Some wish to cure the gay om themselv and look to gay reparative therapy, but do gay nversn therapy actually work? Fd out.
Contents:
- A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT OVER ATTEMPTS TO 'CURE' GAY PEOPLE
- GAY CONVERSN THERAPY – REAL OR HOAX?
- IS BEG GAY, CURABLE?
A HALF-CENTURY OF CONFLICT OVER ATTEMPTS TO 'CURE' GAY PEOPLE
* gay curable *
Fifty years ago today, TIME ran a short article unr the headle, “Homosexuals Can Be Cured. ” The article reported that male homosexuals rpond well to group psychotherapy, unr the re of 64-year-old Universy of Pennsylvania profsor and psychiatrist Samuel Hadn. Hadn was not the only—or most proment—psychiatrist to claim homosexualy was a curable mental illns, but he was reprentative.
Throughout the 1960s, psychiatrists Irvg Bieber and Charl Soris were regularly quoted newspapers and magaz, argug that homosexual sire was a form of psychosocial maladjtment, rultg om childhood. Frd himself had explicly stated by 1935 that homosexualy was not an illns and strongly disuraged attempts to treat ; neverthels, by the 1950s, his theori were wily misappropriated by nservative Amerin and émigré psychiatrists vted reaffirmg the heterosexual, breadwner-homemaker hoehold the wake of World War II.
Wh the popularizatn of behavral therapi the 1960s and ’70s also me new attempts to treat homosexualy, the form of “aversn” therapi, cludg electric shocks.
GAY CONVERSN THERAPY – REAL OR HOAX?
I heard that this group of Rsians, Created a cure for beg gay. What do you guys thk? * gay curable *
Already by the 1960s, such cur had provoked ristance: April 1965, jt months after that TIME article ran, the Philalphia-based gay rights anizatn Jan ved Hadn to give a lecture on his rearch, only to surprise him wh fierce ristance om the dience. Frankl Kameny, a pneerg gay rights lear, rpond sharply, “This is not science, Dr.
In June 1969, the Dorian Society of Seattle worked wh a Universy of Washgton pediatrics profsor to found the Dorian Counselg Service for Homosexuals—the first center of s kd the untry. Siar centers would be found across the untry the years to e, cludg the Gay Communy Servic Center Los Angel, Inty Hoe New York, and the Erom Center Philalphia.
Gay activists would also claim a major victory December 1973, when the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn voted to remove “homosexualy” om the send edn of the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM-II), which meant that homosexualy was officially no longer nsired a disorr self. The sense of victory many gay activists felt may have obscured persistg ambivalence and bias among psychiatrists and other mental health profsnals.
IS BEG GAY, CURABLE?
The diagnosis of homosexualy was immediately replaced by “sexual orientatn disturbance, ” renamed “ego-dystonic homosexualy” DSM-III, which was released 1980 unr the learship of Spzer and social worker Ja Williams. ” Ego-dystonic homosexualy was specifilly aimed at patients who exprsed ongog distrs or sadns about their sexual orientatn, even if homosexualy uld no longer be nsired a mental illns.
Now was the ternalizatn of homophobia that uld make you sick. Many ed the diagnosis of ego-dystonic homosexualy as an exce to legimize reparative therapy—and still do. Sce the 1970s, reparative therapi have been reborn through “ex-gay” Christian mistri, cludg the umbrella group Exod Internatnal, found Anaheim, Calif., 1976.