Homosexuality: The Mental Illness That Went Away
October 8, 2011 By Phil Hickey |
Post edited and updated January 2, 2013, to reflect clarifications as a result of interactions with the many people who have left comments. I thank them for their input.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, until 1974 homosexuality was a mental illness. Freud had alluded to homosexuality numerous times in his writings, and had concluded that paranoia and homosexuality were inseparable. Other psychiatrists wrote copiously on the subject, and homosexuality was “treated” on a wide basis. There was little or no suggestion within the psychiatric community that homosexuality might be conceptualized as anything other than a mental illness that needed to be treated. And, of course, homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in DSM-II. (The DSM – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – is the APA’s standard classification of their so-called mental disorders, and is used by many mental health workers in the USA and other countries.)
Then in 1970 gay activists protested against the APA convention in San Francisco. These scenes were repeated in 1971, and as people came out of the “closet” and felt empowered politically and socially, the APA directorate became increasingly uncomfortable with their stance. In 1973 the APA’s nomenclature task force recommended that homosexuality be declared normal. The trustees were not prepared to go that far, but they did vote to remove homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses by a vote of 13 to 0, with 2 abstentions. This decision was confirmed by a vote of the APA membership, and homosexuality was no longer listed in the seventh edition of DSM-II, which was issued in 1974.
What’s noteworthy about this is that the removal of homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses was not triggered by some scientific breakthrough. There was no new fact or set of facts that stimulated this major change. Rather, it was the simple reality that gay people started to kick up a fuss. They gained a voice and began to make themselves heard. And the APA reacted with truly astonishing speed. And with good reason. They realized intuitively that a protracted battle would have drawn increasing attention to the spurious nature of their entire taxonomy. So they quickly “cut loose” the gay community and forestalled any radical scrutiny of the DSM system generally.
The APA claimed that they made the change because new research showed that most homosexual people were content with their sexual orientation, and that as a group, they appeared to be as well-adjusted as heterosexual people. I suggest, however, that these research findings were simply the APA’s face-saver. For centuries, perhaps millennia, homosexual people had clung to their sexual orientation despite the most severe persecution and vilification, including imprisonment and death. Wouldn’t this suggest that they were happy with their orientation? Do we need research to confirm this? And if we do, shouldn’t we also need research to confirm that heterosexual people are happy with their orientation? And if poor adjustment is critical to a diagnosis of mental illness, where was the evidence of this that justified making homosexuality a mental illness in the first place?
Also noteworthy is the fact that the vote of the membership was by no means unanimous. Only about 55% of the members who voted favored the change.
Open Access Journal
Behav Sci (Basel). 2015 Dec; 5(4): 565–575.
Published online 2015 Dec 4. doi: 10.3390/bs5040565
PMCID: PMC4695779
PMID: 26690228
Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality
As we've heard so much about humans being classified as animals, biologically speaking, "evolutionarily" speaking, what is of paramount importance in our recollection , as I see it, is that regardless of what one's posited belief is concerning the aforementioned, science or Creator God, survival of a species is dependent on procreation and reproduction of said species.
That homo-sexuality, same sex sexuality, is not a natural biological process co-concomitant to that end is obvious.
Two Lesbians cannot create an offspring. Nor can two homosexual males. They must therefore cross into the realm of hetero-sexual congress in order to survive their blood line or DNA.
Whereas, in the case of retarding human biological reproduction, exclusive congress, same sex sexual congress with no cross over into opposite sex congress, homo-sexuality would be the natural expression of neuter, to thus insure no reproduction, no new offspring, and the eventual extinction of the human race.
With numbers nearing 7+ billion souls on planet Earth to date, and calculations in the United States regarding the homosexual population at about or near 3.3% of the over 330 million + Americans, the polemic is heretofore neuter or atypical and therefore, ab-normal.
October 8, 2011 By Phil Hickey |
Post edited and updated January 2, 2013, to reflect clarifications as a result of interactions with the many people who have left comments. I thank them for their input.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, until 1974 homosexuality was a mental illness. Freud had alluded to homosexuality numerous times in his writings, and had concluded that paranoia and homosexuality were inseparable. Other psychiatrists wrote copiously on the subject, and homosexuality was “treated” on a wide basis. There was little or no suggestion within the psychiatric community that homosexuality might be conceptualized as anything other than a mental illness that needed to be treated. And, of course, homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in DSM-II. (The DSM – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – is the APA’s standard classification of their so-called mental disorders, and is used by many mental health workers in the USA and other countries.)
