what psychologists offered patients to a practice condemned by reputable medical organizations [11].

Starting in the 1940s, psychoanalysis, with its focus on the unconscious and early childhood experiences, became the dominant framework for understanding human sexuality. Because Freudian and Neo-Freudian models privileged heterosexuality as the culmination of one’s sexual development, psychoanalysis pathologized same-sex desires in adults. Since Freud’s impact was keenly felt in Cold War America, as Dagmar Herzog persuasively argued, the pathologization of homosexuality was a feature of the scientific establishment’s understanding of same-sex desire [12]. Amidst a social climate marked by McCarthy-era fears about non-conformity and cultural pressures against perceived deviance, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists proposed methods aimed at “curing” or “changing” homosexuals. This period of heteronormative conformity witnessed the proliferation of conversion therapy, a practice that achieved greater scientific backing when homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in the DSM [10,13,14]. As Regina Kunzel recently demonstrated, the entanglement of psychiatric and state power also dramatically shaped queer and trans identities. During the first half of the Cold War, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists not only worked with patients in private practices but also sought to “cure” individuals who were incarcerated for violating state and municipal sexual psychopath laws [15,16]. These laws, which further medicalized homosexual behavior as a mental illness, transformed the US into what Margot Canaday called “the straight state” [17].

Within this straight state, which predominated from the late 1940s into the 1970s [15], countless numbers of Americans underwent conversion therapy. Exact figures of patient populations are difficult to obtain. Anecdotal evidence, however, points to more men than women pursuing efforts to “change” their same-sex desires through formal therapeutic interventions. In practice, these interventions reflected the psychoanalytic talk therapy historian Martin Duberman wrote about in Cures, a memoir that documented his experience with conversion therapy [18]. Although conversion therapy most often employed techniques such as talk therapy, aversive methods including electroshock therapy gained credence with some psychiatrists in the late 1960s and early 1970s [19,20]. There were other instances where psychiatrists used psychedelic drugs to try to foster sexual reorientation. No matter the method, conversion therapists intended to shift supposed maladaptive sexual desires by realigning individuals with the expectations of heteronormativity.

In the postwar period, psychotherapists like Edmund Bergler, Irving Bieber, and Charles Socarides were some of the most prominent psychiatrists to frame homosexuality as a reparable condition, one rooted in disrupted parent-child relationships. In the 1950s, Bergler, an Austrian-born Jewish psychoanalyst who settled in New York City after escaping Nazi persecution, published prolifically on a range of topics broadly related to the topic of masochism. In his work about same-sex desire, for instance, Bergler argued that homosexuals were “psychic masochists” who unconsciously chose their desires as a form of self-punishment. He published books with provocative titles, such as Homosexuality: Disease or Way of Life, Counterfeit-Sex: Homosexuality, Impotence, and Frigidity, and One Thousand Homosexuals: Conspiracy of Silence, or Curing and Deglamorizing Homosexuals? [21-23]. In these books, Bergler pathologized homosexuality as a psychological illness and a moral failing, reinforcing the stigmatizing narratives about same-sex desire in mid-20th-century psychiatry. By sensationalizing his work through inflammatory language, Bergler positioned himself as a moral crusader, blurring the line between scientific inquiry and ideological condemnation.

Like Bergler, Irving Bieber’s career as a conversion therapist thrived in New York City. After graduating from New York University Medical College, Bieber became one of the leading proponents of sexual orientation change efforts. Bieber’s Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals, based on a sample of over a hundred men and published in 1962, was treated as a landmark contribution to the field of sexuality studies and became widely cited in both clinical and cultural contexts. In his exhaustive study, Bieber reported that male homosexuality was a pathological condition rooted in family dynamics, particularly the relationship between parents and their sons. The book concluded that male homosexuality resulted from an overly close, controlling mother and a distant, hostile, or absent father. Bieber argued that these parental dynamics disrupted normal psychosexual development and led to same-sex attractions. The study reinforced the psychoanalytic belief that homosexuality was a developmental disorder that could be “treated” through long-term psychoanalysis [24].

Charles Socarides, a New York-based psychoanalyst who graduated from Harvard College and received his medical training at Columbia University, kept this anti-queer tradition alive. His first book-length work on same-sex desires was The Overt Homosexual, published in 1968. He contended that homosexuality was not innate but developed because of early psychological conflicts, usually between a son and a domineering mother. Intensive psychoanalytic therapy, as a result, could lead an individual from the homosexual lifestyle. In the wake of the sexual revolution, Socarides’ books took on an increasingly polemic tone. Beyond Sexual Freedom and On Sexuality: Psychoanalytic Observations, for instance, offered condemnations of the gay liberation movement [25-27]. In these publications, Socarides diagnosed homosexuality as a condition that undermined gender roles and the family, a position shared by members of the emergent religious right. By prescribing heterosexuality as the ideal endpoint of psychosexual development, Socarides, Bergler, and Bieber provided an understanding of same-sex desire that resonated deeply with post-World War II cultural anxieties about upholding heteronormativity.

