Highly Motivated Left Handers, Can Appear Right Hand Oriented
Compare being gay to left-handedness
Richard Crosby

May 21, 2001

Re "Study: Motivated gays can be straight" (May 9): Let us transpose the study into one based on left-handedness. Paralleling Columbia's Dr. Robert Spitzer's study, let us interview 200 former left-handed subjects who now, having undergone a variety of "reparative" procedures, claim to have achieved right-handedness. Let us say that the "success" levels are at least as high as those achieved in the Spitzer study: 66 percent for men; 44 percent for women.

What do we conclude?

We infer from the data that significantly high percentages of left-handed people are able to function as though they were right-handed. This gives us no insight whatsoever as to whether they have been "reformed," either behaviorally or psychologically. All we know is that they say that they have been; and that they pass a number of verbal test questions that support such a reclassification.

My insights are not to be taken lightly. I am gay. I have -- and still can -- function admirably as a straight male in every respect. I could pass the test questions in Spitzer's interview with the exception of "being in a sustained, loving heterosexual relationship within the past year." And, may I ask, from how many straight males or females does this particular question elicit a positive response?

Gay or straight; left-handed or right-handed. Comparable conditions. But, alas, incomparable inferences. I had thought that we had, however gradually, emerged from the Middle Ages.