By Dr. Margie Nichols - In 1973, homosexualy was removed om the DSM, the psychiatric ‘Bible, as a mental illns. Many LGBT people don’t fully unrstand the cril role that polil actn agast the mental health muny played advancg lbian and gay rights.
Contents:
“GAY IS GOOD”: HISTORY OF HOMOSEXUALY THE DSM AND MORN PSYCHIATRY
The last 70 years have brought psychiatry a long way, but is only the most recent versn of the DSM that the last piec of evince of pathologizg homosexualy were removed (2). Sixty years of work by gay rights activists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and lears the mental health muny have shaped our current views about dividuals om sexual mory muni and the re that they receive. This article exam the progrsn of classifitn of homosexualy var edns of the DSM, factors fluencg this progrsn, and implitns for sexual and other mory 1952, the Amerin Psychiatry Associatn (APA) Commtee on Nomenclature and Statistics veloped the first versn of the DSM, which served as the first manual of mental health foced on clil diagnos and re and provid a glossary and scriptn of psychiatric illns (3).
Sexual viatn clud different typ of behavr classified as pathologic, cludg “homosexualy, transvtism, pedophilia, fetishism, and sexual sadism cludg rape, sexual asslt, mutilatn” (1). Given the current societal acceptance of homosexualy many untri—and while may be difficult to image today that homosexualy tly fs to “pathologic behavr”— is important to unrstand that cln of homosexualy the DSM served to move same-sex sexual behavr om beg regard as a moral s and to the secular world of medice by regnizg not as a s but stead as a disorr (4). Placed wh the ntext of mental health, this formed the foundatn for future study of homosexualy by clicians and for a morn-day unrstandg of health dispari faced by persons om sexual mory publitn of the DSM-II 1968 saw the cln of homosexualy aga, but this edn, the headg read simply “personaly disorrs” (5).
The protts gaed the attentn of the APA, and at the 1971 meetg, a panel discsn entled “Gay Is Good” ved gay rights activists to speak on the topic of the stigma and discrimatn that they had enuntered bee of their diagnosis. Other fluential members of this panel, such as APA Vice Print Judd Marmor, would argue that “psychiatry is prejudiced” agast homosexual people and that “moral valu” of society ntributed to the cln of homosexualy as a psychiatric ndn. He argued for removal of homosexualy om the DSM (8) wh prsure om gay rights advot, ternal bate was occurrg as to whether homosexualy met the creria for a psychiatric disorr.