The postwar faith in psychoanalysis provided fertile ground for conversion therapists’ theories about same-sex desire, but mounting evidence from other fields would soon cast doubt on Freud’s theories of psychosexual development. Following World War II, Franz Josef Kallman, a German-American psychiatrist and geneticist, conducted one of the first twin studies on homosexuality. Kallman found a 100 percent concordance rate for homosexuality among identical twins—meaning that if one of the twins had same-sex desires, then the other did as well [28]. In addition, Alfred Kinsey’s landmark studies on male and female sexuality shattered the mid-20th-century idea that most Americans adhered to heterosexual, monogamous, and purportedly moral sexual behavior. Kinsey’s research into male homosexuality, for example, showed that same-sex sexual experiences were much more common among men than previously documented [29,30]. Conversion therapists, including Bieber and Socarides, targeted Kinsey’s research, citing methodological flaws such as selection bias. Yet even as they defended psychoanalytic views of homosexuality, the cultural authority of psychoanalysis began to wane, gradually giving way to emerging scientific fields that offered powerful challenges to the Age of Freud [12].

The discovery of a double-helix model structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick (based on work by Rosalind Franklin) in 1953 revolutionized the biological sciences, presenting a framework that eventually challenged psychoanalytical interpretations of human behavior. In “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid,” Watson and Crick proposed the double-helix model while outlining complementary base pairs as crucial for copying genetic information [31]. This foundational insight helped researchers identify the molecular basis of inheritance; it also paved the way for more precise genetic investigations into human traits, including sexual desire [32].

In response to these transformative scientific developments, conversion therapists and staunch defenders of traditional psychoanalytic models had to confront the limitations of their theories. In the 1970s and 1980s, charismatic “healer” Leanne Payne fused psychology, biology, and theology to highlight how, in her opinion, God created men and women to be heterosexual. Payne, who earned a master’s degree in theology from Wheaton College, an evangelical school located outside Chicago, believed that classical psychiatric ideas about sexual development reflected God’s design for men and women to grow into heterosexual maturity [33]. She specifically pointed to the act of procreation to insist that men and women were divinely ordained to behave in certain ways. “The sex organs and the sex cells manifest…polarity and complementarity in morphology and in function,” she wrote in Crisis in Masculinity, a book she published in 1985. “In the act of sexual union the male organ is convex and penetrating and the female organ is concave and receptive.” To harness further biological proof to her argument, Payne added that sperm is “torpedo-shaped” and “attacks,” whereas the ovum remains passive while awaiting penetration [34].

While figures like Payne clung to theological and pseudo-biological claims about homosexuality, a more consequential threat to conversion therapy was unfolding within the field of professional psychology itself. Crucially, a shift in clinical attitudes, along with pressure from lesbian and gay rights leaders like Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings, led to the removal of homosexuality from the DSM in 1973. At the helm of the decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM was Robert Spitzer, a Columbia University psychiatry professor and the head of the American Psychiatric Association’s nomenclature committee, the body in charge of what to include—and exclude—from the DSM. In this role, Spitzer helped to redefine same-sex desire not as a mental illness but as a variation of human sexuality [10]. However, as a key architect of the DSM-III, Spitzer transformed psychiatry in another important way—by advocating for a more evidence-based and less pathologizing approach to mental health diagnosis. In doing so, Spitzer restructured psychiatry to think more deeply about the biological explanations of human behavior. Focusing more on descriptive criteria instead of etiology, the DSM-III transitioned psychiatry toward biological understandings of mental health over psychoanalytic or environmental ones. Such transformations helped the DSM-III align much more closely with biomedical models of disease, effectively turning psychiatry away from its Freudian roots [35,36].

Many mental health experts continued to debate how to “treat” non-heteronormative individuals, even after the removal of homosexuality from the DSM. These debates led to the inclusion of two new diagnostic categories—gender identity disorders and ego-dystonic homosexuality—into the DSM in 1980. Both of these diagnostic categories provided conversion therapists with the medical establishment’s approval to try to “change” people’s same-sex desires [37]. Importantly, the American Psychiatric Association removed ego-dystonic homosexuality, a diagnosis that sanctioned the counseling of people who felt deep distress over their same-sex desires, from the DSM in 1987 [38]. But throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, gender diverse individuals, particularly trans youth, were increasingly subjected to “treatments” that sought to align their gender expression with their birth sex. These practices, although couched in clinical neutrality, shared a common goal with other forms of conversion therapy—to reorient individuals toward heteronormativity [39].

