Dorians
2024-04-15 07:06:19 UTC
https://daily.jstor.org/how-lgbtq-activists-got-homosexuality-out-of-the-
dsm/
The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual
deviancies, vaulting heterosexual behavior to an idealized place in
American culture.
Nearly 50 years ago, LGBTQ+ activists achieved what was called the
greatest gay victory of the time: successfully pushing members of the
American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove the diagnosis of
homosexuality from the official classification of mental illnesses, the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). By citing
homosexuality as a mental illness, the APA and its members stigmatized
LGBTQ+ people, and non-normative sexualities and gender expressions.
Declassification, as the years-long effort was known, culminated in 1973,
when in May, LGBTQ+ voices were heard at the annual APA conference, and
later the APA Board of Trustees voted to remove homosexuality from the
DSM. The change signaled to the country that there was not an inherent
link between mental illness and homosexuality.
For queer people growing into their adulthood, it can be difficult to
understand just how much progress has been made toward sociocultural
acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. The classification of mental illness was born
from the legacy of multiple systems of power: the American legal system
criminalized homosexual behavior; federal and state governments had not
yet codified protections for queer and trans people seeking employment and
housing; and an insistence on heteronormative gender roles stigmatized
anyone who deviated from their role as a woman or a man.
The American Psychiatric Association was founded in 1844 by 13
superintendents of US institutions for people with mental illnesses. The
organization ballooned in membership after the end of WWII, likely due to
the GI Bill allowing thousands of young (mostly white) men to attend
college. Given that the majority of US universities did not admit women
into their ranks until the mid-twentieth century, the APA was largely a
male-dominated organization at the time of the declassification effort.
The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual
deviancies, thus centering heterosexuality and vaulting heterosexual
behavior to an idealized place in American culture. In making
heterosexuality the norm, the APA effectively made homosexuality the
other. APA officials were insistent on codifying and differentiating
natural or healthy behavior from unnatural, meaning unhealthy
behavior. The organization believed that non-procreative sex was unnatural
because it could not result in a child.
The campaign to remove the homosexuality diagnosis from the DSM began in
earnest in the 1960s, backed by a growing civil rights, womens rights,
and gay rights movement across the country. Dubbed the homophile
movement, gay and lesbian rights organizations in major cities like New
York City, San Francisco, and Philadelphia started to pressure elected
officials and launch public campaigns for LGBTQ+ visibility and rights.
Gay liberation efforts were occurring on a number of fronts, and the APA
declassification effort was one part of the movement for equality and
acceptance.
Karla Jay, a lesbian activist, said that protestors shouted to the APA
members, off of the couches and into the streets!
Activists ramped up their efforts after years of campaigning from the
outside: they decided to go straight to the APA conferences where
practitioners attended panels and discussions of psychiatry and
psychologyand could press to declassify homosexuality. Activists attended
conferences with the intention of going straight to the source. Karla Jay,
a lesbian activist who participated in disrupting a panel discussion on
sex problems that advocated shock treatment to cure homosexuality,
said that protestors shouted to the APA members, off of the couches and
into the streets!
Yet activists were working against a number of hurdles, one being the fact
that APA members could weaponize the moniker of mentally ill against
queer and trans people, disqualifying them from talking about their own
experiences with authority. Generally, their calls went unheard:
Conference attendees in San Francisco summarily dismissed protesters as
maniacal and schizophrenic, the scholar Abram J. Lewis writes in the
Journal of the History of Sexuality. One scandalized audience member
quoted by the Washington Post assessed an anonymous feminist protester,
somewhat less clinically, as a paranoid fool and a stupid bitch.
