HOMOSEXUALITY AS A MENTAL ILLNESS

In 1969, when the police raided a New York City gay bar called the Stonewall Inn, a new era in the fight for GLBT rights began. GLBT people at the bar fought back by shouting, throwing stones and other objects at police, and generally resisting the raid. The gay liberation movement that drew its energy from the Stonewall riots was much less accommodating than its predecessors had been. Rather than adapt to the prevailing norms, GLBT activists sought to both change these norms and seek civil rights. Transgender people in particular were very instrumental in both the Stonewall riots and the preceding social movement, but as the movement gained momentum and political clout, transgender people were again relegated to second-class citizenship. Some gay men and lesbians viewed transgender people as an embarrassment or, at the least, as representatives of an orientation that was politically difficult to explain. A belief that the political inclusion of transgender people would undermine civil rights for lesbians and gay men was prevalent. It was not uncommon, for example, for some lesbian feminists to exclude male-to-female transsexuals who wished to participate in the lesbian feminist movement; these lesbians viewed MTFs as “fundamentally male” and so were suspicious of their intent. Bisexual people were also very much a part of this early movement. Many lesbians and gay men, however, challenged the concept of a bisexual identity, suggesting that bisexuals were people who simply could not accept their same-sex sexual orientation. This dichotomous thinking about sexual orientation still permeates arguments within the lesbian and gay communities.

D’Emilio (1989) discusses two important aspects of politics for GLBT civil rights after the Stonewall Rebellion. The first was that “coming out” became a political statement and a political strategy for fighting both internalized and external homophobia. This strategy, in light of the above-mentioned thinking about transgender and bisexual people, created a social and political rift between many gay men and lesbians and their bisexual and transgender peers. A second consequence of Stonewall was that a lesbian movement emerged.

One of the most significant strides made by gays and lesbians during this time was the successful campaign in 1973 to remove homosexuality from the category of mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association (Hall, 1985). Over a period of time it had been proposed that homosexuality is only one variation in normal sexual/emotional development (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948). In 1957 Hooker conducted pivotal research comparing the physiological health and well-being of heterosexual and gay men and found no differences between them. These and subsequent studies helped to make the case for removing homosexuality from the DSM. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that older GLBT people have spent much of their lives in a society that defined homosexuality as a mental illness. It is also noteworthy that the DSM still includes a diagnostic category for people who are not comfortable with their sexual orientation or who are transgender, effectively leaving many people still classified as mentally ill on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender expression.