BS: Homosexuality not a disease

Subject: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 02:58 PM

Just heard a FASCINATING "column" (what IS the audio equivalent, anyway) on NPR on all that people went through in the early 70's to get the designation of Mental Disease OUT of the psychological diagnostics manual (DSM). THERE OUGHT TO BE A SONG THERE. Is there? It was really, really interesting. I didn't know half that stuff, as Trudeau put it so well.

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 03:02 PM

I heard that the other day as well! What I thought interesting was the fact that at one time the homosexual community had viewed the designation of their sexual orientation as a "mental illness" as something of a triumph!

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 03:06 PM

Well, the history of the DSM is very rich with instances of "disorders" which got changed by political correctitude or influence of some sort. I haven't looked in one for years, but they used to identify "tomboyism" and "caffeinism" as mental disorders, meaning a girl wanted to roughouse and wear jeans and someone drank too much coffee. With the advent of Starbucks i wouldn't be surprised to see caffeinism out of there today!!

The whole thing is a pathetic attempt to disguise a subject which is rootless and unscientific in order to make it look like a discipline.

It seems sensible enough to me that if these Diagnostic categories were identified by a genuinely scientific approach, then they would open the door to correct and effective remedies. If allthey are doing is collecting labels which will make them sound smart, then doing something effective is obviously not among their criteria.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 03:11 PM

Based on my own personal experience, there IS no remedy for caffeinism!

I mean, a 12-step program would never work: what would be in the styrofoam cups at meetings of "Caffeine Anonymous", beer?! LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 03:11 PM

Ah, but diagnostics are NOT done scientifically, they tend to be based on theory rather than data, and they had theory out the wazoo on homosexuality. AND they had a ton of data too... gleaned from studies of gays who were ALREADY IN THERAPY or in hospitals or in the guardhouse. Took'm years to get a study going of gays or lesbians outside of the clinical population... but I wouldn't characterize psychology as ROOTLESS. It has very deep roots, going back to Aristotle and Plato at least, in the Western world. Doesn't make it not unscientific, ha ha!

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 03:17 PM

Hmmmm...I'd wonder what the Greek physician Galen's diagnosis would have been according to his theory of the four humours, except that in the highly sophisticated culture of ancient Greece, homosexuality wasn't considered a problem!

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: GUEST,The Hook Lady
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 05:13 PM

I think that homosexuality is a disease and that it has infected Jeremy, my 17-year-old son. I'm sure that with the right therapy he can be cured.

Meredeth

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 05:25 PM

Meredith...I hope you are NOT serious. You simply cannot decide that something you do not like is 'wrong'...or that it is 'curable'...more & more evidence is surfacing everyday that indicates that much of sexual preferences is coded into us at birth. I relaize you may not like that answer, but (unless your post was a joke), you will have MUCH more grief trying to cure him, than by coming to terms with it.

Please take a LOT of care in this.......

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: paddymac
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 05:32 PM

"Spider Tom" from Oz did a song one night on one of the old "real audio" mudcat song fests that had all of us in stitches. The topic and (I think) title was "Solosexual" or something similar. The message,as I recall, was simply a humorous look at the diversity of expressions of a basic animal need. Generally, I think that sexual expression, in all its forms, by or among consenting adults is no one's business but their own. The "problems" with some of those forms come from two sources: other persons seeking to force their views onto others; and the absence of knowing consent.

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: GUEST,Scott Guber
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 05:41 PM

I am in a relationship with Meredeth, the Hook Lady and she just told me that she's posted a message in this forum.

I'm afraid that Meredeth is homophobic and that her prejuduce will ruin her relationship, such as it is, with Jeremy. However, I have convinced her and Jeremy that we can attempt to deal with the issue as a family. We had our first group session with our therapist last Monday.

Scott Guber

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: GUEST, Cookieless Member
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 05:53 PM

*ROFLMAO* Are you REALLY so stupid, you Troll, as to think that anybody is that easily taken in?

Probably not, & your fun comes from getting a reaction like this, but I see it that if you think we are turning away & pretending to ignore you, is what brought you to this pointless, time-wasting behaviour anyway.

