MENTAL DISORDERS

Just Like Everybody Else?
Theo G. M. Sandfort et al.,
Archives of General Psychiatry

As an essential part of their strategy for winning public acceptance of homosexuality, activists have often asserted that--sexual practices aside--homosexuals behave and think pretty much like everybody else.  By 1973, activists had persuaded enough psychiatrists that such was the case to have homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders.  In the decades since, these activists have brought numerous commentators and policymakers around to the same belief-homosexuals are reassuringly like the general population.  A study recently published in the Archives of General Psychiatry by a team of Dutch mental-health experts may force some second thoughts.

With data collected as part of the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study, Dutch scholars were able to assess psychiatric disorders in a representative sample of 5998 Dutch adults (ages 18 to 64).  Their findings will discomfit those arguing that homosexuals are just "ordinary guys."  For, in statistical analyses, the Dutch scholars found that, compared to heterosexual peers, "people with same-sex sexual behavior are at greater risk for psychiatric disorders."  This elevated risk shows up in "a higher prevalence of various psychiatric disorders . . . both regarding the preceding 12 months as well as on a lifetime basis."

The researchers calculate that, "compared with heterosexual men, homosexual men had significantly higher 12-month and lifetime rates of mood and anxiety disorders" (12-month Odds Ratios of 2.93 for mood disorders and 2.61 for anxiety disorders; lifetime Odds Ratios of 3.11 for mood disorders and 2.67 for anxiety disorders).  They further found that "compared with heterosexual men, homosexual men had a much larger chance of having had 12-month and life-time bipolar disorders and a higher chance of having had lifetime major depression" (12-month Odds Ratio of 5.02 for bipolar disorders; life-time Odds Ratios of 7.27 for bipolar disorders and 2.35 for major depression).   Similar analyses reveal just how vulnerable homosexuals are to various types of anxiety disorders, including significantly elevated 12-month Odds Ratios for agoraphobia (6.32), simple phobia (3.75), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (7.18).  Significantly elevated lifetime Odds Ratios of 4.21 for panic disorder, 4.54 for agoraphobia, 3.61 for simple phobia, 2.29 for social phobia, and 6.20 for obsessive-compulsive disorder were also evident.

Making an already explosive study even more provocative, the researchers speculate that since "the Dutch social climate toward homosexuality has long been and remains considerably more tolerant" than that found elsewhere, "the observed differences [in mental health] might be greater in other Western countries than in the Netherlands."

(Source:  Theo G. M. Sandfort et al., "Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders," Archives of General Psychiatry 58[2001]: 85-91.)