HOMOSEXUALITY: A MENTAL DISORDER
Same-sex attraction is a mental disorder. The APA changed the DSM in 1973 not as a result of any new scientific findings, but as a result of political pressures:
Until 1973 homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association. Originally listed as a “sociopathic personality disturbance” in the first edition of DSM in 1953, homosexuality was “upgraded” to a mere “sexual deviation” in 1968 with the release of DSM-II.
In 1973, when homosexuality was removed from DSM-II, there was a great deal of controversy about that decision in the psychiatric community. Many psychiatrists and psychologists still believed that homosexuality was a psychopathology which must invariably cause impairment and distress. Others recognized that the impairment and distress often seen by clinicians were a byproduct of stigma and social repression of homosexuals. This group argued that the pathologization of homosexuality in the DSM was a form of social control that itself contributed to the social stigma and to the harm it did. See DSM-II_Homosexuality_Revision.pdf
The famous decision did not come about as a result of a lengthy professional debate on the scientific merits. It happened in an important national political context — the Watergate Affair — and revelations surrounding Nixon’s “Enemies List” and his conduct of the Vietnam War. This was an era in which much of academia was very loathe to be seen as authoritarian, and very sensitive to charges of political complicity in upholding the cultural status quo. This was the heyday of “humanist psychology” and of second wave feminism. The “backlash” of “angry white men” was still a gleam in the Koch brothers’ eyes.
This anti-authoritarian atmosphere undoubtedly contributed to the willingness of the head of the APA to “do the right thing” and remove homosexuality from the DSM. His decision occurred immediately before the actual vote, and as a result of being taken into a room in which many psychiatrists he knew personally were present and came out to him as homosexual. Thus, this major change in the legal status of homosexuals turned on a knife edge and actually had nothing to do with “scientific evidence“. The issue had never been about “science“, only about political prejudice posturing as “science“. The fear that the APA would be stigmatized as an “establishment institution” was the primary driving factor behind the change in the DSM.
This does not mean however that homosexuality is genetic. According to Nature, there is no genetic link in homosexuality.
Source: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2011/04/26/970357/-When-homosexuality-was-mental-illness Source: https://www.academia.edu/34948471/What_Research_Shows_NARTH_s_Response_to_the_APA_Claims_on_Homosexuality_A_Report_of_the_Scientific_Advisory_Committee_of_the_National_Association_for_Research_and_Therapy_of_Homosexuality
Source: https://lgbpsychology.org/html/facts_changing.html
Source: https://www.tldm.org/news9/homosexualitypentagondocument.htm
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02585-6
