A Really Informative Comment I Found....

[cftxp]

We all know that comment sections are hell on earth and can make you lose faith in humanity if you read literally every single piece of scum in there, but once in a while, you'll find one that's just enlightening.

I read this article just now about the impact of the Stonewall Riots on propelling gay rights not just in the U.S. but around the world and strolling through the comments section, I found the usual homophobic inferences and the various supportive points-of-view. And then this, one I found that might be of interest to many of you which, although doesn't really have too much to do with Stonewall, is very informative as far as the history goes:

Prior to December 14, 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) considered same-sex attraction a disorder. The disorder was listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-II (DSM-II) under the label, “Homosexuality.” Psychiatry’s authoritative voice influenced public opinion, which at the time was negative toward both sodomy and the types of people who engaged in such acts. Although public sexual activity in parks and public restrooms contributed to societies negative views, “scientific opinion” was crucial in the public attitude.


In an effort to remove “Homosexuality” from the DSM pro-sodomy activists began a program of intimidation aimed at the American Psychiatric Association circa 1970. Activist Franklin Kameny states the movement’s objective clearly, “I feel that the entire homophile movement…is going to stand or fall upon the question of whether or not homosexuality is a sickness, and upon our taking a firm stand on it…”[1] Franklin Kameny led the Washington D.C. chapter of the Mattachine Society during the 1960’s. In the tradition of Magnus Hirschfield and Alfred Kinsey, Kameny viewed one’s attraction to a specific gender as fluid, and viewed sodomy as morally equivalent to natural sexuality. Led by radicals like Franklin Kameny, pro-sodomy activists attacked psychiatrists across America, as Newsweek describes:

“But even more than the government, it is the psychiatrists who have experienced the full rage of the homosexual activists. Over the past two years, gay-lib organizations have repeatedly disrupted medical meetings, and three months ago—in the movements most aggressive demonstration so far—a group of 30 militants broke into a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Washington, where they turned the staid proceedings into near chaos for twenty minutes. ‘We are here to denounce your authority to call us sick or mentally disordered,’ shouted the group’s leader, Dr. Franklin Kameny, while the 2,000 shocked psychiatrists looked on in disbelief. ‘For us, as homosexuals, your profession is the enemy incarnate. We demand that psychiatrists treat us as human beings, not as patients to be cured!’”[2] Ironically, at the very moment Franklin Kameny was claiming that sodomy was healthy, safe, and natural a deadly virus was silently passing through communities of men all over the nation. Only a decade later, thousands of men would be dead or dying of AIDS.

On June 7, 1971, Franklin Kameny wrote a letter to the Psychiatric News threatening the APA with not only more, but worse, disruptions. In this letter he states, “Our presence there was only the beginning of an increasingly intensive campaign by homosexuals to change the approach of psychiatry toward homosexuality or, failing that, to discredit psychiatry.”[3]

Kay Tobin Lahausen, co-author of The Gay Crusaders, describes a variety of activism. “We did all sorts of protests…When the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations came out of some meeting and got in his big black limousine, I remember going crazy, rocking and beating on the limousine…He had never been besieged by a bunch of homosexuals before. But he had said something that got us going.”[4] Lahausen’s lover, Barbara Gittings was a well known activist during this time as well. Although Gittings was not a librarian, she was the first head of the American Library Association’s “Gay Task Force.” Her objective was to bring books advocating for sodomy to the attention of librarians, in hopes of having them included in their libraries. At one American Library Association meeting Gittings set up a same-sex kissing booth to attract attention to her cause. Gittings tells about her activism against the APA:

“Besides the ALA, I was also very involved, along with many other people, in efforts to get the American Psychiatric Association… to drop its listing of homosexuality as a mental illness. Psychiatrists were one of the three major groups that had their hands on us. They had a kind of control over our fate, in the eyes of the public, for a long time. Religion and law were the other two groups that had their hands on us. So, besides being sick, we were sinful and criminal. But the sickness label infected everything that we said and made it difficult for us to gain any credibility for anything we said ourselves. The sickness issue was paramount.”[5]

Gittings took place in disruptive “zap” attacks on the APA. She states, “I am not opposed to zap tactics. In fact, I spearheaded a zap at a psychiatrist’s meeting and I’m ready to do it again.”[6] Gittings recounts, “The 1970 convention in San Francisco was disrupted by a group of feminists and gay men who were enraged by what the psychiatrists were saying about them—and newspapers all around the country carried the story.”[7]

The “Gay” Militants, a book about that time, adds details, “On May 14, 1970 psychiatrists became the hunted. An invasion by the coalition of ‘gay’ and woman’s liberationists interrupted the national convention of the American Psychiatric Association in San Francisco to protest the reading of a paper by an Australian psychiatrist on the subject of ‘aversion therapy,’ a system of treatment which attempts to change gay orientation by keying unpleasant sensations (such as electric shocks) to homosexual stimuli. By the time the meeting was over, the feminists and their gay cohorts were in charge…and the doctors were heckling from the audience.’”[8]

Pro-sodomy activists took over the podium and microphones. Then, “Konstantin Berlandt, of Berkeley GLF, paraded through the hall in a bright red dress. Paper airplanes sailed down from the balcony. With two papers still unread, the chairman announced adjournment.” As the meeting adjourned several arguments broke out between the psychiatrists who were angry about the disruption of the activists. One activist shouted to a Psychiatrist, “Don’t shake your fu**ing finger at me,” to which the psychiatrist replied, “I’ll shake whatever I please.”[9] As another argument arose, a Dr. Irving Bieber stated that he believed persons experiencing same-sex attractions were the subjects of “misplaced sexual adjustment,” to which a pro-sodomy activist shrieked and called him a “mother fu**er.”[10] Several months later, The Advocate reported on other disruptions: “PSYCHOLOGISTS GET GAY LIB THERAPY.”