In order to push for the APA declassification, activists had to appeal to
the sensibilities of the organizations members. Thus, in addition to
pressuring the APA from the outside by taking direct action to disrupt its
proceedings, activists knew that APA members would need to be persuaded by
one of their own. In 1972, at the first conference that actually featured
a panel discussion on homosexuality led by LGBTQ+ people, a gay
practitioner, John Fryer, testified on behalf of the declassification
campaign. Given the risk involved with openly identifying as a gay
psychiatrist, Fryer presented himself as Dr. Henry Anonymous and
disguised his identity by wearing a mask and using a microphone with a
voice distorter.
Pull your courage up by your bootstraps and discover ways in which you as
homosexual psychiatrists can be appropriately involved in movements which
attempt to change the attitudes of both homosexuals and heterosexuals
toward homosexually, Fryer pleaded. For all of us have something to
lose. The testimony did not convince voting members of the APA to remove
the classification that year, but would signal a major turning point in
the declassification effort.
In 1973, activists succeeded in their efforts. As they had in years past,
gay activists disrupted panels and gave speeches. One of the more famous
speeches offered at the May 1973 APA conference in Honolulu was by a gay
activist named Ronald Gold, who told the APA members, Stop it, youre
making me sick. The resounding line was somewhat of a double entendre:
the APA was literally saying that Gold, as a gay man, was ill, implying
that the medical professionals were creating sickness where there was
none. And, in stigmatizing Golds personhood, the APA was helping to
further the social conditions that alienated and ostracized queer
peoplelike him.
Ultimately, activists were successful in part by pointing out the gaps in
the APAs own reasoning behind classification. The declassification
movement made heavy use of the fact that, until this time, the members had
not really defined what a mental illness was, only asserted that they
existed and had a distinct etiology, though the brains complexity
prevented complete precision. In fact, the controversy over the
homosexuality diagnosis was able to reach such heights of publicity in
part because the APA had never had cause to reach consensus on a
standardized definition of mental illness, Lewis writes.
In addition to highlighting the gaps in the APAs argument, activists
demonstrated and testified that they were productive members of society.
They believed that by demonstrating that they could find gainful
employment, maintain relationships, and assimilate into heteronormative
culture, they could prove that there was nothing abnormaland nothing
impairingabout homosexuality.
In an interview with The New York Times just days after the 1973 vote for
declassification, Robert L. Spitzer, M.D., a member of the nomenclature
committee, said that a mental condition could be defined as that which
causes distress or impairs social functioning, such as finding and
maintaining a job or a relationship. Clearly homosexuality per se does
not meet these requirements: Many homosexuals are satisfied with their
sexual orientation and demonstrate no generalized impairment, Spitzer
said. An official statement from the APA later reflected Spitzers
statement: homosexuality, per se, implies no impairment in judgment,
stability, reliability, or general social or vocational capabilities.
To many LGBTQ+ people at the time, the reversal of the mental disorder
classification was too little, too late; the damage of calling LGBTQ+
people insane was done. Homosexuality was no longer considered an illness,
but the stigma did not subside. In other ways, pushing for
declassification as an illness was simply the impetus for further
scrutiny. As Spitzer wondered: If homosexuality does not meet the
criteria for psychiatric disorder, what is it? Descriptively, we can say
that it is one form of sexual behavior. However, in no longer considering
it a psychiatric disorder, we are not saying that it is normal, or that it
is as valuable as heterosexuality.
Lewis noted that, although the campaign was ultimately successful in its
efforts, there were unintended consequences. In pushing for the definition
of mental illness, activists distanced themselves from other individuals
who suffered mental illnesses, further stigmatizing non-neurotypical
behavior and characteristics. Moreover, the APA actually responded to
pressure to define mental illness by creating more potential diagnoses. As
Lewis writes, Ironically, the declassification campaign eventually helped
expand and enshrine the authority of the very text that gay reformers
initially sought to critique. Declassification corresponded with a major
step away from social and environmental understandings of mental
pathology, Lewis writes, which elided the very real impact that the APA
contributed to the social stigmatization of mental illnessand of LGBTQ+
people.
https://daily.jstor.org/how-lgbtq-activists-got-homosexuality-out-of-the-
dsm/
dsm/
The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual
deviancies, vaulting heterosexual behavior to an idealized place in
American culture.