In the early 1990s, as recent changes to the DSM reverberated throughout the ranks of professional psychology, the claims of conversion therapists clashed with biological studies suggesting that homosexuality might be innate. Advances in genetics research threatened the theories that upheld sexual orientation change efforts. In response, conversion therapists launched a new phase of political and intellectual resistance, producing knowledge to preserve and promote their views on what they called “unwanted same-sex attractions.” They created professional organizations—most notably the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH)—and published in sympathetic academic journals. In addition, they organized conferences and cultivated networks of supporters to lend their movement a veneer of scientific legitimacy. By casting themselves as defenders of objective science, conversion therapists strategically partnered with conservative religious organizations that were similarly critical of the psychological establishment’s wariness of sexual reorientation. Through the careful production of knowledge, conversion therapists selectively invoked scientific rhetoric to justify their practices and to assert their authority in the US’s culture wars.

Genes and the Gospel: Contesting the Biological Basis of Homosexuality

Historians have frequently understood the US in the 1990s through the lens of the culture wars, highlighting how struggles over sexuality, morality, and scientific authority emerged as critical political battlegrounds [40]. Central to these contests were heated debates over “family values,” a concept that extended far beyond partisan boundaries (or “the blue-red divide”) [41]. As Paul Renfro has argued, the appeal of family values politics was so potent that even Democratic figures such as President Bill Clinton embraced policies explicitly aimed at reinforcing heteronormative family structures [42]. Conversion therapists seized upon this political climate, doubling down on their promise of sexual “change” during the nation’s culture wars. Strategically blending religious conviction, psychoanalytic tradition, and selective interpretations of genetics research, these therapists and their allies in the religious right sought to sustain their cultural relevance and to proactively shape scientific discourse about sexuality. They forged alternative knowledge-production networks through organizations like NARTH, actively published in academic and sympathetic public-facing venues, and vigorously contested the genetic studies that suggested biological foundations for same-sex desire. In appropriating the language and credibility of science, conversion therapists positioned their practices as morally essential. This was part of a political campaign within the religious right to assert heteronormativity and to unqueer the double helix.

By the 1990s, conversion therapists operated within an already established institutional framework, eliminating the need to build their own knowledge-production networks from scratch. Some professionally trained psychoanalysts, such as Charles Socarides, remained active within professional organizations like the American Psychiatric Association. These formal ties had the ability to lend clinical authority to the notion that same-sex desire could be “changed” [43,44]. There was also the ex-gay movement that formed in the late 1960s. These politically and religiously conservative Christians, Latter-day Saints (LDS), and Jews created an informal network of counselors and therapists who provided conversion therapy services. Through newsletters, books, and seminars, ex-gay counselors, including Leanne Payne, shared techniques that purportedly fostered sexual reorientation. Crucially, these counselors and therapists blended religion and psychology, arguing that psychoanalytic understandings of same-sex desires supported their beliefs that homosexuality was a sin and that gender roles were divinely ordained. Their persistent incorporation of psychoanalytic concepts gave conversion therapists in the ex-gay movement the guise of scientific legitimacy, even as mainstream psychiatry increasingly distanced itself from such views [45]. Simultaneously, the religious right—galvanized by leaders like James Dobson—created robust organizations to gain tremendous political power. Dobson, a trained psychologist with a doctorate from the University of Southern California, seamlessly blended conservative Christian counseling with anti-queer political activism as the founder of Focus on the Family [46]. Focus on the Family and other evangelical organizations, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, worked closely with reparative therapists and built relationships with ex-gay ministries. Each of these religious stakeholders, in turn, embraced outdated psychosexual theories and repackaged them through a faith-based lens, allowing conversion therapy to flourish at the intersection of faith, politics, and psychology.

Reparative therapists like Joseph Nicolosi were thus well-positioned to intervene in the culture wars, particularly in debates over family values, masculinity, and the origins of homosexuality. Nicolosi was born in New York in 1947, and he earned his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology. He established the Thomas Aquinas Clinic in Encino, California. There Nicolosi offered psychological counseling to a range of individuals, including nuns and priests from the nearby Archdiocese of Los Angeles. At the same time, the Roman Catholic psychologist developed an interest in counseling male homosexuals. Throughout the 1980s, he focused increasingly on this line of work, frustrated that other psychologists had seemingly surrendered to a homosexual political agenda. After a decade of working with male patients he called “non-gay homosexuals” and shoring up connections to the ex-gay movement, Nicolosi was ready to share his knowledge of reparative therapy with a wider audience [47].

