Contents:
“GAY IS GOOD”: HISTORY OF HOMOSEXUALY THE DSM AND MORN PSYCHIATRY
While Spzer, who passed away 2015, is often creded wh the classifitn of homosexualy as a mental illns (as chairman of the DSM-III Task Force), another psychiatrist—Thomas Szasz—voiced his disagreement wh the medilizatn of homosexualy at least twenty years earlier. My ntentn is that the psychiatric perspective on homosexualy is but a thly disguised repli of the relig perspective which displaced, and that efforts to "treat" this kd of nduct medilly are but thly disguised methods for supprsg (pp. There is a fundamental siary between the persecutn of dividuals who engage nsentg homosexual activy private, or who gt, ject, or smoke var substanc that alter their feelgs and thoughts—and the tradnal persecutn of men for their relign.
Bee Szasz did not lim his argument to homosexualy (he asserted that mental illns general is merely a metaphor)—and bee he remas perhaps the most ntroversial figure the history of psychiatry—his posn on homosexualy is often ignored. Nearly 50 years ago, LGBTQ+ activists achieved what was lled the “greatt gay victory” of the time: succsfully phg members of the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn (APA) to remove the diagnosis of homosexualy om the official classifitn of mental illns, the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM). Declassifitn, as the years-long effort was known, culmated 1973, when May, LGBTQ+ voic were heard at the annual APA nference, and later the APA Board of Tste voted to remove homosexualy om the DSM.
The classifitn of mental illns was born om the legacy of multiple systems of power: the Amerin legal system crimalized homosexual behavr; feral and state ernments had not yet dified protectns for queer and trans people seekg employment and hog; and an sistence on heteronormative genr rol stigmatized anyone who viated om their role as a “woman” or a “man.