Nearly 50 years ago, LGBTQ+ activists achieved what was called the
greatest gay victory of the time: successfully pushing members of the
American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove the diagnosis of
homosexuality from the official classification of mental illnesses, the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). By citing
homosexuality as a mental illness, the APA and its members stigmatized
LGBTQ+ people, and non-normative sexualities and gender expressions.
Declassification, as the years-long effort was known, culminated in 1973,
when in May, LGBTQ+ voices were heard at the annual APA conference, and
later the APA Board of Trustees voted to remove homosexuality from the
DSM. The change signaled to the country that there was not an inherent
link between mental illness and homosexuality.
For queer people growing into their adulthood, it can be difficult to
understand just how much progress has been made toward sociocultural
acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. The classification of mental illness was born
from the legacy of multiple systems of power: the American legal system
criminalized homosexual behavior; federal and state governments had not
yet codified protections for queer and trans people seeking employment and
housing; and an insistence on heteronormative gender roles stigmatized
anyone who deviated from their role as a woman or a man.
The American Psychiatric Association was founded in 1844 by 13
superintendents of US institutions for people with mental illnesses. The
organization ballooned in membership after the end of WWII, likely due to
the GI Bill allowing thousands of young (mostly white) men to attend
college. Given that the majority of US universities did not admit women
into their ranks until the mid-twentieth century, the APA was largely a
male-dominated organization at the time of the declassification effort.
The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual
deviancies, thus centering heterosexuality and vaulting heterosexual
behavior to an idealized place in American culture. In making
heterosexuality the norm, the APA effectively made homosexuality the
other. APA officials were insistent on codifying and differentiating
natural or healthy behavior from unnatural, meaning unhealthy
behavior. The organization believed that non-procreative sex was unnatural
because it could not result in a child.
The campaign to remove the homosexuality diagnosis from the DSM began in
earnest in the 1960s, backed by a growing civil rights, womens rights,
and gay rights movement across the country. Dubbed the homophile
movement, gay and lesbian rights organizations in major cities like New
York City, San Francisco, and Philadelphia started to pressure elected
officials and launch public campaigns for LGBTQ+ visibility and rights.
Gay liberation efforts were occurring on a number of fronts, and the APA
declassification effort was one part of the movement for equality and
acceptance.
Karla Jay, a lesbian activist, said that protestors shouted to the APA
members, off of the couches and into the streets!
Activists ramped up their efforts after years of campaigning from the
outside: they decided to go straight to the APA conferences where
practitioners attended panels and discussions of psychiatry and
psychologyand could press to declassify homosexuality. Activists attended
conferences with the intention of going straight to the source. Karla Jay,
a lesbian activist who participated in disrupting a panel discussion on
sex problems that advocated shock treatment to cure homosexuality,
said that protestors shouted to the APA members, off of the couches and
into the streets!
Yet activists were working against a number of hurdles, one being the fact
that APA members could weaponize the moniker of mentally ill against
queer and trans people, disqualifying them from talking about their own
experiences with authority. Generally, their calls went unheard:
Conference attendees in San Francisco summarily dismissed protesters as
maniacal and schizophrenic, the scholar Abram J. Lewis writes in the
Journal of the History of Sexuality. One scandalized audience member
quoted by the Washington Post assessed an anonymous feminist protester,
somewhat less clinically, as a paranoid fool and a stupid bitch.
In order to push for the APA declassification, activists had to appeal to
the sensibilities of the organizations members. Thus, in addition to
pressuring the APA from the outside by taking direct action to disrupt its
proceedings, activists knew that APA members would need to be persuaded by
one of their own. In 1972, at the first conference that actually featured
a panel discussion on homosexuality led by LGBTQ+ people, a gay
practitioner, John Fryer, testified on behalf of the declassification
campaign. Given the risk involved with openly identifying as a gay
psychiatrist, Fryer presented himself as Dr. Henry Anonymous and
disguised his identity by wearing a mask and using a microphone with a
voice distorter.