Published by the prominent psychology publisher Jason Aronson in 1991, Nicolosi’s Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality became one of the most influential texts on conversion therapy, fundamentally shaping the public and professional discourse around “changing” same-sex desire. Framing homosexuality as the result of disrupted gender development, Nicolosi drew heavily on psychoanalytic theory to argue that same-sex attractions stemmed not from biology, but from dysfunctional family dynamics. He echoed earlier conversion therapists—most notably, Socarides and Irving Bieber—in identifying two interrelated threats to normative masculinity: overinvolved or controlling mothers and emotionally unavailable fathers. In addition, Nicolosi stressed that recent neoliberal economic transformations had eroded traditional male roles by shifting labor from manufacturing to service industries [47]. These claims resonated with conservative anxieties about the perceived breakdown of the heterosexual nuclear family and the feminization of American culture [48]. By positioning homosexuality as a psychological disorder rooted in family and societal dysfunction, Nicolosi offered a compelling counter-narrative to biological theories, one that reinforced the culture wars’ moral panic over gender roles and legitimized calls to restore traditional family structures. In doing so, he produced knowledge that allowed reparative therapists to reframe scientific debates in ways that appealed to religious conservatives and policymakers [47].

In Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality, Nicolosi further elaborated the kind of knowledge production that underpinned the conversion therapy movement by asserting that the promotion of traditional masculinity was essential to reversing “unwanted same-sex attractions.” Vital for this argument was the role of fathers in the American family. Nicolosi emphasized that emotionally present, assertive, and physically engaged paternal figures could model “healthy” masculinity and prevent the development of homosexuality in boys. He blended psychoanalytic theories with behaviorist strategies that prescribed specific actions fathers should take, such as engaging in sports and modeling stereotypically masculine traits. This therapeutic framework not only reinforced rigid gender binaries but also aligned seamlessly with the patriarchal ideals at the heart of family values politics. Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality enabled Nicolosi to insert his views into public and scientific debates, presenting reparative therapy as a culturally necessary and scientifically credible alternative to emerging biological explanations of sexual orientation in the turn-of-the-21st-century US [47].

Nicolosi’s therapeutic framework, grounded in gender essentialism and family values ideology, did not operate in isolation—it was, instead, embedded within a conservative knowledge production network designed to counter scientific findings that challenged heteronormative authority. This network became visible in 1991 with the publication of neuroscientist Simon LeVay’s study in Science, which suggested that a region of the hypothalamus was, on average, smaller in gay men than in heterosexual men. Although LeVay carefully presented his findings as a possible biological correlate of sexual orientation—rather than definitive proof of a “gay brain”—his study quickly became a flashpoint in public debates over the origins of homosexuality [49].

Conservative figures responded swiftly. Mark Hartwig, an educational psychologist affiliated with Focus on the Family, leveraged existing intellectual frameworks about homosexuality to publicly critique LeVay’s research. As importantly, his criticisms distorted LeVay’s cautious conclusions by mischaracterizing the study as claiming a direct neurological cause for homosexuality. By overstating LeVay’s claims, Hartwig helped to sustain skepticism toward emerging biological explanations of homosexuality. His rhetoric undermined scientific research that contradicted religious conservative beliefs while energizing a network of ideologically aligned readers already primed by family values discourse [50].

Hartwig’s response to LeVay’s study served as a prelude to an even more coordinated campaign as biological explanations of sexuality increasingly collided with conservative cultural politics. These clashes became particularly fierce during the Clinton administration. While campaigning for the presidency, Clinton promised to end the ban on lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals serving in the US military. This campaign promise exploded into the first full-scale threat to Clinton’s agenda, with Republicans and socially conservative Democrats opposed to queer Americans serving in the armed forces. In May 1993, the House Armed Services Committee held hearings on lesbians and gay men serving openly in the military. Gregory Herek, an associate research psychologist at the University of California at Davis, testified to a flourishing belief within the psychological sciences—that people did not “choose” their sexual desires. This was two months before Science published Dean Hamer’s research on what would be interpreted as “the gay gene,” with such testimony offered in front of a powerful congressional committee [32]. Religious conservatives quickly recognized the threat posed by Herek’s testimony. When combined with the publicity Hamer’s study received in the US mainstream press, proponents of conversion therapy understood that these findings could undermine the foundational claim that homosexuality was a reversible psychological condition.

Leaders within the religious right, including Southern Baptist ethicist C. Ben Mitchell, responded forcefully after Science published Hamer’s research in July 1993. Mitchell, who earned a PhD in philosophy from the University of Tennessee after graduating with a Master of Divinity at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, had the credentials to earn trust from family values voters. In a white paper for the Southern Baptist Convention, Mitchell used hyperbolic language to warn of possible ethical consequences of conducting genetics research. He specifically raised alarmist concerns about the possibility of eugenics, particularly mass abortion, with the potential for genetic screening of fetuses for a “gay gene.” This scenario was more than a hypothetical for Mitchell; rather, it was a strategically crafted intervention aimed at discrediting biological explanations of homosexuality. These biological explanations challenged the moral authority of the family, including but not limited to the religious right’s “pro-life” and anti-queer political agendas. By presenting the religious right as defenders of life and the traditional family, Mitchell not only undermined the morality of genetics research. He also crafted a point-of-view that warned of a eugenics-ridden future where people decided to abort gay children [51]. Such a convoluted argument—tying opposition to abortion to denying the civil rights claims of queer individuals—showed how genetics research about same-sex desire could be connected to the family values discourse of the culture wars.

