Remembering LGBTQ+ History

We have a very rocky past as we approach Pride month maybe we should look at our History.

Gays were removed back in the early seventies but it took decades for us to be removed from the DSM as a psychiatric disorder but we still are in the DSM as an uncomfortable feeling.

'I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist': How Dr. Anonymous changed history
At a 1972 meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. John Fryer disguised himself and delivered a speech that changed the course of LGBTQ history.
NBC Out
By Jillian Eugenios
May 2, 2022


They thought he’d wear a mask that was a little more subtle. Something like the Lone Ranger, just a piece of cloth around the eyes. But no. 

Introduced to the room as Dr. Henry Anonymous, wearing a wig and a tuxedo three sizes too big, and speaking through a microphone that distorted his voice, Dr. John Fryer stood in front of a crowd of psychiatrists at their annual meeting donning a garish Richard M. Nixon mask he and his lover had modified. 

It was 1972, and he masked himself in order to say the following words: “I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist.” His declaration changed the world.

It has been 50 years since Fryer’s speech, a moment that was central to removing homosexuality from the list of mental disorders, the impact of which contributed to the progression of LGBTQ rights through the next several decades.

[…]

 When activists began increasing pressure on the American Psychiatric Association, in the early 1970s (“Stop talking about us and start talking to us!” was the activists’ refrain), Fryer thought it was “a fool’s errand,” according to an interview with the public radio program and podcast ”This American Life” in 2002, a year before his death. He said he wished the activists would “shut up” and that he was embarrassed by them. 

Meanwhile back at the trans community we didn’t have any champions fighting for us…

'Transsexualism' removed from World Health Organization's disease manual
The removal was one of several changes made to the WHO's International Classification of Diseases, a manual used by doctors in most countries around the world.
NBC News
By By Tim Fitzsimons
June 20, 2018


The World Health Organization removed “transsexualism” from the International Classification of Diseases, a diagnostic manual of illnesses used by most countries around the world.

The change was announced earlier this week as part of the newest version of the manual, the ICD-11. The removal of “transsexualism” means transgender people will no longer be classified as having a mental illness by the WHO, an international public health agency run by the United Nations. The diagnosis of “transsexualism” was renamed “gender incongruence” and moved from the “Mental and Behavioral Disorders” chapter to the “Conditions Related to Sexual Health” chapter.

“This is a historic move,” Sam Winter, a public health professor at Australia's Curtin University, told NBC News via email. “An end to a classification that was a historical artifact, had little basis in science, and had massive consequences for the lives of trans people.”

Winter is a member of the WHO Working Group on Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health, which advised the organization on ICD-11. He said the new language — "gender incongruence" — focuses on “how the person identifies” and enables “the diagnoses to be used with non-binary people as well as those who identify as boys/men and girls/women.”

The updated ICD does not remove diagnoses for trans people entirely. Winter said to do so would be counterproductive.

"Quite a few trans people seek substantial ongoing healthcare — it can be life changing, or even life saving. So we need a diagnosis.”

So… We are left in limbo. If we want healthcare we need to be diagnosed with something, in this screwy world of insurance.