Credits to the one called "PatriotMark".

Dude wrote an article to comment on an article!

Anyway, thought I'd just share this little bit of new found knowledge with you all since the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots is tomorrow for me (in one hour) while it's already come for folks in New York. But thanks to the bravery of those individuals, we've come a long way for gay rights! Yes, more good news....

[meninlove]

"So, besides being sick, we were sinful and criminal." I grew up in this environment, and finally saw it lifted in 1973 when I was in grade 12. Even then, it took years for public perception to change as well..

[MikeW]

I was around in those days but at the time gay politics wasn't much on my radar. Some, but not much. I would like to point out, though, the social context within which militant actions described in the OP took place. It was a completely different era. Civil disobedience (the willingness to get arrested for causing or participating in a non-violent disruption) was a political tactic that was used by radicals and activists to shock a complacent society that seldom questioned assumptions. The issues that got the most attention and are most remembered in the US were racial equality and opposition to the Vietnam war. Gay rights activism arose within this context of direct confrontation. Marches, sit-ins, 'be-ins' and "Mau-Mauing the flak catchers," was fairly common forms of political dissent. The "governing bodies" being demonstrated against were not only elected officials: They included the hierarchies of official sanction such as the APA.

It might be helpful to read more about Kameny. This is a quote from "Homosexuality & American Psychiatry, (pp 82-83)" which follows the above quoted, "the entire homophile movement… is going to stand or fall upon the question of whether or not homosexuality is a sickness...:

Like those before him who had been critical of the psychiatric orthodoxy, Kameny asserted that the corpus of clinical studies of homosexuality was flawed on methodological grounds. Lacking statistically verifiable evidence that homosexuality constituted a pathological condition, psychiatric researchers had defined homosexuality as a disease. He characterized their conflucsion as a "theological position" thinly disguised as objective science.

Had Kameny's contributions been limited to this critique, he would have been no more important than those who preceded him. It was his perception that the diagnosis of psycho-pathology served as the fundamental prop for the entire pattern of social exclusions and his insistence that homosexuals must not cede to the scientific experts the right to speak on this question that set him apart. "I for one am not prepared to play a passive role in…controversies over psychopathology letting others dispose of me as they see fit. I intend to play an active role in the determination of my fate." The experts had forfeited their right to speak on homosexuality because they had shown themselves both incompetent and compromised. They lacked the skill to study the question of homosexuality. They laced the capacity to withstand the distorting value-laden assumptions of the broader society. Indeed they collaborated in the oppression of homosexuals. "We are right; those who oppose us are factually and morally wrong. We are the true authorities on homosexuality whether we are accepted as such or not."

…

Linked to Kamney's rejection of the scientific community was his dismissal of the dominant tactical posture of the homophile movement. For more than a decade, education and reason had been perceived as the most effective means for winning social acceptance and overcoming discriminatory practices. With the civil rights movement of the 1960s as a referent, Kameny stressed that militant action in the courts and on the picket line was the only effective tool available to those seeking social change. "We would be foolish not to recognize what the Negro rights movement has shown us is sadly so. Mere persuasion, information and education are not going to gain for us in actual practice the rights and equality which are ours in principle."

Fiinally, it was Kameny more than any other spokesperson at that point who understood the political needs of a protest movement, who sensed the importance of developing a deep sense of solidarity. Unlike those who saw the homophile movement as serving the individual needs of its participants, he argued that priority had to be given to the collective cause of homosexual freedom and equality. No separatist, he nevertheless understood that homosexuals had to have their own movement to which they could turn for the strength required for their struggle.

The extent to which… homosexuals are heartened by knowing that someone, anyone is actually standing up before the public and standing up to the "experts" and trying to counter psychiatric propaganda--as they cannot do--is almost indescribable. If there were no other reasons for our taking the position that homosexuality is not pathological than bolstering the morals of our own people we would have justification enough.

[East]

Thanks for the article! I was aware of this but the details were fuzzy and I had forgotten about it. I personally would rather celebrate gay pride by remembering the people who opened doors for the rest of us...sometimes at great personal expense,

[MikeW]

A little googling shows the origin of the OP. As I had suspected (given the articles focus on activist disruptions of AIA positions), it is from an blog entitled "The Born 'Gay' Hoax". The position of the author (apparently one Ryan Sorba) is that political activism overruled science on this issue. The blog chronicles the history of ""Gay" Idenity" from the German, "lawyer, political activist, and known pedophile," Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-95). The author asserts that prior to Ulrichs, "there is no known record of any human being ever claiming to have been born with same-sex attractions (SSA)," and concludes that the various studies began in the 1990s are flawed and not objective science.

[CellarDweller]

"So, besides being sick, we were sinful and criminal." I grew up in this environment, and finally saw it lifted in 1973 when I was in grade 12. Even then, it took years for public perception to change as well..

We also cause natural disasters.



Whenever I see a news story about a disaster, and someone is blaming gay marriage as the cause, I go to Facebook and issue a sarcastic apology.

lol

[Pix]

We also cause natural disasters.



Whenever I see a news story about a disaster, and someone is blaming gay marriage as the cause, I go to Facebook and issue a sarcastic apology.

lol

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http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2781