How beg gay went om a mental disorr to a human-rights movement.
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
Until 1973, doctors tomatilly classified every gay man and lbian as mentally ill. CURED tells the David-vers-Goliath story of the activists who challenged this diagnosis — and won. * cured of gay *
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.
I WAS 19, GAY AND READY TO BE ‘CURED’ BY NVERSN THERAPY
Philipp print Rodrigo Duterte claimed a speech that he was once gay and was cured by beg wh a woman. * cured of gay *
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.
'CURED': WHEN BEG GAY WAS A MENTAL ILLNS
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.
HOW STONEWALL CURED GAY PEOPLE — OF PSYCHIATRISTS
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.
PHILIPP' DUTERTE CLAIMED HE WAS ONCE GAY BUT NOW 'CURED'
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.
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.
GAY CONVERSN THERAPY’S DISTURBG 19TH-CENTURY ORIGS
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.
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.
IT IS NOW 50 YEARS SCE GAY PEOPLE WERE “CURED"
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.