LGBT Identities: Should They be Normalized, or Treated?

This post has come out of a concern that there are an increasing number of LGBT-identifying persons in the United States and surrounding disagreements on the topic. I will try my best to be sensitive to the unique needs and values of others, but I also recognize that it's a very difficult topic and most people may be offended in some way or another from the mere fact that I'm addressing it- it's taboo in many circles. So be warned that this is just a sensitive topic and I'm trying my best to be reasonable. And yes, this will show some bias. We all have bias (even if it's a bias toward inclusivity, diversity, etc.), so please don't be judgmental or dismissive. As with anything on my website, this should not be construed as individualized medical advice.

But I want to make my thoughts clear because I don't want anyone to be offended or to waste their money or time seeing me if we are not a good fit for each other over such a heavy issue.

There have been many ongoing debates as to what it means to be "gay," "queer," "lesbian," or otherwise part of the queer community. I've met many, very pleasant people from this community, particularly those who identify as gay.

Until 2013, "heterosexual disorder" was an official diagnosis in a clinical setting. This label seemed unfair, offensive, and perhaps even inaccurate to many people. Rumor has it, there was a group of LGBT people who stormed into a business meeting at the American Psychiatric Association and demanded that it be removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). So they simply removed it based on that demand. But did that really happen? Was it even a necessary change?

There's a lot of disagreement on certain topics, usually those that are political in nature. This is one of them. Unfortunately, this aspect of personal identity has become very politicized and it's making people very upset.

The way I see it is that the reason we have so much disagreement is simply because we are seeing different parts of the truth and blind to the other parts. In conventional medicine, we are used to treating symptoms (the superficial), not root causes (the unseen problem). That mindset has spread to social issues as well. We simply fight to address the symptom but don't ever consider the actual cause of the problem and how to fix it. It's a bandaid-for-a-bullet-wound sort of approach.

So am I suggesting that being LGBT is a problem? Not necessarily. But there's definitely an increasing social problem associated with it that's been going on for decades. So what's the root cause? This is territory that most people haven't bothered to explore, perhaps because they don't realize how narrow their perspective may be or they choose not to get into that rabbit hole. They don't know what they don't know (not that I claim to know everything about this, either!).

I don't expect anyone to believe what I say here. This is my humble opinion. But I want you to start thinking about this issue from a different perspective, even if you don't believe it. Just consider it.

I haven't lived very long in the grand scheme of things. But I have noticed that being LGBT is more and more common. We could speculate that it's just because it's more normalized so people feel safer "coming out." On the other hand, we could also speculate that it's socially more popular to be queer, so young people are simply jumping on the bandwagon to fit in with their peers. 

Interestingly, psychological developmental theories suggest that adolescents, who span from teenage years to mid-20's, are in a stage of identity confusion. They are still trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do with their lives. By suggesting that they could possibly be gay or transgender or something else, we are adding to the confusion and contributing to shame issues and trauma. Coincidentally, it is mostly adolescents who are struggling with this, with few exceptions from other generations.

But even then, I don't agree that that's the root cause. So what is it? Is it really something we are born with and something we should be normalizing, or even celebrating (creating "social change")? Or is it something else?

I propose a new theory that nearly all clinicians and researchers haven't considered. When looking at possible root causes, we must be open to new ideas. Science is all about observing what already is, not manipulating interpretations for desired outcomes (side note: that's more than half of modern research now, so be careful what you believe from "science").

In my professional experience, nearly all (or maybe even all) of my LGBT patients who have come to therapy have had a history of sexual trauma. It is hard to say that it's every case because I've also found that sexual trauma is often repressed in the mind; people sometimes don't have a memory of it at all; they just have an empty period in their memory of childhood. That makes sense considering that the brain wants to protect us from harmful thoughts, so it simply closes off that part of the memory. Another consideration is that REM sleep both processes trauma and stores memories in the mind. After a trauma, we may not sleep well, which means we won't get into REM and we won't store memories and we will have residual, unresolved trauma. Unresolved trauma is what causes us to think, "what's wrong with me?" when there's no obvious answer.