Pull your courage up by your bootstraps and discover ways in which you as
homosexual psychiatrists can be appropriately involved in movements which
attempt to change the attitudes of both homosexuals and heterosexuals
toward homosexually, Fryer pleaded. For all of us have something to
lose. The testimony did not convince voting members of the APA to remove
the classification that year, but would signal a major turning point in
the declassification effort.
In 1973, activists succeeded in their efforts. As they had in years past,
gay activists disrupted panels and gave speeches. One of the more famous
speeches offered at the May 1973 APA conference in Honolulu was by a gay
activist named Ronald Gold, who told the APA members, Stop it, youre
making me sick. The resounding line was somewhat of a double entendre:
the APA was literally saying that Gold, as a gay man, was ill, implying
that the medical professionals were creating sickness where there was
none. And, in stigmatizing Golds personhood, the APA was helping to
further the social conditions that alienated and ostracized queer
peoplelike him.
Ultimately, activists were successful in part by pointing out the gaps in
the APAs own reasoning behind classification. The declassification
movement made heavy use of the fact that, until this time, the members had
not really defined what a mental illness was, only asserted that they
existed and had a distinct etiology, though the brains complexity
prevented complete precision. In fact, the controversy over the
homosexuality diagnosis was able to reach such heights of publicity in
part because the APA had never had cause to reach consensus on a
standardized definition of mental illness, Lewis writes.
In addition to highlighting the gaps in the APAs argument, activists
demonstrated and testified that they were productive members of society.
They believed that by demonstrating that they could find gainful
employment, maintain relationships, and assimilate into heteronormative
culture, they could prove that there was nothing abnormaland nothing
impairingabout homosexuality.
In an interview with The New York Times just days after the 1973 vote for
declassification, Robert L. Spitzer, M.D., a member of the nomenclature
committee, said that a mental condition could be defined as that which
causes distress or impairs social functioning, such as finding and
maintaining a job or a relationship. Clearly homosexuality per se does
not meet these requirements: Many homosexuals are satisfied with their
sexual orientation and demonstrate no generalized impairment, Spitzer
said. An official statement from the APA later reflected Spitzers
statement: homosexuality, per se, implies no impairment in judgment,
stability, reliability, or general social or vocational capabilities.
To many LGBTQ+ people at the time, the reversal of the mental disorder
classification was too little, too late; the damage of calling LGBTQ+
people insane was done. Homosexuality was no longer considered an illness,
but the stigma did not subside. In other ways, pushing for
declassification as an illness was simply the impetus for further
scrutiny. As Spitzer wondered: If homosexuality does not meet the
criteria for psychiatric disorder, what is it? Descriptively, we can say
that it is one form of sexual behavior. However, in no longer considering
it a psychiatric disorder, we are not saying that it is normal, or that it
is as valuable as heterosexuality.
Lewis noted that, although the campaign was ultimately successful in its
efforts, there were unintended consequences. In pushing for the definition
of mental illness, activists distanced themselves from other individuals
who suffered mental illnesses, further stigmatizing non-neurotypical
behavior and characteristics. Moreover, the APA actually responded to
pressure to define mental illness by creating more potential diagnoses. As
Lewis writes, Ironically, the declassification campaign eventually helped
expand and enshrine the authority of the very text that gay reformers
initially sought to critique. Declassification corresponded with a major
step away from social and environmental understandings of mental
pathology, Lewis writes, which elided the very real impact that the APA
contributed to the social stigmatization of mental illnessand of LGBTQ+
people.
https://daily.jstor.org/how-lgbtq-activists-got-homosexuality-out-of-the-
dsm/