HOMOSEXUALITY'S BRIEF RECOVERY: FROM SICKNESS TO HEALTH AND BACK AGAIN.

de Cecco, John P.

The article focuses on the recovery of homosexuals from illness. Although Gay Liberation leaders had succeeded only in getting homosexuality reclassified, the decision of the American Psychiatric Association was heralded by them as a victory. A major branch of American medicine in their judgment had officially detoxicated homosexuality as a mental disorder. However, the issue of homosexuality as a biological disorder was not addressed, the author believes, for several reasons. Some Gay Liberationists believed that homosexuality was basically a physical phenomenon. Others assumed that they were fighting against its pathologization in any form; still others reasoned that it was politically unwise to raise the question about the biological basis of homosexuality at a time when they were attempting to align their movement with other minority groups who laid claim to unique but less besmirched biological origins of their own and who were similarly engaged in what has been portrayed as struggle for political equality.

UNITED States; HOMOSEXUALITY; SEXUAL orientation; GAY people; DISEASES; MENTAL illness; PATHOLOGICAL psychology

Journal of Sex Research, 1987, Vol 23, Issue 1, p106

0022-4499

Academic Journal

10.1080/00224498709551346