Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) Presents Deceptive and Misleading Information about the American Psychiatric Association In 1973,

the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality as a m ental disorder from the APA s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder s (DSM-II). The Traditional Values Coalition makes the following claim about the decision. " [Activists] have continued to claim that the APA based their decision on new sci entific discoveries that proved that homosexual behavior is normal and should be affirmed in our culture. This is false and part of numerous homosexual urban le gends that have infiltrated every aspect of our culture." As you will see, their claim is an outrageous distortion of the long process und ertaken by the APA to study the research available to them before they made thei r decision. In fact you will see that although the TVC claims to have used the R onald Bayer book, Homosexuality and American Society, as a reference, it appears that they didn't bother to read it. Anyone who actually reads the Bayer book will know that the work of numerous ind ividuals was reviewed by the APA. Charles Socarides and Irving Bieber presented their theories. The research studied by the APA included the work of Seymour Hal leck, Dr. Wardell Pomeroy, Alfred Kinsey, Alan Bell, Evelyn Hooker, Charles Silv erstein, Sigmund Freud, Ford and Beach, Judd Marmor, Richard Green, and Martin H offman. The TVC next indulges in what can only be described as a "Self-Martyrdom Moment. " They claim "Dr. Bayer documents the first attack by homosexual activists again st the APA in 1970 when this organization held its convention in San Francisco. Homosexual activists decided to disrupt the conference by interrupting speakers and shouting down and ridiculing psychiatrists who viewed homosexuality as a men tal disorder. In 1971, homosexual activist Frank Kameny worked with the Gay Libe ration Front collective to demonstrate against the APA s convention. At the 1971 c onference, Kameny grabbed the microphone and yelled, 'Psychiatry is the enemy in carnate. Psychiatry has waged a relentless war of extermination against us. You may take this as a declaration of war against you.'" Anyone who took the time to read Bayer's book would know that the earliest prote st took place in 1968, not in 1970 as claimed by the TVC. In 1968 a meeting of t he AMA was leafleted on the occasion of a Socarides lecture. The leaflets demand ed that viewpoints other than Socarides' be presented at the next meeting. A similar protest took place the same year at Columbia University College of Phy sicians and surgeons protesting a lecture by Lawrence Kolb. (Bayer, p. 92) They also don't tell you that the anti-gay atmosphere of the APA was so intense that one of its members called for police to come and shoot those protesting a l ecture on "aversion therapy" techniques during the 1971 convention. (Bayer, p. 1 03) And they don't tell you that a good deal of the pressure for re-evaluation came from within the profession itself. They 'forget' to relate the address by "Dr. A nonymous" at the 1972 APA convention. Dr. "A" spoke for 200 gay members of the a ssociation and for gay people at large when he spoke of the APA's repressive hom ophobia: "As psychiatrists who are homosexual, we must know our place and what w e must do to be successful. If our goal is high academic achievement, a level of earning capacity equal to our fellows, or admission to a psychoanalytic institu te, we must make sure that we behave ourselves and that no one in a position of power is aware of our sexual preference and/or gender identity. Much like a blac k man with white skin who chooses to live as a white man, we can't be seen with our real friends, our real homosexual family, lest our secret be known and our d

oom sealed ... Those who are willing to speak out openly will do so only if they have little to lose, and if you have little to lose, you won't be listened to." (Bayer, pp. 109-110) And regarding the 1971 conference, here's the rest of the story according to Bay er. There was a demonstration at the APA meeting of May of 1971 that attracted a fai r amount of attention when activists demanded a commercial display of implements of aversive behavior modification methods be removed from the floor. (Bayer, p. 105) At the same convention, there was a panel discussion titled "Lifestyles of Non-Patient Homosexuals". Frank Kameny was a member of that panel. Only one att endee voiced any criticism of the homosexual panelists. His complaint was that the panel painted the entire psychiatric profession as be ing followers of Socarides and Bieber. The panelists' response was to issue a ch allenge to those in disagreement with Socarides and Bieber to refute their theor ies. (Bayer, pp. 106, 107) TVC next makes the following claim. "Prior to the APA s 1973 convention, several p sychiatrists attempted to organize opposition to the efforts of homosexuals to r emove homosexual behavior from the DSM. Organizing this effort were Drs. Irving Bieber and Charles Socarides who formed the Ad Hoc Committee Against the Deletio n of Homosexuality from DSM-II." The TVC implies that the APA was forced to update its nomenclature by gay groups . But there's a lot more to it than that. They fail to note that various allied mental health groups were also re-evaluati ng their position on homosexuality. In fact the APA was somewhat behind the curv e in this regard. In October of 1970, the Executive Committee of the National as sociation for Mental Health adopted a declaration against the criminalization of consensual sexual activity between adults of the same gender. Also in 1971, the San Francisco Association for Mental Health issued a declaration stating that "homosexuality can no longer be equated only with sickness, buy may properly be considered as a preference, orientation, or propensity for certain kinds of life styles." In 1972, the Golden Gate Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers adopted a resolution affirming the 1971 declaration of the San Francisco Association for Mental Health. (Bayer, pp. 144-115) Traditional theories started with the homophobic assumption that homosexuality i s a pathology. Various theories were built upon that assumption. And finally som e rather questionable 'aversion therapy' techniques were developed in support of the assumption. And this is where the old theories began to experience trouble. In light of the work of Evelyn Hooker, the profession came under scrutiny and cr iticism during the 1950's and 1960's for the inhumane "aversion therapy" techniq ues and its extremely poor results. (Bayer, pp. 77-83) The previously-mentioned objection to the instruments of "aversion therapy" techniques is but one example . [An excellent first-hand account of these techniques is found in Martin Duberm ans autobiographical book, Cures. In May of 1970, in response to the criticism and shortly after the disruption of the film on aversive conditioning techniques at the Behavior Modification confe rence, Charles Socarides approached the leadership of the New York District Bran ch and asked for the establishment of a Task Force on Sexual Deviation. Followin g established procedures, the request was granted. Socarides was appointed chair of the committee with power to select its members. The 1972 meeting of the APA was a controversial one. One of the members, Judd Ma

