Tucson Citizen
Can Gays Go Straight?
Jason Cianciotto's parents thought 'reparative therapy'
could 'cure' his homosexuality. The process - maligned by mainstream science but
propounded by a new, left him comtemplating suicide.
One of the lowest points of Jason
Cianciotto's life was the day he came home to find his belongings stuffed into a
few black trash bags left on the front porch.
What had he done to provoke such treatment from his
mother and stepfather? While searching his bedroom, they found literature from a
gay and lesbian support group. It was evidence that, despite their vigorous
efforts, he was continuing in the gay lifestyle they viewed as a sin against
nature.
Cianciotto, now 25 and a resident of Tucson, was 13 when
his born-again Baptist Christian parents took him to his first "gay reparative"
therapy session. He was thrown out of their house after six emotionally
devastating years of alternately trying to hide his homosexuality and trying to
change it.
"I really wholeheartedly wanted to be the heterosexual
Christian boy-man that everybody wanted me to be," he said.
Whether a person can change their sexual orientation
through therapy has long been hotly debated. There is little scientific evidence
to support an affirmative answer.
Gay reparative or "conversion" therapy has been repudiated
by the nation's major professional groups for psychiatrists, psychologists and
pediatricians. But the debate was reignited last month with the release of a new
study asserting some "highly motivated" homosexuals who work at it can become
primarily heterosexual.
The study drew considerable attention because its author
is a well-respected Columbia University psychiatry professor who led the effort
to remove homosexuality from the official list of mental disorders in
1973.
"Contrary to conventional wisdom," Dr. Robert Spitzer
concluded in this new study, "some highly motivated individuals, using a variety
of change efforts, can make substantial change in multiple indicators of sexual
orientation, and achieve good heterosexual functioning."
The study has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a
journal. But the weight accorded it because of the author has been troubling to
homosexual rights and support organizations, which view such therapy as useless.
They say it's potentially harmful to the individual and a threat to societal
acceptance of homosexuality.
"On a political level, it's dangerous because it gives the
religious right a political tool to try to deny us our civil rights," said David
Elliot, communications director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "In
recent years, the religious right political movement has used reparative therapy
to try to convince Americans that sexual orientation is a choice and if people
make this choice they shouldn't be able to claim inclusion in civil rights laws
and hate crime laws."
On a personal level, conversion therapy can be
psychologically damaging and can result in depression, loss of self-esteem and
suicidal thoughts, he said.
Cianciotto considers what he experienced to be "a form of
child abuse."
The attempts to turn him heterosexual drove a wedge
between him and his parents, broke down his self-esteem and left him
contemplating suicide, he said.
For Cianciotto, who grew up in Staten Island, N.Y., and
Phillipsburg, N.J., family life centered around the church. Most of Sunday was
spent in services and religious study, and Wednesday evenings were reserved for
Bible class. He was a member of a church-based group similar to the Boy Scouts,
except they earned patches for memorizing Bible verses.
But Cianciotto was always a little different from the
other boys in school. He recalled a childhood in which he was tormented by other
boys on a daily basis because he wasn't masculine enough. He didn't curse. He
raised his hand in class to answer questions. He wasn't good at sports. He
didn't fight back when the other boys punched him and knocked him to the
ground.
He suffered their taunts, "homo ... fag."
Cianciotto got an early start on puberty at age 11, and
the stirrings were disturbing to him. While his best friends were becoming
interested in girls, he was interested in them. Sexuality wasn't discussed in
his household and only vaguely referred to in the church as a gift shared by a
man and woman after marriage.
Cianciotto spent a lot of time at the library and
convinced himself he was just going through a phase.
But as the conflicted youth began acting on his feelings,
his parents found out. Shocked, ashamed and angry, they consulted church
leaders, who recommended a therapist.
For six months, Cianciotto attended therapy sessions with
a person whose degree was in theology. He learned two things from the
experience.
"God didn't like me for who I was," he said. "I was a
sinner. There was something wrong with me that I couldn't get these thoughts out
of my head."
It also showed him, he said, that "I needed to keep things
a secret as much as possible."
Cianciotto said all the right things to the therapist, and
his parents were informed he was simply a curious boy who would be fine if he
developed a closer relationship to God.
As Cianciotto entered high school, his life improved. He
found a small group of friends. The bullying stopped. He was active in the
church, serving as a youth group leader and Sunday school teacher and playing
the piano at church services.
On the outside, he was the perfect Christian. But on the
inside, he still struggled with his true nature. He dated girls, but developed
crushes on boys.
It was just a matter of time before the inevitable
occurred. He became sexually active with other males. When his parents found
out, the consequences were severe.
He was kicked out of church. His mother and stepfather had
to go before the congregation and confess his sins for him. He began what would
be three years of the three-times-a-week therapy sessions.
He was allowed to continue in the school band, but the
drama club had to go. The idea was music and theater encouraged his homosexual
tendencies. He could not watch television alone after his parents went to bed at
night: nudity or sexual situations might represent a
temptation.
His mother screened all his mail. When his National
Geographic arrived each month with the occasional article on Indian tribes or
people in foreign countries who happened to be naked or scantily clad, she'd cut
out the pictures before giving him the magazine.
When his friends at school learned of his homosexuality,
most shunned him. A new round of bullying began.
"My friends rejected me. My parents were telling me they
loved me yet were making my life incredibly difficult, and I was constantly
participating in a fruitless battle in my mind to become straight," he
said.
"One night I snuck downstairs with a bottle of pills I
found in the medicine cabinet. I don't even remember what the pills were but I
knew that people who committed suicide often overdose on prescription
medication. I sat at our dining room table with a glass of water and opened the
pill bottle. I remember that my hands and body were shaking and that my heart
was pounding," he said.
He couldn't go through with it. The only thing that kept
him from suicide was the fear of damnation in hell.
Once he began college at a small liberal arts school,
Cianciotto began to understand that not everyone viewed homosexuality as his
parents and church did. A showing of the movie "Longtime Companion" in a class
was his first exposure to gay culture.
Cianciotto transferred to a community college after his
freshman year because his parents said all the money to send him to school had
been spent on reparative therapy. It was a blessing in disguise. There he first
learned of a support group for gays and lesbians.
When his parents found the literature and threw him out,
Cianciotto despairingly questioned whether he would ever get the love he needed
if his own mother could reject him. But it also set off a chain of moves that
landed him in at the home of his father and stepmother in
Tucson.
They gave him the acceptance and support he had longed
for, and youth group meetings at Wingspan, Southern Arizona's Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, helped him realize he wasn't
alone.
Cianciotto today is in a loving relationship with a
partner of six years. He is mending his relationship with his mother and
stepfather, despite their continued disapproval of his
homosexuality.
He graduated this month from the University of Arizona
with a degree in political science. He hopes to attend law school and eventually
to work as an advocate for civil rights and social justice.
He has a lot of bitterness about his experience but
realizes he can't spend his life nurturing his anger.
"I cannot go back and change what happened to me, but I
can certainly prevent it from happening to others," he said.
Copyright © 2001 Tucson
Citizen