I believe that sexual trauma harms someone at very deep level, beyond simply being an undesired event or causing sleep problems or anxiety. For example, if females are abused by males, then it makes sense that some of them will try to subconsciously protect themselves from males (the perceived threat) by being "attracted" to other females instead (the perceived safety).  This is especially true if the female doesn't have a healthy relationship with a father figure to show her that males might not be so bad after all. We might see something similar in cases where a person decides that they are bisexual, transgender, or something else. If it goes unresolved, it can very well lead to confusion, an ongoing identity crisis, and social issues.

So I believe that gender/sexual confusion can be caused by unresolved trauma, usually sexual in nature.

But is that it? Is that my only "new" theory? No. There's more to it.

Keep in mind, I also have a strong nutrition background. And this is another case in which we look at recent trends in America. Note that there doesn't seem to be nearly as many cases of LGBT issues in other societies except in first-world countries. Why is that? Let's look at the glaring differences between first and third-world countries: diet and lifestyle.

The modern diet, at least in developed countries, consists of a lot of ultra-processed foods replete with synthetic and refined (de-natured) ingredients and have pesticide and herbicide residues on them. Not only that, but we are mostly sedentary, staring at screens most of the day, and not sleeping well. We are exposed to a lot of industrialized chemicals (environmental toxins), especially plastics, synthetic fragrances, cleaners, and radiation coming from all sorts of electronic devices, all of which disrupt the endocrine system and cause hormone imbalances.

In third-world countries, they might still have access to some of these things (since we export them), but not in such great quantities. They are more likely to be outside, spending time with loved ones, and doing manual labor, which are healthier activities.

These dietary and lifestyle problems and environmental threats have only increased in recent decades (along with many chronic diseases). Does this explain why we are seeing a rise in LGBT-identifying people, putting social influences and trauma aside?

So consider this: Could being LGBTQ+ be a "plague of prosperity?" Are we causing ourselves this major controversy by simply being unhealthy?

To bring trauma back into the discussion for a moment, it's not uncommon for a sexually abused person, especially females, to develop disordered eating or go on a vegetarian/vegan diet in an effort to gain control and feel "clean." Disordered eating and vegetarian diets usually lead to nutritional problems, which can easily transfer to hormone imbalances and further mental illness.

So this is my take on these things. We've seen a rise in chronic disease since the industrial revolution, and it's only getting worse. The more convenient things become, the less healthy we get because it keeps us exposed to toxins, being sedentary, and eating unhealthy food-like products. But to make things worse, it negatively affects each new generation. So even if a person did not experience sexual trauma themselves, their parents or grandparents may have, and passed those genes onto them (we call this "inter-generational trauma"). Or, if the parents or grandparents were metabolically unhealthy by eating processed foods, a low-fat diet, and being sedentary, they passed those genes on, too (we could also call nutritional problems a form of trauma).

Think about an unhealthy mother's body as it tries to grow a fetus; it won't work very well if the mother isn't getting the nutrients necessary for proper growth. So the new generation is born sicker than the previous generation. 

It's a chain reaction that must be stopped with proper education! And that's why I am a nutritionist. These problems need to change, and education is the best way to get people to do it.

I believe queer identities may be caused by trauma and hormone imbalances from unhealthy lifestyles. And I don't disagree with social influences being a major factor as well, especially for adolescents. 

But I don't blame the person for being LGBT, because like I said, it was likely coming from previous generations as well (who were trying their best with limited information). But since 96% of Americans are now metabolically unhealthy, we can expect that hormones are out-of-balance! Not having enough, or too much, of the major sex hormones (testosterone, estrogen, and others) will certainly cause confusion and affect how we feel. But we can change that with diet and lifestyle. Even psychotherapy can boost metabolism!

I'm not saying it's an easy fix. It will take a lot of dedication and patience. So should LGBT identities be treated, or normalized? I say both. We should normalize it in that we show respect and neutrality for each person; we don't know where they are coming from, and maybe they don't, either. I don't believe in encouraging it (that would only contribute to social influences being at fault). So I strive to be neutral about this in therapy. But we should also be more curious and humble about where this is coming from because it's obviously a deviation from what nature/God intended, and increasing in prevalence, mostly in developed countries. That means looking at modern factors that are rarely ever considered for this heated topic: trauma, diet, and lifestyle.

P.S. Let's also consider medications as they can cause hormone imbalances. Unfortunately, they are also increasing in prevalence in recent decades. For example, birth control pills are specifically designed to alter hormones! What are those doing to people's health?