Drs Serer and Drcher discs how culture shaped views on homosexualy, and further evince that there is no 'gay gene.'
Contents:
- “GAY IS GOOD”: HISTORY OF HOMOSEXUALY THE DSM AND MORN PSYCHIATRY
- A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT OVER ATTEMPTS TO 'CURE' GAY PEOPLE
“GAY IS GOOD”: HISTORY OF HOMOSEXUALY THE DSM AND MORN PSYCHIATRY
In an effort to expla how that cisn me about, this paper reviews some historil scientific theori and arguments that first led to the placement of homosexualy DSM-I and DSM-II as well as alternative theori that eventually led to s removal om DSM III and subsequent edns of the manual. In an effort to expla how that cisn me about, this paper reviews some historil scientific theori and arguments that first led to the placement of homosexualy DSM-I [7] and DSM-II [8], as well as alternative theori, that eventually led to s removal om DSM III [9] and subsequent edns of the manual [10, 11, 12, 13].
Theori of HomosexualyIt is possible to formulate a scriptive typology of etlogil theori of homosexualy throughout morn history which they generally fall to three broad tegori: pathology, immatury, and normal variatn [14, 15, 16]. Siarly, blogil rearchers have prumed gay men have bras that more closely remble those of women [29] or are recipients of extra agments of their mothers’ X (female) chromosom [30] beliefs ually only allow for the existence of two sex.
Early Theorists of HomosexualyFor much of Wtern history, official pronouncements on the meangs of same-sex behavrs were primarily the provce of religns, many of which emed homosexualy to be morally “bad” [36]. Eventually, relig tegori like monic posssn, dnkenns, and sodomy were transformed to the scientific tegori of sany, alholism, and, the morn history of homosexualy ually begs the mid-19th century, most notably wh the wrgs of Karl Herich Ulrichs [21].
A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT OVER ATTEMPTS TO 'CURE' GAY PEOPLE
In 1869, Hungarian journalist Károli Mária Kertbeny first ed the terms “homosexual” and “homosexualy” a polil treatise agast Paragraph 143, a Pssian law later dified Germany’s Paragraph 175 that crimalized male homosexual behavr [37]. Psychopathia Sexualis would prage many of the pathologizg assumptns regardg human sexualy psychiatric diagnostic manuals of the mid-20th ntrast, Magn Hirschfeld [38], also a German psychiatrist, offered a normative view of homosexualy. This belief nate bisexualy did not allow for the possible existence of Hirschfeld’s third sex: “Psychoanalytic rearch is most cidly opposed to any attempt at separatg off homosexuals om the rt of mankd as a group of special character” [19], (p.
Further, Frd argued that homosexualy uld not be a “generative ndn” as Krafft-Ebg mataed bee, among other reasons, was “found people whose efficiency is unimpaired, and who are ed distguished by specially high tellectual velopment and ethil culture” [19], (p. Toward the end of his life, Frd wrote “Homosexualy is assuredly no advantage, but is nothg to be ashamed of, no vice, no gradatn; nnot be classified as an illns; we nsir to be a variatn of the sexual functn, produced by a certa arrt of sexual velopment” [39], (p.
This belief ma him psimistic about efforts to change a homosexual orientatn to a heterosexual one: “In general, to unrtake to nvert a fully veloped homosexual to a heterosexual do not offer much more prospect of succs than the reverse, except that for good practil reasons the latter is never attempted” [28], (p. The Ksey reports, surveyg thoands of people who were not psychiatric patients, found homosexualy to be more mon the general populatn than was generally believed, although his now-famo “10%” statistic is today believed to be closer to 1%–4% [46].