"... Since the 1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, few psychiatric or psychological journals focus on exploring the etiology of homosexuality. Today the view that homosexuality is inborn and immutable appears to be a working assumption for many mental health professionals and for most journalists who report on gay issues. Gay rights advocate and author Eric Marcus compares homosexuality to being lefthanded.
California's Project 10 is a compelling example of the extent to which the view of homosexuality as innate and immutable has won acceptance. Project 10 provides a way for high school students who may have a homosexual orientation to be channeled toward special gay counselors who can help them to accept and adjust to their sexual orientation. Project 10 is viewed as especially crucial because of the high rate of suicide among gay teenagers (one-third of all youth suicides). In the view of gay activists and numerous psychologists, many of these suicides result from the lack of proper institutional support to assist adolescent gays in accepting their homosexuality. It should be pointed out, however, that there is not unanimity on this subject. Critics maintain that such an approach further confuses adolescents about sexual orientation rather than assisting them.
POLITICS, NOT SCIENCE
It should be pointed out, however, that the growing advocacy for gay rights does not result from conclusive scientific breakthroughs in understanding the origin and nature of homosexuality. In fact, the organizing efforts of the gay rights movement beginning in 1969 serve as the real motor behind society's changing view of homosexuality. Through PACs and political lobbying organizations such as the Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Human Rights Campaign Fund, gays and lesbians have become a political force to be reckoned with in mainstream American politics. These and other related organizations have provided political and financial support to candidates who support gay rights...
HOMOSEXUALITY AND OBJECTIVITY
... It is clear that since 1969 the gay community has adopted a proactive strategy to bring homosexuality into the American mainstream, beginning with language itself. They are no longer "homosexual"; they are "gay." And those who oppose them are "homophobes."
Gays have also managed to put a lid on much of the research into the causes of homosexuality by the pressure they brought to bear on the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Beginning in 1970, gay activists initiated a very militant campaign focusing on the APA's annual convention. Through demonstrations inside the convention, they succeeded in disrupting the APA's proceedings on homosexuality .They accused the APA of using the same tactics against them that had been used against blacks. Over a three-year period their efforts bore fruit: In 1973, after much pressure, the APA's board of directors decided to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Strong pressure was exerted on psychiatrists to hold a referendum on the issue, and this took place in 1974. Prior to the referendum, the Gay Task Force helped the APA directors to draft a letter recommending the removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic. The APA made its mailing list available to the Gay Task Force and provided them with APA stationery. Funds were raised inside the gay community to pay for the mailing. Nowhere did the mailing mention that it had been paid for by the Gay Task Force.
By a 58 to 40 percent vote, it was decided via the referendum that homosexuality would no longer be considered a mental disorder. Since that time, fewer and fewer studies examining the causes of homosexuality have been published, according to the January 1992 issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology. Kronemeyer and others believe that privately many psychiatrists continue to view homosexuality as a form of psychosis but are reserved in articulating this view publicly.
Ruth Barnhouse, psychology professor at Loyola College in Maryland, points out that "most of the psychiatrists involved in making the decision were not specialists in homosexuality." She also notes that, although a special task force of psychiatrists was formed to make recommendations, their conclusions (expressing strong reservations toward the new APA position) were "essentially disregarded."
Perhaps most critical of the highly political nature of the 1973 decision is Ronald Bayer's Homosexuality and American Psychiatry--The Politics of Diagnosis, in which he recounts the political role played by the gay community in reversing the APA's position. Interestingly, Bayer saw this decision as both political and vulnerable. With the advent of the Reagan presidency, Bayer warned that the APA position on homosexuality was highly susceptible to being reversed:
The homosexual movement rode the crest of social protest in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Now like the broader movement of which it was part, it encounters deep resistance to change. The recent era of major reform has come to an end in the United States. Under these circumstances the APA's 1973 decision is bound to become increasingly vulnerable.Bayer went on to warn:
In removing homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the Psychiatric Association symbolically deprived American society of its most important justification for refusing to grant legitimation to homosexuality. As the need for such a justification resurfaces in the current period, pressure will mount in psychiatrists to reclassify homosexuality as a disorder. Lacking theoretical orientation with which to protect itself from such pressure, psychiatry may find it exceedingly difficult to resist those demands.
Bayer's observations clearly suggest the APA did not have a theoretical but rather a political motivation for rescinding its former position on homosexuality..."
"... What do we know about this disorder? Well first, it is a disorder, despite the denials of the American Psychiatric Association. Great political pressure was exerted on this professional organization by gays and lesbians (some of whom are psychiatrists) to declare homosexuality to be "normal." The debate went on for years. Finally, a decision was made in 1973 to remove this condition from their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). It was made not on the basis of science, but was strongly influenced by a poll of APA members, which was initiated and financed by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The vote was 5,834 to 3,810. 2 The American Psychological Association soon followed suit. 3 Today, psychologists or psychiatrists who disagree with this politically correct interpretation, or even those who try to help homosexuals change, are subjected to continual harassment and accusations of malpractice..."