R. Albert Mohler, a Southern Baptist intellectual, also advanced this line of thought. In a World Magazine article, Mohler, who, in 1993, was the newly appointed President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, took aim at “gay gene” studies. Right after the publication of Hamer’s study, Mohler accused researchers of ideological bias and aligned contemporary scientists with historical examples of corrupted intellectual authority, specifically mentioning medieval clergy and Nazi eugenicists. Mohler’s attack on the scientific claims put forth by Hamer’s research was about reasserting conservative Christianity as a vital moral and intellectual safeguard against the perceived excesses of secular modernity. Genetics research, therefore, became for Mohler part of the culture war’s conflict between religious conservatism and secularism. Invoking historical analogies that compared geneticists to medieval clergy and the Nazis helped Mohler tap into conservative evangelical anxiety that scientific authority—particularly when unmoored from religious values—could lead to social and moral decay. His critique reinforced the view that efforts to biologize sexuality were not neutral or objective but part of a campaign to undermine the traditional family and redefine normative gender roles. In this context, Mohler’s intervention dovetailed with family values politics by portraying conservative Christianity as the last bulwark against moral relativism and scientific determinism. His analogies functioned as powerful intellectual arguments within the religious right, bolstering the credibility and urgency of conversion therapy’s defenders while preserving cohesion in the face of mounting scientific challenges to their anti-queer worldview. Through such rhetoric, Mohler cast the culture war as an existential battle over who possessed legitimate authority to define family, morality, and truth. According to Mohler, science had become “enslaved” to the agenda of LGBTQ activism, making illegitimate the work of researchers like Hamer. Only religious belief could save the US from supposed enslavement by the homosexual agenda [52].

As religious figures like Mohler sharpened their attacks on “gay gene” studies, conversion therapists became central figures in a wide range of conservative anti-queer media. One of the most prominent examples was Gay Rights, Special Rights, a 1993 videocassette that circulated widely among religious conservatives. In it, Nicolosi offered a psychological rebuttal to the narrative that homosexuality was inborn, asserting instead that “unwanted same-sex attractions” could be changed through therapeutic intervention. In claiming that sexual orientation was mutable, the video advanced the argument that queer Americans did not merit civil rights protections since, in this view, homosexuality was a behavioral issue rather than an innate identity. Nicolosi’s role as a credentialed authority lent scientific legitimacy to this message, demonstrating how conversion therapists not only shaped conservative ideology but also created knowledge with direct political consequences during the culture wars. His appearance illustrated the conservative knowledge production industry in action. A specialist on “changing” people with unwanted same-sex attractions shared that there were ways out of homosexuality. By appearing in Gay Rights, Special Rights, Nicolosi provided a cultural intervention steeped in family values politics, portraying queer rights as a direct threat to the moral fabric of American society. Framing gay rights as “special rights” tapped into deep-seated anxieties among viewers conditioned by decades of conservative rhetoric about an ostensibly dangerous “gay agenda” [53].

While Gay Rights, Special Rights exemplified how conversion therapy narratives circulated through media to influence the religious right, other efforts concentrated on institutionalizing those narratives under the guise of scientific legitimacy. In 1992, Nicolosi joined forces with psychotherapist Benjamin Kaufman and longtime conversion therapist Charles Socarides to found NARTH. From its inception, NARTH positioned itself as a research-oriented alternative to mainstream psychological and psychiatric organizations, explicitly opposing the professional notion that unwanted same-sex attractions could—and should—not be “changed.” Its formation marked one of the most deliberate and organized attempts by conversion therapists to formalize their production of knowledge and to assert influence in scientific and public discourse. Through annual conferences, publications, and professional networking, NARTH fostered a community of practitioners committed to sexual reorientation, offering not only therapeutic strategies but also a shared ideological framework grounded in psychodynamic theory, religious conviction, and scientific skepticism. Conferences, for example, served as intellectual spaces where conservative viewpoints on sexuality could be refined and amplified to counter the political traction of the “born that way” narrative, especially in the wake of studies like Hamer’s. By exploiting scientific uncertainties—particularly in emerging fields like genetics—NARTH carved out a niche for itself by becoming a source of professional legitimacy for conversion therapists seeking to maintain cultural relevance. Its members, especially Nicolosi and Latter-day Saint A. Dean Byrd, leveraged their credentials to position themselves as experts on sexual and gender identity. Within the culture wars, NARTH provided the infrastructure through which conversion therapy could continue to challenge biological explanations of sexuality, sustain family values politics, and reassert the mutability of same-sex desire as medically defensible and morally imperative [54].