By which I mean this is wasting YOUR time...after all, us Mudcatters are here anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Peg
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 08:22 PM

Scott Guber and the Hook Lady are both characters on the show "Boston Public" so yes, as you all probably suspected these posts are just trolls looking to start trouble...

crikey, get a life.

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Haruo
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 08:23 PM

I think Meredith and Scott Guber are both differently gendered, or rather both samely gendered, in fact I think they're one and the same, and that Jeremy is a figment of "their" imaginations. Heaven knows what the therapist made of them. ;-)

Liland

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Desdemona
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 08:30 PM

How fascinating....this sort of person must bank on the supposition that people won't have any clue about the allusions they're making to fictional characters on the TV shows they spend their time in watching (I know I've never seen an episode of "Boston Public", and so was without a clue), and be taken in by their rapier-witted cleverness----!

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 08:30 PM

so...*shrug*...I never watch that program...maybe 'they' just like seeing me fret?....tsk...

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Peg
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 08:35 PM

the show happens to be on right now in fact! The Hook Lady is scary...

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Nerd
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:00 AM

Back to the thread and away from the trolls,

the problem, Amos, with trying to make the diagnosis of mental illness "scientific" is that a lot of the sypmtoms are simply behavioral. Does feeling the need to wash your hands 100 times a day make you mentally ill, and why? Usually, the criterion used has been whether the behavior interferes with having a normal, productive life. Well, if you see homosexuality as abnormal and a primary type of productivity to be children, homosexuality qualifies. Add to this that our society discriminates against homosexuality, making gay people frequently depressed, and lowering their self-esteem, and you have a situation where it was easy to view it as a mental illness.

Once society reduces the discrimination, once the emphasis on child-bearing is reduced, once we begin to question our concept of "normality," all of which have happened in American culutre recently, homosexuality looks much less like a mental illness and much more like a lifestyle choice. I think many of us on this list are comfortable with that. But there are many other alternative lifestyle groups whose behavior would still be considered mentally ill by many professionals (eg. "vampires," who consensually drink one another's blood). It's just that the line is pretty fine between unusual and abnormal, between going against the current and being self-destructive. Science will never find a way to make these distinctions mathematically, so psychologists fall back on socially constructing the category of mental illness, as they have always done. They do make mistakes sometimes, but these mistakes can be corrected...

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:20 AM

Desdemona ... there is a cure for caffeinism. It's the same cure you use for other addictions. You either gradually wean yourself off the drug bit by bit or you go cold turkey. It took me decades to break the coffee habit, but I finally did. Before that it was Coca Cola. Same hit in both cases, caffeine and lots of sugar.

Caffeine is a very persistent addiction, and may be the most widespread and conventionally accepted substance addiction of all in modern society, along with refined sugar. Both are quite injurious to health, and both are damned hard to avoid or quit.

Beyond that, I would say that the most damaging and useless addiction of all is TV, which I quit entirely about 10 years ago...and posting to Mudcat, which has totally got me pinned to the matt at present! :-)

Homosexuality is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 02:26 AM

Nerd, I have a small quibble with one thing in your post above, and that is the idea the homosexuality is a "lifestyle choice." A friend of mine who happens to be gay once commented, "Being gay is not a matter of choice. Considering the kind of persecution and prejudice that gays are subjected to in this society, no one in his right mind would choose to be gay."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Nerd
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 04:13 AM

I agree, Don. That was my mistake. I should have said "a sexual orientation." It is a lifestyle choice whether or not to be open about your sexual orientation, but as far as science can tell, it is not a choice what orientation you have.

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 09:36 AM

Right - there is sometimes choice in whether to come out or not. Sometimes not, as people do get outed against their will.

The NPR bit kept mentioning "those 81 words" which I assume were the definition of homosexuality as a disease, can anybody post them? Now there are, I think, 237 words, which define BEING gay as a normal variant but being UNHAPPY ABOUT being gay can still be considered a mental condition (I don't think we say Disease any more). But I'd like to read the original 81 words.