rmor, issued a strong condemnation of Charles Socarides for having written a "mo nstrous attack on homosexuality" for JAMA and for some traditional psychoanalyti cal societies. Dr. Marmor additionally spoke about intense antihomosexual bias w ithin the profession. "The cruelty, the thoughtlessness, the lack of common huma nity, in the attitudes of many conservative psychiatrists is I think a disgrace to our profession." (Bayer, pp. 110-111) Shortly after the 1972 APA meeting, Dr. Richard Green, director of the UCLA Gend er Identity Research and Treatment program wrote a lengthy summary of the issues in the dispute over the classification of homosexuality in the DSM. His article, "Homosexuality as a Mental Illness," published in the International Journal of Psychiatry, charged that there was no existing data to support the c laim that homosexuality is a disease or that sexual relations between opposite s ex partners are preferable to those between same sex partners. Dr. Green's artic le included six formal invitations for response, four of them designed to highli ght the extent of the division between the traditional theory and the newer theo ries based on work of Evelyn Hooker and others. Two of the invitees were Judd Ma rmor and Charles Socarides. (Bayer, pp. 112-113) And this brings us back to Charles Socarides and his Task Force on Sexual Deviat ion. In March of 1972 Charles Socarides Task Force on Sexual Deviation completed its report after nearly two years of preparation. In April it presented its fin dings to the council of the New York District Branch. The council rejected Socar ides report finding that its extreme reliance upon psychoanalytic theory was not acceptable. And here's where the REAL story of politics begins. Socarides claimed that the r ejection of his findings was not due to their non-factual basis but due to the c orruption of psychiatric science with politics assuming preeminence over truth. (Bayer, p. 114) And to this day, more than 30 years later, Charles Socarides sti ll hasn't produced any data to support his homophobic theories. During October, 1972, the New York Gay Activist Alliance leafleted the meeting o f the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy with a flier titled "Tortu re Anyone? The Alliance called for an end to aversion techniques to "change the n atural sexual orientation of human beings." 100 demonstrators protested on the s treets. During one presentation of aversion therapy techniques, a small number o f Alliance members challenged those present to acknowledge the antihomosexual bias inherent in their therapeutic theories. (Bayer, p. 115-116) Dr. Robert Spitzer of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, a member of the APA's Committee on Nomenclature was in attendance at that session. It was his fi rst contact with homosexuals demanding a review of traditional psychiatric theor ies. Impressed with the arguments of the activists, Spitzer arranged for a forma l presentation of their views before a full meeting of his committee and agreed to sponsor a panel at the APA's 1973 convention on the question of the DSM class ification. (Bayer, p. 116) The next TVC claim is, "After much political pressure, a committee of the APA me t behind closed doors in 1973 and voted to remove homosexuality as a mental diso rder from the DSM-II. Opponents of this effort were given 15 minutes to protest this change, according to Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, in Homosexuality and the Politi cs of Truth." This is nothing but an outrageous and deliberate misrepresentation of what actua lly took place. As Bayer documents, the APA's Nomenclature Committee met in Febr uary of 1973. Among those present at the meeting, Dr. Seymour Halleck stressed t hat there was no scientific evidence supporting the theory that homosexuality wa s a developmental disorder. He stated that homosexuality should be considered a