While NARTH provided the infrastructure for conversion therapists to present themselves as scientifically credible, their efforts did not go uncontested. As they moved from internal knowledge production to public-facing advocacy, NARTH became increasingly controversial. Public confrontations and media scrutiny exposed the tenuous scientific basis of conversion therapy. NARTH’s conferences became political flashpoints, with LGBTQ activists regularly protesting these events. Members of NARTH, however, interpreted these confrontations as opportunities to portray themselves as embattled defenders of intellectual freedom, thereby reinforcing a narrative of persecution by “the gay agenda.” By framing these controversies as evidence of ideological bias within institutions like the American Psychological Association, conversion therapists strategically appealed to conservative audiences predisposed to skepticism about mainstream scientific—and secular—authority. This enabled them to foster doubt among certain segments of the American public, successfully cultivating a sense of distrust toward established scientific institutions [54].

Building on NARTH’s institutional infrastructure, conversion therapists adopted rhetorical strategies designed to bolster their scientific credibility. These practitioners consciously reframed their arguments to emphasize objectivity and empirical rigor, distancing themselves from the overtly theological justifications that had underpinned the work of pastoral counselors. Benjamin Kaufman, for instance, alleged that a “gay agenda” was suppressing research that contradicted biological explanations of same-sex desire [54], while Nicolosi argued that mainstream psychology had been corrupted by political activism, particularly around civil rights [47]. This strategic reframing allowed NARTH’s leadership to cast itself as defenders of scientific neutrality, masking deeply ideological commitments beneath a façade of academic integrity. Although they continued to rely on outdated psychodynamic theories that pathologized homosexuality as the result of disrupted family dynamics and developmental failure, their carefully curated rhetoric enabled conversion therapists to maintain a presence in public and professional debates. Nicolosi’s appeal was so great to members of the religious right, in fact, that he presented about reparative therapy at numerous Focus on the Family workshops. In these workshops, the Catholic therapist largely spoke to evangelical parents with queer children, situating himself not as a religious-minded therapist but as a psychologist with empirical evidence about the ability to “change” unwanted same-sex attractions [46]. Presenting themselves as unbiased scientific interlocutors, as Nicolosi did at these Focus on the Family workshops, helped conversion therapists retain cultural and intellectual relevance.

As biological explanations for same-sex desire gained scientific and political traction in the 1990s, though, conversion therapists found themselves on the defensive. Rather than directly engaging the accumulating scientific evidence—such as the neurological and genetic studies by LeVay and Hamer—they focused on discrediting these findings as ideologically driven or methodologically flawed. NARTH affiliates selectively highlighted limitations in genetics research while avoiding the emerging scientific consensus that was beginning to take shape. Instead of offering competing empirical data, they leaned heavily on anecdotal therapeutic outcomes and recycled psychodynamic theories, positioning themselves as scientifically engaged while sidestepping the implications of emerging genomic research. Nicolosi’s books, including Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality, for instance, relied on case studies of the men he worked with in his practice [47]. In 1993, he published a whole book with reparative therapy case stories from his work at the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic [55]. Like other works by reparative therapists, Nicolosi emphasized that the process of “change” was difficult for patient and therapist alike. Despite these struggles, Nicolosi rarely discussed patients who failed to “change” their sexual desires. This pattern of selective evidentiary engagement allowed conversion therapists to maintain the appearance of scientific credibility, even as the foundations of their claims were increasingly challenged by a more biologically informed understanding of sexuality [47].

Few embodied this strategy more effectively than A. Dean Byrd, an LDS convert and arguably the second most important reparative therapist at the turn of the 21st century. Byrd earned a PhD in Psychology from Brigham Young University (BYU) as well as post-doctoral degrees in child and family psychology and behavioral medicine. As the assistant commissioner of LDS Social Services and a clinical faculty member at BYU and the University of Utah, Byrd engaged with religious and scientific communities to challenge the belief that sexual orientation had some biological basis. By the early 1990s, Byrd had become a full-throated believer in reparative therapy, highlighting how he had “changed” the unwanted same-sex attractions of male patients through gender-identity-based therapeutic interventions. He published not only about his reparative therapy approach, which borrowed heavily from Nicolosi’s work, but also shared qualitative interviews with men who underwent reparative therapy [56]. Within the LDS Church, Byrd bolstered his authority through articles in religious publications like Ensign and editorials in the Salt Lake Tribune [57]. In religious-minded publications, he framed unwanted same-sex attractions as a spiritual and psychological struggle that could be overcome through faith and therapeutic efforts. This positioning—rooted in both ecclesiastical authority and professional credentials—permitted Byrd to legitimize reparative therapy within LDS culture while presenting it as a viable clinical method in scientific circles. His work exemplified how conversion therapists blurred the boundaries between science and religion to fortify their claims, deliberatively adapting their message to resonate with distinct but overlapping audiences.

