I was 19, gay and ready to be ‘cured’ by nversn therapy | Fay | The Guardian

Contents:

• THE HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN
• I WAS 19, GAY AND READY TO BE ‘CURED’ BY NVERSN THERAPY
• 'CURED': WHEN BEG GAY WAS A MENTAL ILLNS
• HOW STONEWALL CURED GAY PEOPLE — OF PSYCHIATRISTS
• PHILIPP' DUTERTE CLAIMED HE WAS ONCE GAY BUT NOW 'CURED'
• GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
• IT IS NOW 50 YEARS SCE GAY PEOPLE WERE “CURED"

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. 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.

I WAS 19, GAY AND READY TO BE ‘CURED’ BY NVERSN THERAPY

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.

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.

'CURED': WHEN BEG GAY WAS A MENTAL ILLNS

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. The APA then promised, removg homosexualy but replacg , effect, wh “sexual orientatn disturbance” for people “ nflict wh” their sexual orientatn. Meanwhile, the World Health Organizatn Geneva only removed homosexualy om s Internatnal Classifitn of Diseas (ICD) wh the publitn of ICD-10 1992, although ICD-10 still rried the nstct of "ego-dystonic sexual orientatn.

HOW STONEWALL CURED GAY PEOPLE — OF PSYCHIATRISTS

As I discs The Meang of Madns, the evolutn of the stat of homosexualy the classifitns of mental disorrs highlights that ncepts of mental disorr n be rapidly evolvg social nstcts that change as society chang.

Today, the standard of psychotherapy the US and Europe is gay affirmative psychotherapy, which enurag gay people to accept their sexual orientatn—although some licensed profsnals still nduct so-lled "nversn therapy.

Gay marriage has been legal for some years now, but the old notns of s and mental illns, of guilt and aquacy, live on the llective nscns, cludg the substance of gay people born long after the 1970s. While the documentary is All-Amerin, there are many untri which homosexualy remas illegal, some s punishable wh life imprisonment or even ath. This film by Patrick Sammon and Bent Sger profil the velopment, expansn, and eventual victory of activists both outsi and si the ranks of the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn (APA) to remove homosexualy om s manual of mental illns, s Diagnostic and Statistil Manual, and the often-ntent bate surroundg the change.

PHILIPP' DUTERTE CLAIMED HE WAS ONCE GAY BUT NOW 'CURED'

The film begs om a ntext which nservative relig nomatns fed homosexuals as sful, ernment prosecuted homosexuals as crimal, and the psychiatric profsn judged them as sick. Urologist, surgeon, and profsor om Chigo, 1889 livered a lecture at the College of Physicians and Surgeons Chigo which he referred to homosexuals as “sexual perverts” who are “physilly abnormal.

GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS

Also the Amerin doctor Allan McLane Haton wrote 1896 that “the [female homosexual] is ually of a mascule type, or if she prented none of the ‘characteristics’ of the male, was a subject of pelvic disorr, wh snty menstatn, and was more or ls hysteril and sane.

Lichtenste wrote 1921 that: “A physil examatn of [female homosexuals] will practilly every stance disclose an abnormally proment cloris. Rather than nsirg homosexualy, bisexualy, and genr diversy as differenc along a broad spectm of human potential, some sectors of the medil and psychologil muni forced pathologizg language onto queer and trans people. 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.

One of the antagonists Cured is physician Irvg Bieber who -thored a study 1962, “Homosexualy: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals” sponsored by the New York Society of Psychoanalysts, which he nclud that homosexualy nstuted a psychopathology that uld be cured or prevented wh psychoanalysis. In addn, the psychiatrist Charl Soris, founr of the Natnal Associatn for Rearch & Therapy of Homosexualy (NARTH), argued that homosexualy is an illns, a nrosis, possibly ed by an over-attachment to the mother, which he said uld be treated.

IT IS NOW 50 YEARS SCE GAY PEOPLE WERE “CURED"

Cured profil the street activism, cludg when I and my patrts of the Gay Liberatn Front and Gay May Day llective, iends om the Mattache Society, and members of the newly formed Gay Activists Alliance stormed the APA nventn May 1971 at the Shorham Hotel Washgton as Frankl Kameny of Mattache D. By 1973, the APA had fally changed s signatn of homosexualy for those fortable wh their sexual orientatn, now assertg that do not nstute a disorr: “[H]omosexualy per se impli no impairment judgment, stabily, reliabily, or general social or votnal pabili. Two years later, 1975, the Amerin Psychologil Associatn followed su and urged mental health profsnals “to take the lead removg the stigma of mental illns that has long been associated wh homosexual orientatns.

“And he said, a voice ee of emotn: ‘False Image’, ” rells Conley Boy Erased, his elegant memoir about the year which his southern Baptist upbrgg llid wh his sexual awakeng as a gay man. The methods are cel and equently vlent, om applyg electric shocks while beg forced to watch gay porn, to md ntrol gam aimed at persuadg LGBT “patients” their sir are rooted dysfunctnal or “disempowerg” relatnships wh their LIA the msage was unequivol: homosexualy meant unhapps, isolatn and ath. Stori like the were not unmon at LIA, renamed Rtoratn Path 2012, and wily nsired to be the first morn “ex-gay” mistry predited on changg the sexual orientatn of gay men and women.

Like other gay teens, Conley went through the motns of havg a girliend as a way to “cure” himself, but he was also a vorac rear who found novels a unterweight to the Bible that helped expand the horizons of his world. The knowledge of my homosexualy would seem more shockg than the knowledge of my rape; or, worse, would seem as though one act had evably followed the other, as though I’d had g to me. There, she jok about an ia for a TV seri, Preachers’ Wiv Gone Wild, while he surreptly observ their handsome the ironi of nversn therapi such as LIA is the fact that they are n and managed largely by gay men who have been through the programme themselv, renounced their past and now seek to make others do the same.