Then in 1970 gay activists protested against the APA convention in San Francisco. These scenes were repeated in 1971, and as people came out of the “closet” and felt empowered politically and socially, the APA directorate became increasingly uncomfortable with their stance. In 1973 the APA’s nomenclature task force recommended that homosexuality be declared normal. The trustees were not prepared to go that far, but they did vote to remove homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses by a vote of 13 to 0, with 2 abstentions. This decision was confirmed by a vote of the APA membership, and homosexuality was no longer listed in the seventh edition of DSM-II, which was issued in 1974.
What’s noteworthy about this is that the removal of homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses was not triggered by some scientific breakthrough. There was no new fact or set of facts that stimulated this major change. Rather, it was the simple reality that gay people started to kick up a fuss. They gained a voice and began to make themselves heard. And the APA reacted with truly astonishing speed. And with good reason. They realized intuitively that a protracted battle would have drawn increasing attention to the spurious nature of their entire taxonomy. So they quickly “cut loose” the gay community and forestalled any radical scrutiny of the DSM system generally.
The APA claimed that they made the change because new research showed that most homosexual people were content with their sexual orientation, and that as a group, they appeared to be as well-adjusted as heterosexual people. I suggest, however, that these research findings were simply the APA’s face-saver. For centuries, perhaps millennia, homosexual people had clung to their sexual orientation despite the most severe persecution and vilification, including imprisonment and death. Wouldn’t this suggest that they were happy with their orientation? Do we need research to confirm this? And if we do, shouldn’t we also need research to confirm that heterosexual people are happy with their orientation? And if poor adjustment is critical to a diagnosis of mental illness, where was the evidence of this that justified making homosexuality a mental illness in the first place?
Also noteworthy is the fact that the vote of the membership was by no means unanimous. Only about 55% of the members who voted favored the change.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2015 Dec; 5(4): 565–575.
Published online 2015 Dec 4. doi: 10.3390/bs5040565
PMCID: PMC4695779
PMID: 26690228
Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality
As we've heard so much about humans being classified as animals, biologically speaking, "evolutionarily" speaking, what is of paramount importance in our recollection , as I see it, is that regardless of what one's posited belief is concerning the aforementioned, science or Creator God, survival of a species is dependent on procreation and reproduction of said species.
That homo-sexuality, same sex sexuality, is not a natural biological process co-concomitant to that end is obvious.
Two Lesbians cannot create an offspring. Nor can two homosexual males. They must therefore cross into the realm of hetero-sexual congress in order to survive their blood line or DNA.
Whereas, in the case of retarding human biological reproduction, exclusive congress, same sex sexual congress with no cross over into opposite sex congress, homo-sexuality would be the natural expression of neuter, to thus insure no reproduction, no new offspring, and the eventual extinction of the human race.
With numbers nearing 7+ billion souls on planet Earth to date, and calculations in the United States regarding the homosexual population at about or near 3.3% of the over 330 million + Americans, the polemic is heretofore neuter or atypical and therefore, ab-normal.
"The overall point being that the APA’s taxonomy is nothing more than self-serving nonsense. Real illnesses are not banished by voting or by fiat, but by valid science and hard work. There are no mental illnesses. Rather, there are people. We have problems; we have orientations; we have habits; we have perspectives. Sometimes we do well, other times we make a mess of things. We are complicated. Our feelings fluctuate with our circumstances, from the depths of despondency to the pinnacles of bliss. And perhaps, most of all, we are individuals. DSM’s facile and self-serving attempt to medicalize human problems is an institutionalized insult to human dignity. The homosexual community has managed to liberate themselves from psychiatric oppression. But there are millions of people worldwide who are still being damaged, stigmatized, and disempowered by this pernicious system to this day"
So he feels that the gay community have liberated themselves from this oppressive industry. So the fact of a vote to remove homosexuality off of the list of of mental illnesses within the APA speaks more about them and their methods, rather than saying anything about gay people.
Your last point depends on how you use the word "normal". It is normal for a small percentage of people within a given population to be homosexual, but it would be abnormal for the whole population to be homosexual.
If there was a single, purely genetic basis for homosexuality then we would expect it to die out, since it is not replicated. However, since it persists in a small percentage then this cannot be the case. The research is ongoing.