The careful blending of theological commitments with scientific rhetoric was further reinforced through Byrd’s deepening alliance with Nicolosi. Byrd joined NARTH in the mid-1990s, at which point he and Nicolosi developed a strong working relationship. By aligning himself with Nicolosi, Byrd gained access to an established framework that lent reparative therapy the appearance of psychological credibility. At NARTH’s annual conferences, which gathered therapists from a variety of faith traditions, Byrd and Nicolosi openly embraced the spiritual dimensions of sexual reorientation. Byrd and Nicolosi, however, did not often present theological explanations of gender identity in their co-authored work.

When engaging in professional psychology settings, both men skillfully muted their religious commitments. Such knowledge production choices demonstrated how Byrd and Nicolosi thought they could sow the most cultural power [58]. Between 1999 and 2003, Byrd and Nicolosi executed this strategy in several co-authored peer-reviewed journal articles that claimed empirical support for reparative therapy, including a meta-analysis of 14 studies and a large-scale survey of individuals undergoing “treatment” [59,60]. These publications strategically adopted the language of scientific objectivity and therapeutic efficacy, positioning Byrd and Nicolosi as credible researchers despite the lack of robust empirical support from many others in the psychological community. Close analysis of their studies, however, reveals the selective approach the two reparative therapists took in their academic publications. In the meta-analysis of 14 research studies, for instance, Byrd and Nicolosi excluded articles that not only presented complex findings about the possibility of “change” within sexual reorientation therapies but also selected research that echoed the gender-based approach advocated within reparative therapy. Although Byrd and Nicolosi offered a seemingly robust methodology section that explained their selection criteria, their justifications fell short of incorporating research that would complicate their meta-analysis. By presenting reparative therapy as a data-driven, clinically valid intervention—and omitting its theological underpinnings—these publications challenged biological models of sexuality while maintaining a public image of professional legitimacy. This approach helped Byrd and Nicolosi tailor their message depending on the audience, reinforcing their influence across religious communities and within politically conservative scientific communities.

Byrd’s collaboration with Nicolosi laid a critical foundation for his later single-author publications specifically targeting LDS audiences. These monographs integrated explicit religious narratives, grounding their therapeutic models in the LDS Church’s teachings on eternal gender, divine purpose, and the moral imperative of heterosexuality. Unlike the jointly authored academic articles with Nicolosi, which carefully muted theological content to align with the expectations of peer-reviewed psychological discourse, Byrd’s books unapologetically fused doctrinal teachings with therapeutic claims of “change” to present reparative therapy as spiritually redemptive and clinically effective. In publications like Homosexuality and the Church of Jesus Christ, Byrd offered more overtly religious reasoning for reparative therapy, appealing to spiritual authority and divine design as essential elements of healing. At the same time, Byrd forcefully engaged with the biological research that had become increasingly influential in shaping public and scientific discourse. In Homosexuality and the Church of Jesus Christ, for example, he dedicated entire sections of the book to rebutting landmark biological studies that linked same-sex desire to brain structures (such as LeVay’s hypothalamus research) and chromosomal markers (as in Hamer’s Xq28 study). Byrd critiqued these findings on methodological grounds and from a theological perspective, portraying them as part of scientific and cultural efforts to normalize behavior that, in his view, contravened eternal truths about gender and sexuality [61]. In this way, Byrd’s book-length works asserted his religious commitments even as they maintained the rhetorical posture of scientific critique. These texts served as powerful tools for conservative LDS readers by blending scriptural fidelity with the seemingly neutral language of psychology. For the LDS faithful, this approach reinforced the legitimacy of reparative therapy.

Despite the willingness of conversion therapists like Byrd to embrace religious beliefs in some of their writings, the knowledge production strategy of appropriating scientific authority whenever possible remained paramount for proponents of sexual orientation change efforts. That strategy was perhaps most clearly illustrated by the controversy surrounding Robert Spitzer’s 2001 ex-gay study, which conversion therapists quickly embraced as validation of their core claim—that sexual attractions and fantasies could, at least in some cases, “change.” Spitzer was no ordinary figure in the field of psychiatry, since he played a pivotal role in orchestrating the American Psychiatric Association’s decision to remove homosexuality from the DSM [62]. Spitzer’s return to the public spotlight, at which point he presented a controversial study suggesting that some highly motivated individuals could change their sexual orientation, carried enormous symbolic weight. NARTH, along with numerous ex-gay ministries, helped recruit participants for Spitzer’s study. The study was based on telephone interviews with 200 self-selected individuals—143 men and 57 women—who claimed to have experienced significant shifts in their sexual orientation through therapy or religious counseling. Spitzer reported that many participants described behavioral changes as well as shifts in sexual attraction and fantasy. In his report, Spitzer wrote that for some, “efforts to change sexual orientation can be successful,” especially for those with strong religious convictions and a high degree of personal motivation. Despite limitations in his methodology—such as the lack of external validation, control groups, or long-term follow-up—Spitzer’s conclusions were immediately embraced by proponents of reparative therapy. NARTH specifically seized on Spitzer’s findings as a powerful rhetorical tool, using his stature as a respected psychiatrist—not to mention a recognized champion of queer rights—to lend legitimacy to conversion therapy. His study offered what appeared to be rare empirical support for conversion therapy at a moment when it was increasingly under fire. Its publication gave conversion therapists the opportunity to argue that the possibility of change remained scientifically plausible [63].

