Nada Stotland, a Chicago psychiatrist and president-elect of APA, appeared at a meeting of the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists. In her presentation, she supported the cancellation of a controversial symposium, “Homosexuality and Therapy: The Religious Dimension.” The event would have featured notorious “ex-gay” therapist Warren Throckmorton who claims to cure gays by making them more assertive.
Stotland told the Bay Area Reporter’s Bob Roehr that, “Sessions are withdrawn at every meeting. Period. Because all it will do is stir up more controversy…This is not going to be of interest to the press four days from now.”
She reminded those in attendance, “Immediately after the board of trustees of the APA voted to support same-sex adoption, I was on the phone to the press.” She later was on Bill O’Reilly’s program supporting marriage equality. She pledged, “I will be there to defend science and people’s rights and people’s well-being.”
“Science depends on what questions are posed, what methods are used to answer the questions, and who answers them,” Stotland said in discussing the controversy. “Secondly, if you are going to pick on a group, it is incumbent on the pickers to make their case and not the pickees. If we are not quite positive on anything, then we err on the side of doing no harm to people.”
“It is incumbent on people who want to deny someone a right, to have utter convincing evidence that that is the right thing to do. Until that time, we do not do that.”
“We applaud Stotland’s strong commitment to defending science and her recognition that ‘ex-gay’ therapy can often do harm,” said Wayne Besen, TruthWinsOut.org’s Executive Director. “It is clear that Stotland cares about the mental health of GLBT people and will not back down from bullies on the right who try to distort our lives for political gain.”
