Doctoral Dissertation Research: Taking Measure of Conversion Therapy Outcomes

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This dissertation research, supported by the Science, Technology & Society program at NSF, will examine how scientific evidence and credibility have been interpreted in the debate over conversion therapies. This project uses innovative research techniques and interpretive approaches to identify "hierarchies of evidence" within debates over reparative therapies, the factors shaping these hierarchies, and the consequences for diagnostic technologies and subjectivities. This research will employ interviews with scientists and other key actors in this debate over treatment efficacy in the United States from the 1950s to the present. Additional data will come from observation at scientific conferences and content analyses of scientific literature on this issue. To more clearly understand how contingencies have shaped evidence hierarchies, the work employs a comparison between a "pathology era" (1950-1973) of medicalization and a "normal era" (1973-present) following de-medicalization. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature in science and technology studies (STS), the sociology of social movements, and sexuality studies, the project will historicize these research practices by carefully examining the role of various influences on the credibility of evidence. Using a co-construction analytical approach, the research will show how diagnostic technologies and subjectivities have been mutually shaped in the process of research. Most notably, the work will identify and interpret the deployment of "truthing" technologies. Through this historical comparison, the research will show how professional struggles and political and religious activism have affected the credibility of truthing techniques relative to self-reports. This dissertation research stands to make important contributions to STS literature by examining a debate that is often coded as purely ideological, but that has significant connections to debates within science and corresponding technical developments.