Their participation in—and reception and appropriation of—Spitzer’s study revealed how conversion therapists manipulated scientific uncertainty to maintain their cultural status and power. Queer mental health professionals swiftly criticized the study’s severe methodological flaws, including its reliance on retrospective, self-reported telephone interviews and an absence of objective verification. Psychologists Charles Silverstein and Lawrence Hartmann, both gay men who revolutionized affirmative therapeutic approaches for queer patients, publicly dismantled the study’s credibility, illustrating how even research loosely aligned with reparative therapy could not withstand intense scientific scrutiny [64]. Nonetheless, as Tom Waidzunas showed, conversion therapists leveraged Spitzer’s reputation and the ambiguity surrounding his findings to bolster their standing within professional and public discourse. Crafting an intellectual opportunity structure, Waidzunas contended, amplified the symbolic authority of Spitzer’s name while downplaying the study’s limitations. For over a decade—until Spitzer’s 2012 retraction of his ex-gay study—conversion therapists were able to cite his work in journal articles, conference presentations, and media appearances with authority. This episode exemplified how conversion therapists weaponized selective scientific engagement to challenge biological models of sexuality and to sustain the cultural and clinical credibility of their therapeutic practices [4].

The Spitzer episode underscored how conversion therapists, despite mounting scientific and cultural opposition, exploited moments of ambiguity within scientific discourse to assert their claims of “change.” Rather than retreat in the face of professional marginalization, they sought openings where scientific authority was contested or incomplete, inserting themselves into debates over the origins and mutability of sexual orientation. This strategy emphasizes how understandings of sexuality are not solely the product of empirical findings but are shaped through a range of cultural and political negotiations. By engaging selectively and opportunistically with scientific institutions, conversion therapists sustained an illusion of credibility. Their survival hinged not on producing compelling evidence, but on skillfully navigating the sociopolitical terrain of science itself. From the early 1990s through the 2000s, this tactic enabled them to persist in the face of widespread denunciation of their practices to “change” or “cure” queer patients.

Born That Way? Biology, Belief, and Conversion Therapy

When Dean Hamer and his colleagues published their groundbreaking study in 1993, few Americans believed that lesbians, gay men, and bisexual individuals were “born that way.” Nearly 20 years later, Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” (2011) became not only a number one hit but also a rallying cry for queer acceptance and equality [65]. Within the span of two decades, an increasing number of people throughout the US recognized some biological basis to same-sex desires. As these beliefs shifted, support for LGBTQ rights expanded dramatically, culminating in the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015. Public opinion also turned sharply against practices like conversion therapy, leading to municipal and state-wide bans against licensed mental health counselors performing conversion therapy on minors [66]. But the scientific—and legal—debate over conversion therapy and queer rights is still being waged. The US Supreme Court, in fact, will soon rule (they will hear the case in October 2025) on whether these bans are constitutional, with licensed conversion therapists claiming that what they perform should be protected by the free speech and religious liberty clauses of the First Amendment [67].

The Supreme Court, packed with conservative judges, will hear evidence put forth by conversion therapists and their allies within the religious right. Drawing from over 30 years of engagement with genetics research, conversion therapists—through amicus briefs and their lawyers’ oral arguments before the nine justices—will seek to legitimize their claims about sexual reorientation. Much like what Joseph Nicolosi, A. Dean Byrd, and their political and religious compatriots highlighted at the turn of the 21st century, the legal battle before the Supreme Court will demonstrate how conversion therapists continue to pathologize queer identities—and defend heteronormativity—in their efforts to shape the political and cultural landscape of the nation. The religious right’s engagement with science remains deeply strategic, with the effort to overturn conversion therapy bans serving as one way to co-opt the authority of scientific discourse and turn it into a socially regressive ideological tool¹. This sustained effort reveals that the terrain of science is far from neutral; instead, it is a contested domain shaped as much by cultural anxieties and politics as by empirical evidence. By foregrounding how conversion therapists sought to harness and reframe scientific legitimacy in service of their therapeutic and religious agendas throughout the 1990s and 2000s, it becomes possible to see how marginalized actors can participate in shaping the boundaries of scientific authority. Americans will soon know whether these efforts by conversion therapists have paid off with a conservative Supreme Court ruling on whether states can make sexual orientation change efforts on minors illegal.

Glossary

DSM

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

NARTH

National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality

LDS

Latter-day Saints