Executive Summary For
Sexual Politics And Scientific Logic:
The Issue Of Homosexuality
Dr. Charles Socarides published an historical essay,
"Sexual Politics And Scientific Logic: The Issue Of Homosexuality,"
in The Journal Of Psychohistory, Vol. 10, No. 3, Winter, 1992. It should be of interest to all students of our socio-cultural history.
Dr. Socarides is one of the original founders of the National Association for
Research and Therapy of Homosexual (NARTH) in 1992. Prior to this, he was a key
figure in the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and he had expressed
concern decades earlier that homosexuals were being denied the right to
competent therapy to help them overcome their unwanted homosexuality.
This prominent psychiatrist became embroiled in the debate within the APA in
the 1970s over efforts to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).
In Sexual Politics And Scientific Logic: The Issue Of Homosexuality, Dr.
Socarides observes that the removal of homosexuality from the DSM in 1973,
"...created injustices for the homosexual, as it belied the truth that prevented the
homosexual from seeking and receiving psychoanalytic help. At the social, group,
and community level, it proved to be the opening phase of a two-phase sexual
radicalization: the second phase being the raising of homosexuality to the level
of an alternate lifestyle--an acceptable psycho-social institution alongside
heterosexuality as the prevailing norm of society."
The doctor notes that the efforts to remove homosexuality as a disorder from
the DSM was accomplished by pressure from psychiatrists within the APA as well
as activist homosexual groups that began disrupting psychiatric meetings and
publicly attacking any psychiatrists who dared consider homosexuality to be a
deviant sexual behavior.
As outside homosexual pressure groups challenged psychiatrists with
hate-filled letters and threatening phone calls, pro-homosexual psychiatrists
within the APA were aggressively lobbying for the normalization of
homosexuality.
Pro-homosexual psychiatrists successfully seized control of various
committees within the APA and began issuing reports that recommended the removal
of homosexuality from the DSM. Among these was Dr. Judd Marmor, who used the
networking sources provided by SIECUS (Scientific Information and Education
Council of the U.S.) to promote the normalization of homosexuality.
In 1973, Marmor and other psychiatrists met with members of the Gay Activist
Alliance, the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis, and the Nomenclature
Committee of the American Psychiatric Association at Columbia University to
discuss deletion of homosexuality from the DSM.
Eventually, the issue was put to a vote to APA members. Only 25% of those
eligible to vote sent in their ballots out of 25,000 psychiatrists. However, the
vote was in favor of removing homosexuality from the DSM.
As Dr. Socarides noted: "By declaring a condition a 'non-condition,' a group
of practitioners had removed it from our list of serious psychosexual disorders.
The action was all the more remarkable when one considers that it involved the
out-of-hand and peremptory disregard and dismissal not only of hundreds of
psychiatric and psychoanalytic research papers and reports, but also of a number
of other serious studies by groups of psychiatrists, psychologists, and
educators over the past seventy years..."
Dr. Socarides continued: "In the material cited above, I have described a
movement within the American Psychiatric Association which, through
social-political activism, has accomplished the first phase of a two-phase
radicalization of a main pillar of psychosexual life: the erosion of
heterosexuality as the single acceptable sexual pattern in our culture. ... In
essence, this movement within the American Psychiatric Association has
accomplished what every other society, with rare exceptions, would have trembled
to tamper with--a revision of a basic code and concept of life and biology; that
men and women normally mate with the opposite sex and not with each other."
back to Available Resources page
Sexual Politics And Scientific Logic: The Issue Of Homosexuality is
available from NARTH for a suggested donation of $10. This important document
should be in the hands of lawmakers, school officials, pastors, members of the
media, and parents who are concerned about their children being encouraged to
experiment with a homosexual lifestyle through organizations such as the Gay, Lesbian, and
Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
Order this resource from NARTH at 818-789-4440 and use your credit card. Or,
send a check to NARTH for $10 to: 16333 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 1340, Encino,
CA 91436-1801.
back to Available Resources page
Updated: 8 February 2008
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