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 09:58 AM

Loving a person of the same sex is a little bit out of the norm, but I don't think it's a disease. My eldest daughter is of the same persuasion and was engaged to a nice girl some months ago. What should I do other than wish them good luck for their life together?
The world didn't turn upside down when it happened, and as father I love my girl as she is, since I can't change her. In Germany they are allowed by law to marry, and some of our churches give their benedictions, too.
I think this persuasion is arranged by nature's folly, not by education or other circumstances; we have to live with it and make the best of it.
I remember the famous Prince Eugene of Savoy, Imperial Field Marshal in the 18th century. If he were banned from the service because he was a homosexual, the Town of Belgrad could be in the Hands of the Turk today. The Balkan people appreciated him very much.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: GUEST,LynnT
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 10:30 AM

Let me put my two cents into the "nature vs nurture" of homosexuality. As BillD knows, I have raised Fancy English Show Mice in the DC area for more than a decade. In doing so, I carefully track the ratio of male to female offspring in each litter, since too high a proportion of either leads to trouble:
- if there are only one or two females in a large litter of, say 8 or 10, the little girls get masculinized by the high levels of testosterone in utero: they will be large, bold, aggressive animals (wonderful for the show ring) who try to mount other females, are not attractive to or interested in males, have fewer/less stable estrous cycles than normal, and often make terrible mothers, ignoring or destroying their babies. In short, lesbians.
- If, on the other hand, there are only one or two males in a large litter, the resulting boys will be smaller than normal, less aggressive, won't mount females (but will be mounted by other males), engage in nest-building behavior, and are WONDERFUL (foster) parents. In short, gays.

With this kind of direct evidence before my eyes on a regular basis, I can't help but believe that homosexuality in humans also has a similar physiological cause, and is therefore something far beyond the control of the affected person. Makes no difference to me; my proudest local affiliation is as the sole female straight member of the DC Gay Men's Garden Club.

Lynn T

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 10:45 AM

Well good for that. Someone IS taking the thread seriously. I imagine just about every member of Mudcat has either a friend or family member who is gay. I have. My old college professor was married when I was going to school, and after his wife died he finally faced his sexuality and acknowledged that he was gay. He called me on the phone and I was the first person he told. That first "outing" has to be the hardest. He went on to meet a man he loved, and they retired together out West. Some gays find it healthiest to acknowledge their homosexuality, and can live more comfortably that way. I certainly don't consider homosexuality a choice. If it was, there wouldn't be many homosexuals. We've had gay couples at our church and they were loved and highly respected. Hopefully, the stigma will continue to ease, and fears subside.
Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Bill D
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 10:47 AM

Lynn, you make a clear, well-stated case, which serves to clarify even better what can happen to organisms under unusual conditions. Mice are easier to 'observe', as many generations can be followed and tabulated quickly, but humans are subject to as many, if not more, complex social, biological, evolutionary conditions which affect how they are going to react and interact with others.

It simply is not possible, with the current state of knowlege to control, or even predict how a human child will grow...but it MAY be possible to educate (grudgingly, in many cases..*sigh*) the general populace to be more tolerant as we try to understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 11:03 AM

I co-facillitated a "Young Gay and Lesbian" group in the early 80s. We were supposed to only work with folks from age 18 to age 25 but had 13 and 14 year olds come in on a regular basis. I consistently heard these young people talk about knowing at a very early age that they were "different" from the rest of their peers. I am firmly in the "Nature" camp on this issue.

And my sincerest heartfelt applause to the folks who mentioned loving their children and their friends regardless of who and what they represented to societal norms.

And Lynn T - When I applied for jobs, not any more as I am in a great job, one of the first items in my resume was my letter from the aforementioned group making me an "Honorary Lesbian."

Ya just gotta love people that are so clear about what life is all about.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 11:04 AM

I find it interesting that the most tolerant and benign utterances always come from people whose unspoken message is "There is nothing wrong with homosexuality, but, secretly, I am really glad that I am totally straight".