"common behavior[al] variant." He stated that "deletion of the diagnosis of homo sexuality is not only a humanistic step, it is dictated by the best scientific i nformation available." Dr. Wardell Pomeroy, a collaborator with Kinsey, presented sections of the 1948 study that had been sharply critical of p sychiatric orthodoxy. He suggested that psychiatry should have accepted those co nclusion 25 years earlier and said "I have high hopes that even psychiatry can p rofit by its mistakes and can proudly enter the last quarter of the twentieth ce ntury." Dr. Alan Bell or the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University pr esented his own work and that of Evelyn Hooker. He stated that well-adjusted hom osexuals and heterosexuals have more in common than disturbed and well-adjusted persons of either sexual orientation. Charles Silverstein presented the work of many scientists showing that the DSM classification was not consistent with a sc ientific perspective. His presentation included the work of Freud, Evelyn Hooker , Alfred Kinsey, Ford and Beach, Marmor, Green, and Hoffman. In conclusion, Silv erstein stated "I suppose what we're saying is that you must choose between the undocumented theories that have unjustly harmed a great number of people and con tinue to harm them and ... controlled scientific studies.. It is no sin to have made an error in the past, but surely you will mock the principles of scientific research upon which the diagnostic system is based if you turn your backs on th e only objective evidence we have." (Bayer, pp. 118-121) Socarides and Bieber were quick in their attempt to resist the winds of change. They formed an Ad-Hoc Committee Against the Deletion of Homosexuality from DSM-I I. On April 9, Bieber wrote to the medical director of the APA requesting that a committee be formed to review any decision of the Nomenclature Committee. Socarides and Bieber enrolled some psychoanalytical societies to their founderin g cause. In March, 1973, the Council of the Association for Psychoanalytic Medic ine passed a resolution in opposition to change in the DSM-II citing the old the ories and without presenting factual data. One week later the board of trustees of the Karen Horney Institute (followers of Socarides and Bieber) passed an iden tical resolution to that of the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine... also without any supporting data. In May, the American Psychoanalytic Association vot ed to urge a delay in any action regarding the classification of homosexuality in the DSM-I I. (Bayer, pp 121-122) In March of 1973, the APA's Northern New England District Branch passed a resolu tion calling for the deletion of homosexuality from the DSM-II. Shortly afterwar ds, the Northern New England District's resolution was endorsed by the entire AP A Area Council 1, including all of New England, Quebec, and Ontario. (Bayer, pp. 122-123) The APA's Nomenclature Committee went through an 11-month process by preparing a report recommending the change in DSM-II. It was first presented to the APA's C ouncil on Research and Development. The Council unanimously recommended deletion of homosexuality from DSM-II. Next, it was taken to the Assembly of District Br anches, where it was again approved. The next step was the APA Reference Committ ee, composed of the heads of the various APA councils and the president-elect. T he Reference Committee endorsed the proposal, leaving the approval of the board of trustees at the December meeting as the final step. (Bayer, pp. 132-138) Midway through the 11-month process, Robert Spitzer presented a panel discussion at the May 1973 meeting of the association. The members of the panel were Charl es Socarides, Irving Bieber, Judd Marmor, Richard Green, Robert Stoller, and Ron ald Gold. The session had a huge attendance. At its conclusion, it seemed appare nt to observers that the old theories would not prevail. (Bayer, pp. `24-126) For the final stage of the process, the APA Board of Trustees invited the three

most vocal opponents of change, Socarides, Bieber, and McDevitt, to present thei r case a third time on December 10, 1973. Bieber restated the old theories witho ut presenting data. Socarides and McDevitt complained that the change in classif ication was motivated by politics, not by scientific studies. Following those pr esentations, the Board of Trustees met in executive session and voted to approve the removal of homosexuality from DSM-II. (Bayer, pp. 135-138) Ronald Bayer notes (p. 139) "Stung by the significance of the ideological rebuff they had suffered, those who continued to view homosexuality as pathological pe rceived themselves as having been expelled from the center of psychiatric author ity." TVC then quotes another huge distortion of truth written by Jeffrey Satinover. "Satinover writes that after this vote was taken, the decision was to be voted o n by the entire APA membership." Again, this is nothing but an outrageous distortion of the truth. As Bayer documents, Socarides and Bieber once again mobilized their Ad-Hoc Committee Agai nst the Deletion of Homosexuality from DSM-II. They poured over the associations by-laws and found a provision designed to provide some democratic control over the association's corporate life, and then forced a petition demanding a referen dum of the Association's membership. Amazingly, those who accused the APA of cap itulating to political pressure were now themselves forcing a political maneuver and using a loophole in a provision for non-scientific matters to accomplish th eir end. They obtained 200 signatures on their petition. After much discussion a nd criticism of the unseemly political maneuvering of Socarides' committee, the association decided to let them have their way. Ballots were mailed out during A pril, 1974. Of those responding, only 37% were opposed to the removal of homosex uality from the DSM-II. It was a clear endorsement for the change. (Bayer, pp. 1 41-144)