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from Political News
'Gay Rights' Pioneer Dies At 75
Gay activist played major role in using political pressure to
force the APA to remove homosexuality as a psychological disorder from the 'DSM'.
March 7, 2007 - Barbara Gittings, a gay rights activist since the 1950s has died of breast cancer at 75.
Gittings helped organize the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis in the late 50s. Gittings also served on the American Library Association's Gay Task Force. In 2003, the ALA presented her with its highest honor, a lifetime membership.
Gittings was also involved in the lobbying campaign that led to the American Psychiatric Association removing homosexuality as a mental illness from the DSM.
Ms. Gittings also received an award from the American Psychiatric Association in 2006, along with another gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny. The John E. Fryer, M.D., Award was given to both of them for their work in promoting the gay rights movement.
Fryer was a gay psychiatrist who appeared at the APA's 1972 annual meeting in Dallas wearing a wig and a hood to shield his identity. He was introduced as "Dr. H." and participated in a panel discussion titled, "Psychiatry: Friend of Foe to Homosexuals: A Dialogue."
Barbara Gittings was at the APA's 1972 meeting, as were gay activist Frank Kameny and NARTH co-founder Dr. Charles Socarides. In an interview published in the New York Times in 1995, the late Dr. Socarides describes what happened at this APA meeting:
Many of us could go along with some of Kameny's goals. We deplored society's unreasoned fear of homosexuals, and we certainly didn't want to deny them equal opportunity. But we didn't see how we could renounce our own research and our own long experience with homosexuals whose imperative needs made for a lifestyle that was anything but healthy. But something else emerged in that Dallas meeting the revelation that there were gays inside our own profession.
Barbara Gittings, a long-time lesbian activist and chair of the Task Force on Gay Liberation of the American Library Association, gave a presentation that told us about gay psychiatrists who lived anguished lives, terrified at the prospect of professional ruin if anyone exposed them. She was followed by a Dr. Anonymous who wore a hood, a move calculated to win sympathy, because it dramatized his fears of persecution. He announced, "I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist." He called upon his fellow gays who were present to join the struggle for change. He called upon the rest of us to accept them.
Additional Reading: Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far;
A Tribute to Charles W. Socarides;
The Trojan Couch.
Updated: 8 February 2008
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