Contents:
- THE HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN
- A PROCLAMATN ON LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, AND QUEER PRI MONTH, 2021
THE HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN
The documentary chronicl the years-long mpaign which led the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn (APA) to remove homosexualy om s manual of mental disorrs.
In one scene, shot 1966, an assembly of children are warned, “If we tch you wh a homosexual… the rt of your life will be a livg hell. ” In another scene, a psychiatrist publicly op that homosexuals nnot “rema happy for long. Homosexualy had once been the purview of the Church, but people no longer believed so much s, and so me to be rebrand as somethg more credible for the tim.
In the first edn of s manual of mental disorrs (DSM-I), published 1952, the APA clud homosexualy as a “socpathic personaly disturbance. By the 1960s, a large majory of Amerins believed homosexualy to be a mental illns, and many looked upon gays wh varyg mixtur of disgt, disfort, and fear. People who were nounced as homosexual were unable to work as a teacher or judge or civil servant, or even to reta the ctody of their children.
A PROCLAMATN ON LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, AND QUEER PRI MONTH, 2021
Most gays had ltle choice but to rema closeted. The most mon “treatment” at the time was talk therapy, but many gay men and women were subjected to more aggrsive terventns such as aversn therapy and electronvulsive therapy—even, extremis, stratn or lobotomy.
This gay liberatn movement began to snowball after the 1969 Stonewall Uprisg, rponse to an arbrary police raid Greenwich Village, New York. At the 1971 nventn, astronomer Frank Kameny mand that psychiatrists provi scientific evince for their claim that homosexualy is a mental disorr. He began: “I am a homosexual.
In December 1973, the APA board voted unanimoly (wh two abstentns) to remove homosexualy om the DSM.