The sooner it is acknowledged that sexuality is not a discrete (and I do mean "discrete", not"discreet") gay/straight phenomenon, the more understanding there will be.

Hands up every person who can honestly say, hand on heart, before his/her Maker

"I have never, at any time in my life, felt the faintest glimmerings of sexual desire for another person of the same sex".

Right, nobody.

So being "gay" is merely being at one end of the continuum. Being "straight" is merely being at the other. And in between there is a lot of grey.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 11:26 AM

Getting back to the DSM, the premise that "normalcy" in the sense of averages of conduct is the baseline against which to chart "mental illness" adds up to the belief that difference is an illness. This is absolute poppycock. It is not only unscientific, it is the embodiment (in garments of pomposity) of the worst impulses of mass-thinking. To grace such an impulse with the notion of scientific credibility is downright immoral.

The obverse -- that the height of wellness is the adherence to averages -- is equally disgusting and craven. The height of human acheivement is thereby reduced to the mental profile of a KMart shopper looking for "blue light" specials. Orwell is vindicated. Thanks, APA. Ya done us proud.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Gary T
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 11:30 AM

Being left-handed, I see a parallel between handedness and sexual orientation. The majority of humans are right-handed; the majority are straight. A definite minority are left-handed (roughly 10%); a definite minority are gay (usually said to be 2%-10%). A very small fraction are ambidextrous; a very small fraction are bisexual.

Left-handed people can, with varying degrees of success, use their right hands for important functions. In fact, this right-handed world often requires it. Acting totally right-handed, as some were forced to do in less enlightened times, typically gives rise to emotional/psychological problems. Some deal with these more successfully than others.

Lefties generally don't risk bodily harm and severe social isolation for being and acting left-handed. However, in the past, they may have suffered in some societies. Even today, I understand that some cultures present real problems to lefties--one doesn't dare stick one's left hand (designated for fecal hygiene) into the food pot at a Bedouin banquet.

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 11:39 AM

Gary, very many people who write with their right hand (which I suppose would be the definition of being right handed) nevertheless do other things in left handed.

(There was a thread about this some time ago.)

I for example, am right handed, but fire a rifle from my left shoulder, since my left eye is dominant. As a child, I mounted a bicycle from the opposite side to most right handed kids.

Handedness, just like sexuality, is not a cut-and-dried issue.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:02 PM

Interesting premise Murray. I remember this from a Social Work 101 class that had absolutely nothing to do with real life. It is simply a premise. Perhaps asking the community involved for what they believe to be the delineation point would be more productive. For it is this group that our intentions are targeted.

Simply being attracted to someone of the same sex, on an occasional basis (and how many times does one have this occur?) does not imply, nor is it a standard for who one is.

Yeah I'm glad I'm not gay in the sense that I am looking for a partner who is male - I'm glad I am a human being who is working hard at not being a bigot, racist, or whatever the current OMG thing is. Were I gay I'd deal with it the same way I've always dealt with anything - up front and with help from my peers.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 12:30 PM

But where is the SONG that is needed here? Remember, this wasn't intended to be a thread about Is homosexuality a disease, but about what gays/lesbians went through to get the classification of it as a disease removed from the mental health rollcall of mental illnesses. Being different does not a disease make, Amos; being different AND NOT BEING ABLE TO FUNCTION NORMALLY does. The criterion is not statistical norm(alcy) alone, but more a functional one.

How about something to the tune of You say Potato? I say I'm gay-O, you say I'm sick-o?

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 03:51 PM

I say I'm gay-O, you say I'm sick-o!
You call me fag-o, I call you prick-o
Gayo! Sicko! Fag-o! Prick-o! Let's call the whole thing off!!

How's that for starters?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Homosexuality not a disease
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 03:54 PM

Functioning "normally" meaning what -- able to make a living? Able to do something which earns valuta from others in the environment? Sure, those are signs that the mind is in fact dealing with real issues, and arguably a standard for one kind of "mental wellness". And what does it have to do with sexuality or caffeineism or tomboyism? Not a GD thing, is what!!

Buncha pompous jerks, you ask me!! LOL!!

Regards,

A.